Epilogue Aria
Epilogue
Aria
Five years later
Rays of late-afternoon light spread out over us, glistening against the bright blades of green grass that covered the entire yard. A massive tree stood proud in the middle, its dense branches stretching out to provide shade and protection from the summer heat.
We sat beneath it, softly swaying on the double swing that hung from one of its sturdy arms. In the peace, I sketched, my hand swishing a charcoal pencil over the thick paper.
Pax sat next to me, and he had an arm casually slung around my shoulders.
It was Sunday, and everyone had just left an hour ago after they’d been here for a barbecue.
What had become our large, extended family.
My mother and my father.
My brothers, who were still wild but in brand-new ways, both bragging to Pax that they were now taller than he was and were constantly wanting to wrestle him to the ground.
My baby sister, who wasn’t such a baby any longer and was preparing to leave for West Virginia to attend a small university next month.
Dani and Timothy, who lived about twenty minutes away.
And Josephine, who’d moved into a small house directly across the street.
“It was a nice day,” I whispered into the tepid breeze.
The swing faced the back of our little house, and I stared out over the yard.
This sweet, perfect place where we had made our home in Albany.
Pax had asked me where it was that I wanted us to be together forever.
The beach had been nice.
Once the dust had settled, after we’d mourned with the members of our Laven family, we spent four enchanted weeks at a secluded resort in the Caribbean.
But this place?
It’d called me back.
I’d once believed that I would be separated from my family forever. That I had to run. To start a new life because there was no way I could go on under the judgment and scrutiny, even though I knew doing it would break my heart.
But I was no longer misunderstood. Now they saw. And I’d long forgiven what they hadn’t had the capacity to see.
“Yeah. Have to admit, these are my favorite kind of days,” Pax rumbled quietly.
It was amazing to see my husband this way. At peace and surrounded by the people who loved him. By people who recognized him, too.
Maybe he still bore the scars of his childhood. Of his own judgment and rejection. But I knew sometimes when you went without love and support for so long—when you believed it impossible—once you had it, it was so much sweeter.
Truthfully, life was sweet for all of us.
Even my father had found his redemption. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what he’d seen and experienced, or simply because many of the evils of the world had been wiped away.
Stricken down on that day we’d faced Kreed through Ambrose.
I thought the former, since he watched the world with caution. As if he were terrified he might succumb again, ensuring he had a pure heart and a firm mind to fight off any attacks that might come.
But those voices—those voices had been silenced.
Yes, there were still crimes and betrayals. I supposed it was intrinsic, human nature, though there was no longer the badgering of human minds and souls. That thing that tripped them over the edge and sent them toppling into wickedness and degeneracy.
Now there was a new peace that echoed over the land. In our hearts and in our homes. It extended out, traversing all borders and boundaries.
“We should definitely do it every week,” I said with a soft smile pulling at the edges of my mouth.
Pax huffed out a teasing sound that echoed with tenderness. “You want to have everyone over every week, huh? I think it’s just so you can watch me do all the work.”
I shifted so I could slant him a grin. My chest squeezed in a fit of joy. Buzzed with the energy that would forever pull between us. “Really? Says the man who shooed me out of the kitchen and told me to go put up my feet.”
“Well, I can’t have my princess overexerting herself, can I?” Then he smoothed his palm over my protruding belly, and his voice went rough. “Neither of them.”
That joy billowed, gliding through me on a fluttering of wings. Our little girl kicked against his hand. The laugh Pax emitted was nothing but awe and devotion.
“It seems she doesn’t think we need the rest,” I whispered, the words clogged with the adoration I felt.
Pax’s mouth tipped up at the side. “Nah, she’s just agreeing with her daddy.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I bit down on my bottom lip, and I turned back to the drawing pad and started sketching again. The charcoal pencil swished in rhythmic strokes over the thick, textured paper.
Coming to life with the imaginings in my head.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the face that emerged was Pax’s. Those fierce eyes seeming to burn from the page.
White flames.
The way they had done for all the years I’d drawn him, back when he was my darkest secret.
But now, there was so much comfort in that warmth. So much comfort in the way the image formed with the infant held protectively in his arms.
“That’s beautiful, Aria,” he murmured as he peered down at what I’d drawn.
“That’s what you’ve always been to me, Pax. Beautiful. So perfect in every way.”
I rolled onto my back so I was staring up at him. His shock of white hair billowed in the breeze, a bit longer than it’d been when I’d first met him.
The scar that cut through the right side of his face was still prominent, our bodies still riddled with battle wounds.
Reminders of what we’d fought for.
Of the purpose we’d been given.
A prompt for us to cherish the gift we’d been bestowed.
“I’m so thankful I get to share this life with you. This dream that I never thought I could receive.” Love flowed out with my words.
Pax brushed his thumb down my jaw. And he whispered a promise that he’d uttered long ago.
“You’re every dream I’ve ever had. Every vision in the day. Every hope that I’ve dared to have. All of me, it’s yours.”
He paused, then murmured, “You, Aria Morrison, are the reason my heart still beats.”
The rattled cry echoed through the night, dragging me from sleep. A tiny, sweet sound that squeezed my chest in a bout of love when I heard her need for me.
A dull glow filled our room when I flicked on the bedside lamp. I leaned over so I could scoop her out of her bassinet, and I sat up against the headboard and brought her to my breast.
Her cries were immediately stemmed when she latched on, and her little fist bounced around on my chest, trying to find something to hang on to.
I gave her my index finger, my insides fluttering with affection when she squeezed it tight.
Gently, I ran my thumb over the soft skin of the back of her hand as I gazed down at her.
Her precious, delicate face and the shock of black hair on her head.
This child who had become the fruition of our joy. An example of our love. The truest, purest gift that Pax and I had ever received.
That void of loneliness that he and I had once believed we’d forever be subject to filled with our devotion to each other. With our devotion to this family.
And she opened those eyes to me.
Big and wide and full of trust.
My daughter, with her beautiful pale-gray eyes.