EPILOGUE
POPPY
Six months later
Sage grips me by the shoulders. “You’re hyperventilating.” She looks me in the eyes, voice steady and professional.
“I’m not hyperventilating,” I gasp between shallow breaths, forcing out a smile. “I’m breathing with enthusiasm.”
Sage adjusts my veil. “Poppy. You’ve done dozens of videos in front of millions of people. You once did a sponsored post while skydiving. This is a wedding, not a firing squad.”
“A firing squad would be easier. Firing squads don’t have seating charts.”
She laughs. I’ve missed that laugh—we’ve both been busy these past few months, our friendship existing mostly through texts. But the moment I asked her to plan this wedding, she cleared her calendar.
“The seating chart is perfect,” she says. “Your mother is nowhere near Julian’s family. The vampires are at tables with good sightlines but minimal human interaction. And I’ve placed Elena next to your Aunt Dorothy.”
“You put a 200-year-old Russian vampire next to my aunt who collects porcelain cats?”
“They’re both blunt, judgmental, and appreciate quality craftsmanship. It’ll be fine.” Sage declares with a dismissive wave of her hand. She steps back, examining me. “You look incredible.”
I turn toward the mirror.
The dress is simple—ivory silk, clean lines, a train that trails behind me when I walk. No crystals, no excessive beading, nothing that screams “look at me.” After years of curating the perfect image online, I wanted something real.
Julian hasn’t seen it yet. We did the whole traditional thing—separate getting-ready spaces, no peeking. He’d laughed when I suggested it, pointing out that he’d survived 257 years without needing luck.
“Humor me,” I squeezed his hand, voice soft but insistent. “I want to see your face when I walk down that aisle.”
“You’ll see it,” he’d promised with a smirk. “Two hundred and fifty-seven years of practice, and I still can’t hide a thing from you.”
Now, standing in this room with the afternoon light through the windows, I feel it settle over me.
I’m marrying a vampire.
Not fake-dating. Not pretending. Marrying him.
Seven months ago, I was a mess. Heartbroken over Preston, desperate enough to hire a stranger to play my boyfriend at my sister’s wedding. I thought I knew what love looked like—safe, predictable, controllable.
I was wrong.
Love isn’t safe. It’s being in the Bahamas while your boyfriend sends his murderous progeny to an eternal ocean grave, and choosing to stay.
It’s learning that the man you love has a heartbeat that isn’t the same as yours, yet you feel a strange comfort in that alien rhythm that reminds you he isn’t human but still is somehow yours.
“Hey.” Sage’s voice is soft. “You okay?”
I blink. My eyes are wet.
“Yeah.” I laugh, dabbing away the tears under my lashes. “Just having a moment.”
“You’re allowed moments. It’s your wedding day.” She hands me a tissue. “But have them quickly, because we’re on a timeline and your waterproof mascara has limits.”
“Spoken like a true professional.”
“Um, I am like a true professional.” She checks her tablet. “Fifteen minutes until processional. Your mom is seated. Your sister is in position. And Julian is—” She pauses, smiling. “Julian is trying to convince his brother that he doesn’t need last-minute advice.”
“Which brother?”
“Nicholas. The intense one who keeps staring at me.”
I file that away. Nicholas has been eyeing Sage since they first met—lingering glances at the engagement party, hovering near her table at the rehearsal dinner, every event where they’ve been in the same room.
When I asked Julian about it, he just sighed and told me it’s complicated. Vampire complicated.
“Ignore him,” I roll my eyes. “He’s harmless.”
“He told me he’s been waiting 130 years for me.”
I wince. “He led with that?”
“After the engagement party, yes.”
“Points for self-awareness?”
“Hey, at least you guys finally let me in on the whole ‘you’re right, Sage, he is a vampire’ thing, because that would have sounded way creepier than it already does.” She shakes her head.
“Me, too,” I chuckle. “At least he didn’t follow up with ‘I’ve watched you sleep nineteen times, but only from a respectful distance’.” I think about it for a second. “You know what? That was sort of Julian’s thing, and it was actually romantic.”
Sage arches an eyebrow. “All my bestie needs is a stalker-type guy to get her to be locked down.”
“Don’t forget, brooding. He’s pretty amazing at it.”
“I’m so glad you found your own real-life Edward to tie the knot with. As for me, I’m good with living the single life,” Sage squeezes my hand. “Today is about you and Julian.”
She’s right. I take a breath.
Today is about us.
The ceremony is being held at Julian’s estate in Napa.
Well, one of his estates. When you’ve been alive for as long as he has, you accumulate property the way normal people accumulate streaming subscriptions.
But this one is special—a sprawling vineyard with a stone chapel from the 1800s.
Julian bought it decades ago, restored it, and never told me why he kept it.
Until last month.
