Author: Pepper Winters

He wouldn’t keep trying because he was tired. He’d fought the battle for too long.

I moaned as his teeth nipped on my bottom lip, sending more fireworks to unfurl. He tasted of freedom and future. I wanted so much for him to find ultimate happiness.

When he pulled back, something had changed. He’d activated the conditioning. I didn’t know how it worked but he’d given me power over him. And it fucking killed him.

Sighing heavily, he said, “It’s done. You’re safe.” His snowy eyes glowed with a mixture of hate and satisfaction. Relief and frustration.

My gaze grew wet at the thought of irrevocably owning this man. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t human. But he’d given every obedience to me.

I felt as if he’d handed over a leash, pulling him to heel. I lost a bit of him even as he sacrificed so much.

Clara would’ve hated it. She would’ve known what he’d done. She would’ve made him find another way.

“Don’t give up. He needs you, mummy. Don’t be sad.”

Keeping my grief at bay, I nodded, accepting his gift. “I love you.”

He smiled, bringing me into the crook of his arm. His touch sent heat and burning embers across my skin. Every time he touched me, it was like he gave a part of himself—shared his energy with me.

That’s true.

He just gave me his soul.

Kissing the top of my head, he whispered, “And I love you.” Sucking a deep breath, he laughed, forcing merriment rather than sadness into his voice. “You own me heart and soul, Hazel Hunter. You’re not just my lover but my handler and I will walk over blades for you. I would kill for you. I will lay down my life for you.”

Nuzzling my neck, he murmured, “You have the power over a highly trained Ghost. What is your first command, mistress?”

My heart thumped at the pain hidden in his voice. The gift he’d given me. I swore then and there I would find a cure. I would never stop until I fixed the man who fixed me.

Ignoring the painful tug in my heart, I smiled against his lips. “Kiss me. Make love to me. Make me look forward to our future.”

His head bowed, lips captured mine.

His eyes locked with mine as he reverently whispered, “Yes, ma’am.”

Epilogue

My life ended three times before I finally had enough.

I’d been a boy, a Ghost, a man fumbling to find his place.

I never belonged.

My past was unchangeable, but my future was unwritten and rule free.

Invincible, Impenetrable, Invisible no longer applied to me.

I adopted three new things:

Resurrection.

Redemption.

Resolution.

All my life, I’d been a pawn. But not anymore.

I was a provider, lover, father, and friend.

In the wake of heartbreak came new life, and I was given a second chance. I accepted my handicap and grew to live with it rather than fight it. It wasn’t so bad having the woman I adored being my ruler.

But then came the silver lining. The ultimate dream.

I’d been right all along.

There was a cure.

Clara died in February, leaving us to face life on our own. Zel and I spent the first month doing nothing but healing and walking along the beach. It gave us time to grow and mend and develop a deeper dimension to our unconventional romance.

March came and went undetected—just four more weeks without Clara.

April brought a chill, signalling summer was over, and it was time to say goodbye to flowers and heat and sunshine. I returned to Obsidian to collect my tools and smithy equipment. I wanted to start sculpting again. I wanted to recreate Clara’s amazing spirit using bronze and copper.

May Clue announced she and Ben were moving in together and Ben bought a house not far from us in the Northern Beaches. He still went to Obsidian to fight, and he gave me a standing offer to beat me bloody if I ever needed my strange kind of therapy.

I took him up on the offer once or twice.

“I love it when you come home all sweaty.” Zel appeared around the corner of the lounge. Her small arms wrapped around my torso. “Don’t you get hot running all in black?” Her eyes found mine, smouldering with lust. “I want you, Roan. I watched you on the beach. I missed you.”

The swell of her pregnant belly pressed against my abs and I suffered a heinous flashback. It tore me from safety to howling winter and the pit. Snarls of wolves filled my head and I regressed.

It was the first of the month. The day that was worse for me than the rest—the day our conditioning was rebooted—reprogramed.

I grabbed her neck, fingers disobeying my commands. I squeezed her throat with uncontrollable anger. “Don’t ever touch me.”

I watched my actions as if my soul was unencumbered by my body. A spectator as I wrung the neck of the woman I adored. Screaming silently, I raged to stop but the conditioning pulled me under its unbreakable web.

Zel’s eyes filled with glittering terror and her fingers flew to her hair.

I grabbed her wrist—stopping her from going for her knife.

“Not this time, dobycha. Not this time.”

Her body flailed and she tried to kick and squirm, but it was no use. There was nothing I could do. I would kill her and I would swallow a bullet afterward for not being strong enough to save her.

Then Hazel saved both of us.

“Take your fucking hands off me, Operative Fox. Stand down this instant.”

The order sliced through my foggy haze, dispelling the howling wolves and eternity of ice.

I blinked.

The command took all control away from me and I cowered. Pain. Torture. Payback for disobeying.

Loathing filled me, crippling my limbs as I skidded away and sucked in ragged breaths. I couldn’t do it. I’d done what I’d been terrified of. I lost control. If I hadn’t given Zel power over me, I would’ve killed my fucking family all over again.

I ran.

And Corkscrew delivered retribution.

