Take Courage, My Heart

Epilogue

"Just like that, baby," Leander purred, looking up at me with half-lidded eyes, sweat covering his face and running down his temples. I braced myself against the mattress by his head and leaned down to kiss him, pleasure shooting up inside of me as his hand that was on my hips kept me moving against him.

I pulled away and straightened up while taking a deep breath. My gaze focused on the digital clock on the nightstand and for a brief moment I looked almost dazed at the green numbers, until I took in the actual time.

"Fuck," I mumbled and jerked away from Leander, landing on the mattress beside him and then scrambling to find my clothes.

"Jesse, what is–" he started to say, only to stop himself when he also saw the time. "Right. I'll just go shower."

I smiled back at him while pulling on a shirt and leaned down to plant a kiss on his lips. The fabric stuck to my sweaty skin uncomfortably, but I didn't have time to shower. It would have to wait a little bit.

"I'll join you later," I said when I pulled back. I grabbed my phone from the other nightstand and skipped out of the bedroom.

The apartment we were renting was small, with only two bedrooms, though the second one had been converted into a study. I dragged myself out of our bedroom and to the dining table that connected the kitchen to the living room. At two in the morning, the city outside was rather quiet for a city, though lights still shone everything up.

I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to stabilize my erratic heartbeat and my voice, and then opened my phone and hit call, all while the bedroom door opened and Leander slipped out, naked and on the way to the bathroom. I watched him while tapping on the wooden top of the table, waiting for the call to connect.

"Jesse!" Fiona called out, as usual, quick to answer these calls.

I greeted her back and we fell into an easy conversation about how her week had been. It had taken some asking and debating with our parents but eventually, they had given in and let us have these weekly calls. Fiona was still too young to own a phone, so I couldn't talk to her like I talked with Jessica, Adam, or the twins. So, once a week it was, right before her bedtime, for as long as we liked but no more than an hour. I couldn't for sure say our parents thought I'd influence her badly and frankly it wasn't like I was a violent or delusional criminal, but the way they were being so rigid and strict about it sure made it seem like they thought I was bad for her.

Leander got in the shower at the start of our conversation and was done long before we were done talking. I watched him come out and head into the bedroom, naked and dripping water, as Fiona told me about her volleyball match, a hobby she had started in the year since I had last seen her and was still going strong. We kept talking, as Leander came back out, dressed in a black lace shirt and dress pants, and went to the study, leaving the door to it just slightly open. I followed suit, after I wished my sister sweet dreams, my shirt no longer stinking to my body as the sweat had dried.

"You smell of sex," Leander informed me as soon as I stepped into the study. He was leaning back in the desk chair, angled away from the desk and towards the wall behind it.

I hummed in response, taking calculated steps towards him and then kneeling on the carpeted floor before him. He readjusted in his seat as I settled between his knees, dragging my hands up his thighs.

"I figured showering wasn't worth it," I said at last, looking up at him through my lashes. He stirred inside his pants, and I refocused my attention on his pants, opening and tugging them down.

"Annerose texted–" he stopped talking with a hiss as I took him in my mouth, slow and sloppy with it. With one hand he grabbed the handle of the chair and his other hand ended up on my head, fingers tangling in my hair and nails scraping against my skull. "She said we should..." I cut him off with another hum, that came out garbled as he was still inside my mouth. "We should head back to the States..."

I pulled off and immediately started jerking him off, leaning into his palm that was still in my hair. I blinked up at him while licking my lips and breathing heavily.

"But we didn't find him yet," I hoarsely replied.

"Maybe we'll never find him..." he said softly. "Maybe he's dead."

I bit my lower lip, accepting his words like I had all those other times. This wouldn't be the first time we moved on without finding a target. This wouldn't be the first time this wild goose chase proved to be nothing but a fool's errand.

I finished him off and then he pulled me up to his lap and brought me to my own release, slowly and with skilled strokes of his fingers. In the year we had been together he had gotten quite well in figuring out how to get me undone within minutes.

"I'll need another shower now," he said about half an hour later as we remained folded together on the desk chair. I huffed out in amusement and got off him, standing on wobbly feet and looking at the wall behind the desk.

Names and pictures, some interconnected while others as far apart as they could go. A web of guys, all about my age, some dead, some vampires, some missing. All Turner's boys.

Kevin had given us some names and we had tracked down others, either going off the New Horizon's Academy website or looking at old files that Gerald Turner had kept. Finding every single one of them had become our new mission, alongside eliminating any and all nests that still existed.

"Did Annerose say why we have to go back to the States?" I asked at last, still looking at the guy we had been looking for.

He had been one of the first guys that had ever stepped into the New Horizons Academy. He would have been thirty-five years old now. We had looked everywhere for him, but after he had been listed as reformed and sold to a very old vampire, he had been spotted only a handful of times. Leander said he was dead. And I was inclined to believe him, especially considering the vampire who had bought him had died years ago.

"There's been an incident," Leander replied, and I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Of political nature."

"And why do we have to deal with a political incident?" I pressed, going up to the wall and starting to tug down photographs and name tags.

"Kevin's involved. Annerose didn't say much else, just that our reputation could be of help," he said.

Our reputation was in reference to the fact that both of our names were now recognized as vampire-hunting vampires. Going after one too many rogues did that to you and after a particularly intense night in Barcelona, we had evidently become minor celebrities.

"Let's go shower, we can pack everything later," he said at last, getting up and wrapping his arms around my body. He leaned his head forward and pressed a kiss to the side of my face. "We will find the next one. We will save the one after that. We will never stop."

I took a decisive deep breath. We would never stop. All those who had been hurt would heal. All those who had died would get avenged. All those who ended up hurting others would die. And we would never stop.

A/N: And this is it. "Take Courage, My Heart" sure was a long one. I started working on it in the summer of 2022 and it took me about a year and a half to get to the end. There sure had been times I wasn't even sure I would be able to finish it. Hell, I wrote another full story before I was done with this one and somehow I managed to finish that one faster.

As with all my other Wattpad stories, Jesse's story holds a special place in my heart. I truly believe I figure myself out while writing these and to be able to share them with all my readers is so important to me. Seeing comments and votes and new people finding my works is so encouraging and heartwarming, so from the bottom of my heart thank you all so much for reading my stories and supporting me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this read, these characters and I wish you the best.