She smiled, her teeth nipping at his lower lip. “Never.”
He chuckled, his hand moving to cup her plump arse. “Then torture me some more, for I am yours.”
Epilogue
In the sunlit cloisters of Westminster Abby, Sin walked alongside Augustus. Tourists strolled around them, some stopping to peer at the tombstone of a long-dead priest or valiant knight who’d been laid to rest on this hallowed ground.
As for Sin, he passed the letter he’d just received to Augustus and then pushed his hands into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat. His breath came out in a puff as he spoke. “Eliza left it all to me. Mab’s old house, her fortune, everything.” It made his skin crawl and his heart hurt. He did not want anything of Mab’s, and yet it touched him that Eliza had wanted to see him provided for. Not that he needed it; he was comfortable enough. But Eliza was the only true friend he had left, and she was far off in another world.
Augustus read Eliza’s letter with a fond look upon his face. “She is happy and well with Adam.” He lifted the little photograph that Eliza had sent along, and a smile pulled at his mouth. The grainy image showed a grinning Eliza and a stern but pleased-looking Adam standing before the Great Pyramid of Khufu at the Giza Necropolis, Eliza’s white frock blowing in the desert breeze.
Sin frowned as he looked at the photograph. “How is it that she’s in Egypt when she’s stuck in Adam’s realm?”
“You ought to understand this,” Augustus said, adopting his “professor tone” as he handed Sin the letter and photograph. “Theirs is a parallel world to ours. Therefore Khufu’s tomb stands as majestic and solid as it is here.”
Sin used care as he tucked Eliza’s letter into his pocket. His strength was immense now, and he’d yet to become accustomed to it, tearing many an article of clothing or hinges off of doors without thought.
Augustus glanced around the cloisters, and a look of melancholy softened his hard features. When he turned back to Sin, however, it was gone. “You’ve much to learn, St. John, and I’ve little time to teach it.” Deep brown eyes bore into Sin’s. “The question is, are you ready for the next chapter in your life?”
It wouldn’t be easy. Sin had been warned. He couldn’t tell a soul what he was. And he’d have to watch over the one woman he wanted more than anything in this life. He thought of Layla. Lovely and fresh and utterly out of his reach. And yet he’d endure anything to keep her safe. Sin stared up at the lapis blue sky, the sunlight warm on his face, and drew in a deep breath of the frosty, late autumn air.
“I am.”