Kira and Lily would be at the helm, and the human race would prevail.
His focus turned to Kira. She was so beautiful. Even though there were new lines that embedded in the skin of her forehead that would forever tell of the trials she had faced. She was a woman, courageous, strong. Defiant. She had never let him fall, her small, but strong shoulders had always supported him. In this, he would stand by her. Blue eyes turned cobalt as the evening light began to bleed over the horizon. Sapphire and crystal, blue flame and ocean. She completed him, them.
He swallowed. ‘Yes.’
Her gaze flickered to Nick before she cocked her head. ‘Yes?’
Euan reached up, cupped her cheeks. His hands were coated in dust, in blood, in dirt and filth. He didn’t care, neither did she. He ran his thumbs over the skin, relished the warmth that heated his palms. When she gave him a quizzical smile, he returned it, just to see her face bloom. ‘Yes, Kira. You want to help lead them, set humanity on the path to righteousness, then I’ll stand by your side and I’ll support you. I’ll do whatever I need to make you happy.’
Kira’s spine straightened. Nick grabbed her hand in his. ‘Can we do this?’ he asked.
She turned until she faced Nick. Her smile was so bright, it illuminated the room with wonder. ‘We can do this.’
Epilogue
Euan didn’t think that he could love her more. But with each passing year, he did.
The music of crickets surrounded him, a hollow thrum that had become the song of their present. That, and the giggle of their children that wafted towards him through the open front door.
Kira’s voice trailed down after it, through the hall of the house they now called their own. Dormant lavender flowers amassed in front of him. After that, a lawn that hid a bunker used only for storage stretched out dark and silent in the night. The forest was still a sentry, a wooded shield, but it now only offered the privacy they craved. It had taken some time to get the house back into liveable standard. But Kira had wanted their first baby born in her childhood home, and so both he and Nick had indulged her.
As they did in most things.
There was no trip wire, no night vision cameras. If visitors came, they knocked at the front door. An election had been held, Lily chosen. A woman that had been silenced by men was now the voice of the remainder of the human race.
The irony was not lost on Euan.
He heard Kira’s footsteps over the crickets. Naked feet that he now had no reason to admonish tapped against timber floors. The screen door squeaked when it opened. He would have to fix that.
‘Storytime is done and dusted. I’m beat,’ she huffed as she unlocked his arms from his chest and straddled his lap. She curled herself into his body, rested her head on his shoulder. She smelt of lavender and sunshine, of their two babies and Nick.
‘They went down okay?’ he asked as he wrapped muscles honed by training and manual labour around the woman he loved, would always love, until the end of time.
She nodded against his chest. He turned so he could bury his nose in her hair. He inhaled, long and deep. Sleep was close as it always was when the sun set. The challenge of children, a farm and a home was enough to drag any man into an early slumber. But her body was close, her thighs at his hips warm. The chair that supported them was made of wood. Euan had found another talent in the art of making furniture from the remnants of trees from the fire, all those years ago. It was strong, it was durable, it was steadfast. Even if it was a little rustic, a little maimed, a little scarred.
A little like Euan.
His words were muffled by her hair. ‘Nicky packing for the markets tomorrow?’
Her thighs tightened on his hips. ‘I think he’s finished.’
A slow smile stretched his lips. ‘Bedtime then.’
***
Euan didn’t think that he could love him more. But each time he entered his body, he did.
Tight, sweet, exquisite. Nick pushed back into him as he fed on what was between Kira’s legs. On his knees behind him, Euan had a view of the both of them. Sweat-slick skin shone in the moonlight that cascaded through an open window, that glinted off frames that protected hand-drawn pictures. Their chests heaved in silent breaths as they thwarted their grunts and moans. Kira bit her bottom lip, the sheets gripped tight in her fists. She writhed under Nick’s attention even as Euan forced him to jolt and lose suction with every thrust of his hips.
An impossible dream made real. They were glorious in their passion. Euan bent so he could feast on Nick’s rippling shoulders, tease the tender space at the top of his spine, bite into the thick muscle at his throat. Nick hissed as Euan indulged and continued to thrust.
Their knowledge of each other’s bodies had grown too, and though they were scarred, changed from time and children, it didn’t matter. The heat and love between the three of them had only matured. Kira turned her head into the pillow to muffle her cry as Nick licked and sucked in a rhythm she was lost to. Euan grabbed her foot and kissed her ankle where she liked it best just as she lost control. Nick grunted while he endured the unrelenting snap of Euan’s hips as he hit just the right place. Nick bent his spine and tipped his ass up because he knew Euan loved the view.
In almost complete silence, they each found their climax, and together they each relished in their love as they celebrated their future.
A future where they had found eternal refuge.
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