Page 78

Genie awakened between Elijah and Dev the next morning, and her senses told her Ezra was on the cot, on the other side of Dev.

Somehow, the energy had changed. Before, it’d been Dev sharing them with her, which she’d understood, but she hadn’t understood he was also sharing her with them.

But neither of those things were true now. Last night and this morning, it was Dev with three submissives, and she was slightly above the other two, but still submissive to Dev in bed. Out of bed, it was Dev in control of the cats, and her and Dev as equals. They were a true foursome now, and they hadn’t really been before, despite what Brooke and Dev said about the bond that held them together. At first, the only thing the bond had given her was the ability to easier tell the twins apart because she couldfeeltheir souls. Now, while she didn’t have telepathy with them, she could sense their emotions, and she knew how close they were without needing the in-house cameras to tell her.

Bottom line, was that sleeping all together in the same room changed the energy of what they were to each other, and it did so enough, she knew she’d have to oath to Brooke so they were all on the same playing field. Dev would never pressure her, but she understood it would make things all-around easier if he could fully share his life with her.

This was her family now. She was part of their souls, and they were all part of hers. She knew things would change because the twins were destined to be free, but she also knew whatever was between them would grow with the changes. She wasn’t even a tiny bit worried about them growing apart — she knew in her bones that this was it for her. For better or for worse, and it didn’t matter that the government wouldn’t let four people marry.

Epilogue

Fifty-one weeks later, the Thursday before Christmas

Genie bounced out of Dev’s fancy red sports car and twirled under the stars. It was fifty-four balmy degrees, warm in December even for Alabama. She wore a thermal shirt and sweater over thermal bottoms and jeans, with warm socks and boots, and she was going to be fine without a coat.

Her men wore jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts, clinging to their rock-hard bodies with the promise of what they woulddoto her later.

Ezra had started college this year after some insane crash video courses and then days and days of studying last year to get a decent score on his SAT test. He was leaning hard towards a physics degree, though he hadn’t decided for certain on the particulars, which was fine.

Elijah was doing decorative painting for the bikers’ construction company — columns that were supposed to look marble, plain walls that were supposed to look as if they were fancy wood. He only worked about a week a month because they didn’t have a huge demand for that kind of thing, but it was enough to give him some outside spending money. He also did odd jobs for the coterie, and he didn’t mind submitting to extra feedings and fuckings, or even the whip, but it washiscall now, and he only agreed to it if he liked and trusted the person who wanted to pay.

And Genie was back in the ER, which was her favorite job as a nurse. She loved the hospital she was at, and adored thedoctors and staff she worked with. They made an excellent team. And, since she preferred nights, and she had extra-special skills they needed, she’d been able to get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off this year, though she’d have to work three sixteen-hour shifts from Friday night until Sunday night to make it happen, but that was okay.

They hit up the Ferris wheel first, with Genie between the cats, while Dev held Brooke on his lap in a different gondola.

Brooke had accepted Genie completely, and Genie had stopped trying to figure it out. Brooke was both the Godfather, the mother figure, and the favorite child of the coterie, all at once. Genie understood Dev’s loyalty to the child vampire better. It’d made sense from the beginning, but she hadn’t grasped the entirety of it. She probably didn’t now, either, but it was enough.

For Genie’s birthday in May, Brooke had taken her to one of Brooke's hobby farms with border collies and great Pyrenees dogs to corral and protect the free-range chickens, and an area at the back of the farm where watermelons were grown. And then she’d walked her to the back corner of the property, where Brooke had ordered her construction team to build a vacation-type a-frame. Upstairs, the loft area was a huge bedroom, with a gigantic bed and four normal-sized closets, since this wouldn’t be their primary home. Downstairs was a huge living room and a super-nice kitchen, along with a deck on the back, facing the woods and overlooking a musical stream.

She thought she’d had to give up on her dream of a little farmhouse with chickens, but she had a place they could go on the weekends, and Genie had fallen in love with the dogs as well as three of the chickens, who ran to her for affection when she arrived.

“Look, over there, isn’t that where you work?” Elijah asked.

“Yes, it is. You know the city this year, know what you’re looking at,” Genie noted.

“So much has changed in a year,” Ezra said. “After we did that giant Ferris wheel in the Smokey Mountains when we went to see the autumn leaves, this one seems kind of small.”

“But it will always be special,” Elijah said, “because it was our first.”

There had been so many firsts for the cats this year, and they’d handled them all beautifully.

She’d been mortified that they’d never celebrated their birthday, or even knew when it was. The Concilio had estimated they’d been born sometime in May or June, so they’d used June first on their legal paperwork. Brooke, Dev, and Genie had planned a huge birthday party for them, and Brooke had bought them motorcycles. Genie had taken them shopping one at a time and bought them tons of clothing, while Dev had bought them all kinds of video game consoles, games, and accoutrements. They’d only been officially freepersons for a few weeks at that time, and it’d been as much of a treat for Genie and Dev to buy them physical things as it was for the twins to receive them.

Genie had been beyond pissed when she’d seen them after the Concilio put them through the test they had to take before they could be free, without Brooke having to take responsibility if they fucked up. They’d been at death’s door after the test, starved — bone with skin stretched over it and barely any muscle. Their hearts had stuttered, they’d been so close to death.

Brooke hadn’t seemed surprised, and she’d handed Genie what she needed to help them. Genie had inserted IVs and pumped calories in while they downed high-calorie drinks. It’d been nearly thirty hours before they were strong enough tochange, and they’d eaten and slept for nearly two days in their cougar forms before they came back to human looking mostly like themselves.

Dev hadn’t been surprised, either. He’d told her ahead of time the point was to shift them from one form to the otheruntil they were near death, and then offer them something they shouldn’t eat — like a deer shifter in animal form. If they could refuse a delicacy like deer when they were right at the point of starving to death, they could be free. If not, they went back to being a slave.

She hadn’t expected them to be returned so close to death, though.

But they’d bounced back, and a week later they were raring to explore the world now that they were free to do so, though they’d soon learned how expensive exploring can be, and Dev hadn’t let her pay their way. It was important they figure their finances out without help, and they were doing so.

Luckily, their birthdays came and the people who loved them could help them with some gifts, however.

The foursome had gone to Six Flags in Atlanta several times over the summer, which was why everything seemed small at the carnival to the boys this year, where it’d been overwhelming the year before, but they still ran around like kids and had a blast.

And this year they could truly run where they wanted — no permission needed. Genie loved watching them have fun. Unadulterated pure joy.