Bastard Stepbrother (Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  When The Crawling Chaos would hide in a new time or place, Dean would wait for him around a corner. He waited to devour him. To consume him, as he'd wanted to do for so long.

  It was unclear where or when he went, or how long he had been gone. When he returned, he looked at his hands and saw that they were normal, they were his hands. His stomach was full and satisfied, and Cady laid on the floor near him.

  “The hound! The hound!” Olivia screamed, running from the shadows and towards the exit of the room. Dean allowed her to leave, though some instinct told him he could have devoured her too. Her voice faded into the silence of the black walls around them.

  Dean leaned back and his hands squished in something. A strange blue liquid surrounded him, and there was a pool of the same liquid where Nicholas had once stood. Looking around, he saw that all of the cultists but one was gone, disappeared into thin air.

  The one that remained was Edwin, who had begun to stir from his sleep. Dean crawled over to Cady, looking over her mostly nude body for any signs of defilement. She looked okay, so he removed his shirt and covered her with it before trying to wake her.

  “Cady?” He asked, shaking her shoulder. She was breathing peacefully, apparently undisturbed by all that had happened.

  When her eyes fluttered open slowly, Dean allowed himself to sigh with relief. He wrapped his arms around her neck, but did not allow himself to cry.

  “Dean?” She asked, her voice groggy. “I had the strangest dream.”

  “That was no dream,” Dean explained, telling her what had happened. Her eyes were wide, and she sat up to listen intently. Her red hair was still matted with the blood of cultists. It would take many showers before she would feel clean, he thought.

  “Oh, Dean!” Cady cried, tears spilling from her eyes. She pulled him into a hard hug, then kissed him. “You saved me! You saved the world!”

  He returned her hot kiss, melting into her and then holding her chin in his hand. He searched her face. “Do you remember anything at all?”

  “I remember...the sky. I remember the sky staring down at me, as if it were its own being.”

  Dean shuddered, Cady shivered, and they held each other.

  “Making moves on my daughter, huh?” Edwin called out. He had managed to sit up and was fussing with his prosthetic leg to get it straight. His face was serious as he looked at Dean.

  “Edwin, I can explain –”

  Suddenly, his serious face turned to a laugh. “I'm just fucking with you, man! You know the girl better than I do, I can't exactly tell her who to love and who to avoid. Though, Cady, you probably should avoid this guy. He cost me my leg!”

  Cady looked to Dean with wide eyes. “Really?”

  “It's a long story,” Dean rolled his eyes, giving Edwin a lopsided smile. “So, Edwin, would this be a bad time to tell you that you're gonna be a grandpa?”

  “What!” Edwin boomed, trying and failing to stand. “You dog!” He laughed as he fell on his ass. Dean shook his head.

  “Your dad's a real pain in the ass, but I'm sure you'll figure that out in time.”

  Smiling, Cady hugged Dean then went to her father, helping him stand. “Let's go. We can joke around when we aren't, you know, in a cultist's cave.”

  As they left the farm, Dean looked around. The fields and trees no longer had an eerie glow, and the sky above was its normal color as the sun began to rise.

  Epilogue

  Cady

  “Your dad called, demanding that I fly you out to him this week. Now I wonder who gave him that idea?” Dean grunted. They were both trudging through the snow, both dragging what would look like normal humans behind them. They would look like normal humans if you didn't notice they left no trail of blood, and their teeth were unnaturally sharp.

  Cady had grown to love the mountains, though they were colder than she preferred. She really liked the people who stayed at the lodge, which now consisted mostly of other hunters attempting to retire or take a vacation.

  “Well, I certainly don't know!” She laughed, winking at Dean. “Come on. We should go see him. Leave one of the other hunters in charge for a week or something.”

  “Not a fan of you two ganging up on me about this. You know I don't like to leave the lodge. Last time I did, the maids left a mess in my kitchen and the beds were never made. It took forever to convince people to start coming to use again.”

  “That's why I said to leave it to a hunter! They're all as anal about things like that as you are, I bet.”

  He sighed, but his eyes were smiling.

  “Come on,” she coaxed. “He's going to be a grandpa, and he still barely knows me.” She patted her hand on her stomach, which over the last few months had grown considerably. She was still only in her second trimester, but soon she wouldn't be able to join him in hunting. “We should spend some time with him.”

  Looking up at the man she loved, Cady glowed with pride. It took a while to really settle into her new life, to learn about the outside world and understand that she had rights and could demand personal space when she wanted. Dean was patient with her, usually, though he had his own problems with anger and really bad nightmares.

  “He always ropes me into cleaning up his messes, though,” Dean pouted, throwing down the vampire he was dragging and grabbing branches around the clearing.

  She laughed, shaking her head. “Remember, you brought this on yourself when you made him lose a leg!” Dropping her vampire, she stooped low and grabbed some snow, balling it up and throwing it at the back of his head. He yelled and turned, glaring at her. He rushed her and picked her up in his arms, making her squeal with laughter.

  Yes, she loved him.

  “Just you wait. Once you have this baby, I'm going to make you start hunting on your own. Then you'll understand!” He touched his finger to her nose and then pulled her in for a kiss. She shoved more snow into his face with a laugh.

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