“I always thought I’d get married here,” he’d said. “Before Prague. Before I stopped believing it was possible.”
“And now?”
“Now I know why I kept it.”
The afternoon sun filters through the chapel windows. White roses and candles line the aisle. Seventy-five guests fill the pews—humans and vampires, friends and family, the two worlds I’m now a part of.
My mother sits in the front row, clutching a handkerchief. We still haven’t worked out all our issues, and we may never be fixed—but we’re trying. When I told her I was marrying Julian, she said, “He looks at you like you’re the only thing that matters. That’s more than I ever had.”
It wasn’t an apology. But it was something.
Violet sits beside her, already crying. Chris has his arm around her, looking overwhelmed by all the old-timey looking friends of Julian, not knowing he’s surrounded by vampires.
At the engagement party, Elena had cornered him for twenty minutes to explain the proper etiquette for addressing her at formal events. He still hasn’t recovered.
The music shifts, and the Wedding March begins—something I was sure Julian was going to tell me a story about how someone he knew used to know the guy who wrote it. Luckily, he didn’t, even though I’d still love him if he did.
The doors open.
My father isn’t here to walk me down the aisle. He left when I was seven, and I stopped wishing for him sometime around thirteen. But Vi stands up, crosses to me, and takes my arm.
“Ready?” she whispers.
“Ready.”
We walk together. Two sisters who spent years circling each other, finally finding their footing. She squeezes my arm at the halfway point, then releases me.
And there’s Julian.
He’s standing at the altar in a black suit, his hair actually styled for once, his hands clasped in front of him. He looks calm. Composed. The same elegance he always projects.
But his eyes.
He watches me approach like I’m the answer to something he’s been asking for two and a half centuries. I reach the altar. Take his comforting, cool hands.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“You look—”
“Don’t you dare cry.”
He laughs. “I wasn’t going to cry.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“My face is lying.”
“Your face is perfect.” I squeeze his hands. “Now let’s get married before I lose my nerve.”
The officiant—a sweet older woman who has no idea she’s marrying a human to a 257-year-old vampire—clears her throat and begins.
I barely hear the opening words. I’m watching Julian, and he’s watching me.
He’s spent centuries hiding what he is.
Today, he doesn’t have to—I love him for who and what he is.
“The couple has prepared their own vows,” the officiant says. “Julian?”
He takes a breath. Reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper—then sets it aside.
“I wrote something,” he says. “But I’m not going to read it.”
The guests murmur. My mother looks confused. I wait.
“Poppy.” He holds my hands tighter. “I lived for a long time believing I was cursed—that loving anyone would only lead to losing them.”
His voice catches. He pushes through.
“You proved me wrong. Not by being perfect, but by being real—being you. By seeing what I am and choosing to stay. By fighting for us when I was too afraid to fight for myself.” He lifts our joined hands, presses his lips to my knuckles.
“I don’t know what the next chapter of my life holds, but I know I want to spend it with you. ”
Tears stream down my face. So much for waterproof mascara.
“Your turn,” the officiant says.
I laugh through my tears. Try to find words.
“I had a speech, too,” I say. “It was clever. Lots of jokes about dating apps and fake boyfriends and how I never expected to end up here.”
Julian smiles. “You can still use it.”
“No. Because here’s the thing—” I take a breath. “You didn’t just change my life, Julian. You changed how I see the world. Showed me that love isn’t about control or safety or having everything figured out. It’s about choosing someone, every day. Even when it’s hard.”
I think about Damien. About the cliffs. About the choice Julian made and the weight he’ll carry.
“You chose me,” I say. “When you had every reason not to. When your whole history said it would end in tragedy. You chose me anyway.”
I lift our hands the way he did. Press my lips to his knuckles.
“So I choose you back. For as long as I have.”
The officiant is crying now, too. Half the guests are crying. Elena is not crying, but she’s doing something with her face that might pass for emotion.
“The rings,” the officiant manages.
We exchange them. Simple gold bands—his matches the one he’s worn on another finger for decades, a replacement for something he lost long ago. When I slide it onto his hand, I feel him tremble.
“By the power vested in me by the State of California,” the officiant says, “I now pronounce you partners for life. You may kiss—”
Julian doesn’t wait for her to finish.
He pulls me close and kisses me with such tenderness my knees nearly buckle.
His hands tremble against my face, and I feel the weight of 257 years of loneliness dissolve between us.
My heart pounds so hard I’m certain everyone can hear it—and I know plenty of our guests can.
Tears well up, blurring my vision as I kiss him back, clinging to him like he might disappear if I let go.
And somewhere in the back of the chapel, through the cheers and the applause, I catch a glimpse of Nicholas Blackthorne watching Sage, his eyes holding the same desperate hunger I once saw in Julian’s.
But that’s another story.
THE END