Epilogue
**
Cotton candy love.
Zakery
“No,” Maelin says, firmly, ignoring me as she pins something for her latest project.
It has been three days since the Creator’s Ball, three days since we got married, three days of knowing a sensation that seems an awful lot like joy .
And we’re already having our first fight?
I’m proud of my wife for meeting me head on in this argument instead of fawning. Character development truly looks beautiful on her. In contrast, I’m trying my very best not to think she’s being stupid. I wish I could be as character developed as her.
“Maelin, I worked so hard on this.” I take a deep breath, look down at my angel, my goddess, my wife in the painting I’ve been carefully constructing since she posed for me weeks ago. “I know it’s not perfect. Nothing can compare to your flesh and bone, but…do you hate it, or just me?”
“Neither!” Her cheeks explode red. “I love it. That does not mean you can get it printed and framed and put in the foyer ! I’m in pajamas and a sheer robe . And it’s hyper-realistic. You cannot put what looks like a giant photo of me in my pj’s on the wall in the main foyer!”
“But we don’t have many visitors here. Everyone who comes through has already seen you in your pj’s. Even Crimson.”
“Crisis’s friend seeing me in my pj’s was an accident that I do not want readily available to her or anyone else.” Maelin pushes back her white hair and frees a breath. “If you absolutely must , you may frame it and keep it in our bedroom.”
“Insufficient people will be able to bask in the glory of your beauty within that setting.”
She frowns at me. Rises. Slowly. “Zakery.”
I wince. “Yes, my princess?”
“Having my scantily-clad image displayed precariously is not allowed . This is a boundary I have. If you choose not to abide, I will no longer pose for you. Ever again.”
I flinch. “I do not like that.”
“You don’t have to like it. You just have to understand it.” Her arms cross. “Why do you even want your wife on display in a house full of mostly men?”
I turn my tablet toward her, show her the glory and beauty that is her excellence . She is the light in the darkness. Seated upon rivulets of ink, gleaming like a sunrise in pink. “I want how I see you to be the first thing you see whenever you come back home. I want you to know you are entering a place that loves you.”
“So this is about me?” Her brow arches.
“Yes.”
“And I don’t want it?”
I frown. “You don’t want loads of things that are good for you. Like to keep a proper sleep schedule—”
“Your fault. Lately.” She flushes.
I flush as well, because, yeah, okay, fine . My fault. Lately . “You drink water about as well as your mother does.”
“I forget water exists. Mom hates it. There’s a difference.”
“You also forget food exists. Face it, Maelin, you do not take care of yourself as well as you should—as well as a goddess deserves.” I wobble the painting at her. “You need more reminders that you are an immaculate being.”
She presses the lock button on my device. “You aren’t supposed to argue with a boundary.”
“If your boundary is that you’re going to jump off a cliff, it’s my job to stop you.”
“These examples are not equally scaled.”
“Your self-perception is very important.”
She grips my chin, and my heart jumps. Dragging my face in, she murmurs, “Zakery…don’t you have other ways to stroke my self-esteem?”
“Y-yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me.”
“Sorry.” I swallow, hard. Confident and secure Maelin has got me on my knees for her. Actually, any version of Maelin could drop me to my knees with a single look. I love her. So much. And feeling that love boil beneath my skin, every day, is a blessing. Wanting her, more violently with every touch we share, is a blessing .
This—whatever this feeling is that she incites—is not doomed to fade. It grows stronger every single minute I’m with her.
She puffs. “Is there any selfish reason you want to hang my picture in the foyer?”
“I…also want to see it whenever I come home. I’m very proud of it.”
Her eyes close, then she deflates. “In that case, do we need to consider moving into another part of the manor? Someplace where our front door is not the main one? Then you can cover the walls in illicit pictures of me, and we just won’t have any company.”
Illicit? Confusion riots. “It’s inappropriate?”
“A little bit, yes.”
“You’re fully clothed.”
She releases my chin and rubs her eye, putting the little pictures I drew on the back of her hand last night on display. “Just…trust me.”
Very well. I do. Lowering my head, I concede. “I apologize if anything I’ve said during this argument has hurt you, and I appreciate your willingness to discuss this matter openly with me. I hadn’t realized the picture was considered inappropriate.”
A smile flirts with her pretty apple red lips. “I’m sorry that this matter was not an opportunity for me to love you.”
“Think nothing of it, my princess.” I kiss her forehead. “You show me you love me in…” My attention drifts, toward cotton-candy blue. “…countless other ways.”
Burying herself in my arms, she groans. “Ignore that.”
Ignore the fact she’s making me a fursuit? Ignore the several hundred dollars of materials she bought yesterday, with the money she earned while modeling for me? Ignore how hilarious it is that she’s actually going through with making me a fursona?
No, I don’t think I will.
I murmur, “Are we furries now, Maelin? I need to know. I think if we are, we should be Cotton Candy. You’ll be Cotton; I’ll be Candy. It’ll be adorable. Kyran can make a website for us. I’ll fill it with furry art. It can be a shrine to our love.”
“Please stop being so into this for the wrong reasons,” she mumbles against my chest. “I’m only making you a fursuit because yesterday morning you said you wished no one had gotten that picture of you laughing at the Creator’s Ball, yet you also wished you could feel comfortable enough to be yourself like that in public more often. Solution? Fursuit.”
Solution: fursuit.
I poorly tamp down a laugh. “You—” I choke on my smile. “—have got —” My eyes begin to water. “—to stop —” I wheeze. “— thinking a fursuit is a good solution to anything .”
Her head tilts back and she squarely pouts at me. “Fine. Be that way. I don’t have to make it for you. I’ll sell it for ten thousand dollars.”
I snort. “I’ll buy it for twenty.”
“Thirty.”
“One hundred.”
“You’re very bad at bartering.” She kisses my jaw, and feelings ignite.
To manage them, I say, “I can’t wait to go undercover at a con with you.”
“It’ll be fun.”
As she cuddles ever closer, I remember…I don’t need to manage these feelings. I am allowed to just feel them. Even when they rock me to the very foundation of my core. “Maelin?”
“Yes?”
“If I paint a wedding photo of us, may I hang that in the foyer?”
Smiling, she says, “Yes, you may.”
Excellent.
I’ll work on that alongside the corrections my editor’s sent me over the next few weeks, then.
Another thought occurs. “Maelin?”
She responds with a soft sound.
I ask, “Who’s going to be our handler?”
She hefts a massive sigh, and says, “ Not Morana. Maybe Kaleb.”
Kaleb would do an excellent job. Viktor, too, but he’s recognizable. And would ponder where he went wrong as a parent.
Flits of emotions dance about in my chest. “I think I’m excited,” I murmur. “This is going to be so much fun.”
“Anything with you is fun.”
The flits turn violent, and I’m not sure they’re mere indicators of excitement anymore. No. This feeling dredges deeper, grasping hold of my soul.
It’s getting easier to identify.
I recognize it a little more each day…
Because love …feels like this .
**
This concludes Maelin and Zakery’s story! Thank you for reading about furries. The Bachelor Brothers’ tales continue with Kaleb’s story in Marrying the Gardener .