Epilogue

  Silver Ashley was on her stomach. She was on a massage table, and Vangelis was behind her, inserting needles into her bare back.

  “There is one thing I don’t understand,” she said between insertions. “Why hasn’t Benediction been in my face about you? He’s your brother. Certainly, he cares what happens to you.”

  “Are you talking about my involuntary slave contract?” Vangelis asked in an unconcerned tone as he selected his needles.

  “Yeah,” she mumbled.

  “He doesn’t care because we’ve been legally married for over forty years,” Vangelis explained without hesitation.

  Silver Ashley scoffed. “We… what?”

  Vangelis repeated himself. “We’ve been married for over forty years.”

  “We have? How? When?” she demanded, trying to get up, but Vangelis held her down with the elegant application of two fingers on her shoulder blade.

  “I put a piece of paper in front of you,” he explained with his breath in her ear. “You signed it.”

  She was so stunned, she couldn’t even speak. “Huh?” she breathed. No queen had ever sounded less like one.

  “It’s true,” he said, suddenly beginning the removal process ahead of schedule. “I wasn’t even that sneaky about it. You were signing a lot of documents that day. It was up on the big screen. Three of your servants saw it go up and saw you sign it. They were witnesses. I paid them off to make sure it didn’t become news.”

  “I really don’t remember anything about this, and I never sign contracts I don’t read. Are you sure you weren’t being sneaky, shoving it in the middle of a larger contract that I had previously studied, and when it came to signing it, I just ripped through it and signed the marriage contract in the middle of it?”

  Vangelis removed the last of the needles. “I did no such thing,” he said, beginning a massage that was to relax her as much as it was meant to relax him. “I put it up, your eyes drifted over it, and you signed it. If you didn’t know you signed a marriage agreement with me, it’s because you honestly had a lapse in concentration, but I didn’t realize until much later that you didn’t realize what you were signing. I was quite hurt. So hurt that I’ve never mentioned it to you, but I did mention it to Benediction before you brought him to Venus. He contacted me and wanted to make sure I was all right, so he does care about me. I don’t know if he was planning on coming to liberate me or not. I told him all was well and he could cool his jets. He has been writing periodically for years. Ever since Gage came out of hiding. In any case,” he said, suddenly slapping her bare back as if to wake her up and pushing her aside so he could fit his bottom on the table with her.

  She twisted to fit him. Positioned a little like a snow leopard sunning herself on a rock, she averted her eyes. “I don’t see how I could have missed it.”

  “Maybe you remember something that happened later that night,” he suggested.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The Queen of Venus turned to him hopefully.

  “That was the night when I no longer let you chain me up for sex,” he explained patiently.

  Silver Ashley’s face went from white to pink in a single heartbeat. She turned to him. A miracle had dawned on her face. “That was the best night of my life.”

  “I know,” he said, tucking a stray strand of white hair behind her ear. “I knew it was important to you because our relationship was never the same again. I made love to you and you melted for me, and no matter what anyone thought, even you - I wasn’t your slave anymore. If anything, you were mine. I just let everyone think I was still your slave.”

  “Even me?” she gawked, meeting his eyes that were as blue as the god of the skies.

  He touched his forehead to hers. “You like being Queen.”

  “Not as much as I like thinking over that night. I play it over in my head all the time. My heart must have stopped six times as you did things any other owner would shock her slave for.”

  It would have been nice if he could have said that she had never shocked him. It would also have been nice if she hadn’t shocked him since she signed their wedding agreement if it had only happened in the early days, but she had.

  “As a present, would you remove the shock function from my bracelet?” he asked, pulling away from her and leaning against the massage table instead of sitting on it.

  She colored and changed the setting. “I want to pull it off you,” she said, but it was a little too late. He was already standing out of her reach at the countertop, moving things around.

  “Can’t I do anything more than remove the shock feature to make it up to you? I’ve been a terrible wife,” she said, grabbing a white towel and wrapping it around herself.

  He turned to her. In those few seconds, he had refilled all the patience he had with her. He wasn’t showing his unhappiness anymore.

  “Can’t I do something more?” she asked desperately.

  He shook his head that, no, she couldn’t. “You can do whatever you want, or you can do nothing. I already got what I wanted. You signed the papers, and upon hearing that you'd been unwittingly married for forty years, you're not calling for divorce papers. You can think it over and do whatever works best for your cause. You're the Queen of Venus, and you need to do what's best. You could do one thing, though. You could recognize me as an employee and backpay me for forty-some years of salary. Don’t be cheap, Darling. Whatever happens, there are sure to be questions about me, and you want to look like you value me.”

  Vangelis knew Silver Ashley well. He'd known her for several lifetimes. Her thoughts were reflected in her eyes. Suddenly, she realized how much she had taken for granted in Vangelis. If he wanted to leave her, he could have easily done it.

  That was when the tiny queen started crying. She sat clutching a towel and tried to imagine a life without him. It was impossible. He was simply everything. Her thoughts surprised her so much, she pounced off the table and disappeared into the changing room next door. Vangelis couldn’t remember the last time she cried.

  Not surprisingly, Vangelis followed her into the changing room. He took her towel off her and draped a yellow silk robe around her. As he tied her belt, she completely lost her mind and threw herself into his arms.

  “I’d die without you!” she cried, pulling him close.

  He nodded. “Yeah, you would. I keep giving you that serum that makes you live for another week. What would happen if I stopped?”

  She stared at him oddly before letting out a weird little laugh. He didn’t give her any serum, but he did cut her open as often as necessary to fix anything. He kept her as young as a little girl who shouldn’t get lost in the woods.

  He scooped her off her feet. “You know, I can’t stop thinking about all the little games those weirdos on Goldilocks Zone were playing with their models after the show. Can I be the bear? Can you be Goldilocks hiding in my bed? If the bear finds a little blonde girl in his bed, what will he do with her?”

  “Well, if she’s hiding there,” Silver Ashey said, “I bet she wants him to do what all hungry bears do.”

  “Sounds delicious,” he said, carrying her in his arms like a basket full of sweets.

  THE END