Page 65 of Loving Nightmares
“Yes, it’s done,” Saint said happily in passing. “Come inside after you talk him down from his ‘I’m worried about everything’ moment now that he knows you’re pregnant.”
“Worried about everything?” I pulled back and eyed him in concern. It was very hard to keep myself from looking at the porch behind him, the entire house painted the prettiest shade of deep maroon, the entrance a massive black iron double door. It even had these cool gold knockers that looked like skulls.
I loved it. I loved this house.
“You are carrying a very small nightmare inside of you,” Razar hissed, his voice rough with emotion. “I’m normally paranoid about your safety, but now I am double paranoid.”
“Hey.” I pressed a kiss to his lips. “Everything is going to be amazing, Razar. You’ve protected me my entire life, and I know you will protect our children.”
“With every part of my being,” he vowed.
“I love you,” I reminded him.
“I love you too,” he said, taking a deep breath. “You’re right, it’s going to be fine…as long as you never leave the house and I carry you everywhere.”
I giggled as he put me down, knowing he was mostly joking…probably, before following him up the stairs into the entrance of our house. The house we would live in hopefully forever. The house we would make memories and grow our family in. I couldn’t help but feel a surge of thankfulness for these men and everything that had brought us to this point. I never thought I would get to be with my nightmares, and now I had so much love in my life that it was overwhelming.
“Everything arrived okay?” I asked him as we reached the partly open door.
“Everything is already placed, and a lot of our things have been moved over,” Razar said. “We can move in today.”
“I can’t believe this is happening! I mean, this day couldn’t get any… Oh.”
I stepped inside, freezing in front of the spiral staircase of the foyer. All my men were gathered, each holding black and pink roses that matched the petals scattered over the dark flooring. Razar rounded me, and before I could say anything, he knelt down in front of me and pulled out a dark box.
I lied—this day was about to become the epitome of perfection.
“Arabella.” Razar’s voice rolled over my skin, and I held his gaze before looking up at the others once again. “Will you marry us?”
When he opened the black box, I nearly fell over at the massive pink diamond inside, the black band highlighting it perfectly. Tears welled in my eyes as I took the ring and slipped it on, the fit absolutely perfect. Looking at Razar and then back up at all of them, there was only one thing to say.
“Yes.”
Yes to everything—yes to our future.
EPILOGUE 1
ARABELLA
6 months later…
I was a married woman.Not only a married woman, but I was at the wedding reception of my dreams, and while I had never particularly imagined my wedding growing up,thiswas perfection. Razar ran a hand up my back as I sat on his lap, watching the festivities around us.
‘Festivities’ was an understatement though.
We had turned the back of the institute into a massive wedding venue, the clear top tent showcasing the starry sky above. From the top of the tent hung huge chandeliers that cast light on all of the attendants, everyone from god terrors to Class D nightmares dancing, eating, drinking, and most importantly, enjoying themselves. Even Jalissa had made the trip to celebrate the important day, along with some of the othersis metas.
I think it was partly to get eyes on the institute they were going to be sending theirsis metasto for some time out of the village to explore the world. One of the first volunteers, Maeve, was on the dance floor seeming to have the time of her life. Andthis was totally the time to visit. The place was in its best form, celebrating the wedding we had managed to finally get together.
I say finally because it had taken forever to plan. Now that ISS was serving as the official nightmare governmental institution with myself as a spokesperson, we’d been insanely busy in the best way possible. Between policy changes and large-scale attempts at uniting humans and nightmares, the nation was coming together in a way I never imagined. In fact, following War’s death, we found that we had far more allies than we even realized.
Of course there were those that still hated us and some rogue factions of MAM trying to remain active, their members having been influenced by those under War’s compulsion, but they were by far the minority, and their membership diminished by the day. When I’d thought about creating a world where humans and nightmares would be able to peacefully coexist, it had been a stretch, but now…well, now we were seeing that it was more than possible.
Honestly, the largest party having an impact were the Class D nightmares who were speaking out about their families, a lot of whom had mated with humans. And the nightmare subdivision had hesitantly opened their gates in a sign of welcome and peace, followed by human communities doing the same. Soon I didn’t think there would be any separate communities, and there was something extremely refreshing about that.
I wanted our children to live in a world where they could be friends with humans.
Although…I had a feeling our future child would scare a lot of humans. Not because of anything they did, but because their fathers were all extremely powerful, and there is a natural fear associated with that. I would never want to temper that, so we would just have to see what the future brought.
