Epilogue (3)

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Jina let her eyes drift closed for a breath, a heartbeat.

Behind her lids, Kno Diag waited—the ruins where they had built something fragile and strange together. Where she had learned what it meant to be the only thing he would not devour.

The ruins were gone now. Razed. In their place stood a mansion of pale stone and glass, modern and clean, rising from earth that had swallowed too many secrets.

They visited sometimes, the two of them. Not often. Just enough to remember.

This new structure had no basement carved into the bedrock. No iron-reinforced door leading down into darkness. No memories of others trapped in the foundations like the ghosts they’d become.

It was the quietest land in the world, built for only two.

“Ian.”

He turned at the sound of his name, something soft entering his expression—a tenderness he reserved solely for her. His hand covered hers where it rested on the balcony railing, the touch grounding, possessive in its gentleness.

Speak, the gesture said. I’m listening.

Jina held his gaze.

Those eyes. Impossibly blue, deep enough to drown in. For eight years, they had held nothing but her reflection. He’d made her his entire world, as if she were the last human soul left breathing, the only one that mattered.

He loved her.

And she—

She reached up and pulled him close, winding her arms around his neck. His body went rigid beneath her touch, startled by the sudden embrace, the unexpected intimacy.

“I want to have a child.”

The words hung in the air between them.

Ian’s entire frame jolted as if she’d struck him. As if she’d confessed something unbelievable, something he’d stopped allowing himself to hope for.

For a long, suspended moment, he simply stood there, frozen.

Then she felt it—the tremor that began somewhere deep in his chest and rippled outward. Pleasure. Overwhelming, nearly unbearable pleasure. His arms rose to circle her waist, drawing her flush against him. The dress she’d chosen for the evening was silk, thin and clinging, and she could feel every line of his body against hers. Including the unmistakable hardness pressing insistently against her stomach, growing more pronounced with every passing second.

“If you wish it…”

His voice came out rough, shaking.

“I will give you one before the year ends. We could go upstairs right now. I would keep you in bed until it takes—however long that requires. All you’d have to do is lie there and let me in.” His breath ghosted hot against her temple. “Have I ever failed to give you what you wanted?”

The whisper against her ear sent heat spiraling through her, a shiver that was equal parts anticipation and something dangerously close to fear.

“B-but…” Jina’s voice faltered. “What if they leave? Like Yujin did?”

“Then we make another.”

His palm slid down to rest against the flat plane of her stomach, possessive and reverent.

“This womb can carry as many children as we need. If one leaves this world, others will remain beside us.”

Ecstasy colored every word, turning his whisper into something almost holy.

“You’ll give birth, again and again… until our children fill the world.”

Ian could see it so clearly. Yuna, born of him and Jina, carried her scent in a way that made it impossible not to love her. He would never consume her—couldn’t bear the devastation it would cause Jina if Yuna vanished the way Yujin had.

But what if there were more? Children who carried that exact same scent, that intoxicating blend that was unmistakably hers? And what if they, in turn, had children of their own?

Birth after birth after birth, an endless cascade of her bloodline spreading across the world like roots through soil.

Then one day, perhaps, this barren world would bloom with people who smelled like her.

And everything else? He could simply swallow it whole.

Still holding her waist, Ian turned, guiding her away from the balcony.

The hotel’s most expensive suite remained perpetually vacant during events like this, reserved but never used. A luxury held in waiting.

Tonight, it would finally serve its purpose.

As they passed through the lounge, Ian spoke to his secretary without breaking stride.

“We’ll be indisposed for some time. Keep close watch on Yuna. And postpone the American meeting indefinitely—I’ll inform you when to reschedule.”

The secretary’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Has something happened, sir?”

Once, after the accident, Ian Aylesford couldn’t fly. Couldn’t even board a ship. The trauma had caged him on British soil for years.

Then, inexplicably, he’d begun traveling overseas again without hesitation. The secretary had wept the day it happened.

Not from sympathy. Not from relief.

It was a different kind of tears entirely—the kind born from watching something monstrous regain its freedom to hunt. The day her employer first flew across the channel to the German branch meeting, she’d felt nothing but a creeping, bone-deep despair she couldn’t name.

What was so terrible about him crossing water?

It was just business. And whenever he traveled to America, there were always disappearances, yes, but Chairman Aylesford was never implicated. Never even suspected.

Still. The American meeting was critical, and rescheduling it now, with the Christmas season already upon them, would be an absolute nightmare of logistics and diplomacy.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Ian’s smile was almost human. “I simply won’t have time.”

He left with Jina, their figures disappearing up the grand staircase, her hand nestled in his.

The secretary pressed her fingers against her temples and exhaled slowly before turning toward the banquet hall.

Yuna. She needed to find Yuna, who was undoubtedly wreaking havoc somewhere inside.

The Chairman and his wife seemed calm enough, but their daughter? The child was a force of restless energy, never still for more than a heartbeat. And tonight, with Ian occupied elsewhere, unable to rein her in…

Yes. There would absolutely be trouble.

The secretary hurried into the glittering chaos of the party hall.

“Yuna!”