Page 69 of Twins for the Barbarians

Helios’s fingers travel quietly up my thigh. My skin glistens with sweat and the golden hue of an orgasmic afterglow as the three of us descend from our personal, most precious heaven while the moonlight douses the bedroom in a milky white shimmer.

“I can’t wait until your baby bump starts to show,” he whispers in my ear.

“Oh, really? How come?” I ask, turning my head to receive his soft kiss on my lips.

Kharo rests on his side, smiling and watching us both. “He’s got a kink of sorts. Well, we both do.”

“I look forward to fucking you while you’re farther along,” Helios says. “We’ll be careful, of course, but there’s something about a pregnant woman that gets my blood pumping.”

“You’ve planted that image in my head, and now I’m just as excited about it,” I groan as Helios’s hand moves over my hip and nestles between my legs, cupping my tender pussy with a loving gesture. “But I want to enjoy and make the most of every single day until then.”

“Are you scared?” Kharo asks me, a slight frown drawing shadows over his crimson eyes. But his hand gets busy kneading my left breast, my flesh softening under his touch. We’ve only just finished making mad love, and they’re already hard and ready to go again. Granted, I’m soaking wet and aching for them, as well. “Of the pregnancy, I mean.”

“A little, but I know Amber and Cynthia will give me every bit of advice and care they can.”

“And we’ll be with you every step of the way. You know that, right?” Kharo replies.

“You’ll have everything you need. Our love, our protection, the comfort and safety of a good home. All the food you can wish for,” Helios adds. “Sapphire City still has the best maternity wing. You’ll be okay; I know it.”

My men wrap themselves around me, my body humming between their layers of hard, taut muscles and warm, smooth skin. Helios’s beard tickles the side of my neck while Kharo’s index finger and thumb close tightly around my nipple, pinching it harder and harder until he draws a whimper from my parted lips.

A love like ours is as rare and as precious as Sunna’s fire. I’m only sorry I didn’t give in to it sooner. But that’s the trouble with never having been loved properly in the first place. I didn’t know what I was missing. I’d thought my sole purpose in life was to observe others, to live through others—other cultures, other worlds altogether. Yet it seems like there’s a place for me here, too. A corner of my own in the strong arms of two incredible men who worship and adore me.

“I love you both so much,” I whisper as they’re about to claim me once again, their lips exploring my skin and my most intimate places, making my blood simmer. “So much…”

“You are ours forever,” Kharo says.

“We are yours forever,” Helios adds.

And it’s all I need to abandon myself completely. To surrender and let them adore me. Every inch of me is theirs to share and do with as they please—and boy, do they know what to do with all of me and then some.

Tomorrow doesn’t seem as frightening as before.

It’s probably because we have one another, really and truly and forever.

Epilogue I

Alicia

Months can fly by in the blink of an eye when you’re trying to save the world. The bigger my belly grew, the heavier and more sluggish I felt and the more scared I was that I might not be able to pull through. Cynthia and Amber both assured me that it’s the kind of fear every first-time mother carries with her until she gives birth.

I am drained. Exhausted. I’m not able to move much, but I did it. After twelve hours of excruciating labor, I did it. Cynthia and the medics on call were incredible, and so were Helios and Kharo. They stayed by my side every step of the way.

The hospital bed is warm and soft. I’m given plenty of fluids while I watch Cynthia lovingly clean and pat my twin boys dry. They’re big, healthy boys with pink skin and budding horns atop their perfect, round heads. Their crimson eyes haven’t fully opened, and their cute, tiny fists flail as Cynthia cleans them and swaddles them in white cotton.

“You’re an incredible woman, Alicia,” Kharo says, sitting by my bedside.

Helios is beaming, unable to wipe the biggest smile I’ve ever seen from his handsome face. “I never thought I’d feel such happiness ever again.”

He’s about to tear up, and it both fills and breaks my heart at the same time, remembering that Helios lost a whole family when the whole plague nightmare started. The wife and daughters…one by one, perished until Helios was left on his own to pick up the pieces of a broken society, which was what was expected of him.

“But I feel it, and I have you to thank,” he tells me, then kisses me with all the love that’s glowing ferociously within him.

I welcome the comfort and affection, the praise, the smiles, the encouragement, and the sound of my babies crying. Cynthia smiles as she brings the boys over. Kharo swiftly picks one of them up in his arms, and Helios takes the other, both holding our sons with stars in their eyes.

“Damn, they’re heavy,” Cynthia says. “Healthy as I imagined. Strong. Excellent vitals. You really did an incredible job, Alicia.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I manage, barely able to muster a few words. “I’d love to hold them.”

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