That was at the start of May. By the end of the month, we’d settled once again into a routine and Clue popped around often. She and Zel remained close and for the first time in my life, I had a network of people who saw me for what I was and accepted me. Dinners were a bi-weekly affair, and Clue kept Hazel distracted from her thoughts when they turned sad by planning a ridiculous baby shower and choosing colours for the nursery.

June was the first month Zel felt the baby kick. It effectively did what I’d hoped all along. It showed that Clara no longer needed us, but a new life did. It helped us stay strong and granted peace. Hazel wasn’t completely happy but more and more I’d catch a soft smile or contentedness mixing with her heavy grief. She spent a lot of time in the room I’d made for her. Talking to Clara, stroking the horse statues that she loved so much.

July Clue and Ben took us out for dinner to celebrate Hazel’s twenty-fifth birthday. It was the first party I’d been to, the only one I’d ever celebrated. I couldn’t remember my own birth date, so Hazel let me share hers. We ate decadent food and went on a cruise around Sydney harbour. I gave Zel her present when we got back—another metal sheep to stand proud and perfect beside Clara’s. It’d been the best night of my life.

August we finished the nursery. And Zel unpacked boxes full of Clara’s toys. She decorated the space with memories of her daughter, ready for a new child to play with. I did fear if the child was a boy, though. The amount of My Little Pony stuff that littered groaning shelves would scare any male.

Every day that passed healed as well as hurt. And I often heard Clara in my head. She’d become my unofficial conscience. My lifeline when the conditioning grew too strong.

September, Hazel went into labour. She’d opted for another caesarean after the complications with Clara’s birth, and I watched absolutely fucking terrified as she brought not one, but two lives into the world.

My heart broke, mended, and then shattered all over again to think we’d been given one new life, and Clara had somehow found a way to come back to us. I couldn’t thank the universe enough. I became a fucking fool—wandering the hospital corridors in a daze while I waited for the nurses to make Zel comfortable.

It’d been a whirlwind of fear and joy. I hadn’t wanted to watch Zel be cut open and two little lives pulled out, but she made me stay and hold her hand.

It was the least I could do.

And I’d fallen head over heels all over again. She was so fucking strong. So brave.

Once Zel had been stitched up and the babies cleaned and weighed, Clue and Ben arrived to coo and blow kisses at the tiny bundles in blankets. Ben had seemed more smitten than Clue. His dark skin flushing with awe and eyes filling with future possibilities whenever he glanced at his woman. I had no doubt he had babies on the brain.

I hadn’t gone near the twins. I hadn’t lied to Zel when I said I was petrified. I wasn’t strong enough. I wanted to see them, touch them, but I stayed away for protection.

The moment I’d set eyes on them, I’d been possessed. The love I’d had for Clara increased as my heart swelled for my children. A family I never thought I would have.

I never wanted to be a father. I never thought it would be in my future. I didn’t think I would care for anything or knew how to love. But Clara cured me of that ridiculous notion. She’d taught me what my true purpose was. She brought me back to life and if it was up to me, I’d have a fucking plethora of children.

I sighed, entering the private room where Hazel rested. It was late, and the neonatal wing of the hospital was hushed.

The bedside light glowed softly, pooling around Zel. I stopped beside the bed, drinking in the tiredness around her eyes, her tangled hair spread on the pillow. She couldn’t have looked more perfect. She’d fought and won. She’d created two intricate, incredible little lives.

Her forehead furrowed while she dreamed and I wondered what went on behind her mask. Oscar had been right about her. She was quiet but there was so much I didn’t know about her. So much she hadn’t shared. I didn’t know who’d fathered Clara. I didn’t know how she got the scar below her eye.

I’d tried to piece together little puzzles of what her life might’ve been like before Clara, but found I couldn’t. She hid her past so well and threw all her attention into her future.

I hadn’t pried because I wanted her to tell me on her own terms. But the curiosity never left. Then again, she didn’t know much about me. We’d come into this relationship hiding who we truly were and found a new identity in each other.

Our baggage had no room to be aired. And I liked to think nothing in our past mattered. If we kept it sealed and hidden, it would eventually cease to exist. Just a distant memory.

Reaching to cup her pale cheek, I swallowed back the overwhelming love.

Her green eyes opened. Foggy at first, but the moment she recognised me, her smile beamed with affection. Affection for me. What did I ever do to deserve her?

She cleared her throat and shifted, wincing a little. “Have you held them yet?” Her voice was hushed in the quiet space only interrupted by low beeps and monitors around the room.

A flash of fear darted down my spine. Hold them. I couldn’t. The past few months had been torturous. Day by day, the conditioning grew stronger again rather than fading.

I’d hoped it would disappear the more I ignored it, but it was the exact opposite—crushing me from the inside out.

“No. I can love them from afar.” I dropped my hand to link with her fingers, tensing a little as her grip threaded with mine. The familiar, unforgiving orders radiated up my arm, coercing with commands to hurt her.

“They’re yours, Roan. You have to hold them. They need to see their father.”

I swallowed hard, looking over at the twin bassinets. The babies were barely visible in bundled up blankets. They wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t made Zel my handler.

Not a day passed that I didn’t thank my fucking genius plan at giving her power over me.