Epilogue
Ayear later…
“You need to change,” Victoria told her husband. He sat on the bed—big, nude, and green. “And you need to get dressed.”
She was flitting around the room, putting on earrings and fixing a stylish comb into her long hair.
“I still have time.”
“We should be down there early, greeting guests and tending to Mrs. Rebecca.”
“Your mother is tending to Mrs. Rebecca just fine. Besides, she loves leading social events.”
“You are trying to avoid the social event.”
“I am trying to figure out a way to trick my wife into coming back to bed. If that keeps me from exchanging false pleasantries with the women of the knitting circle, then I don’t know what to tell you. I am a man of good taste.”
“You are a beast,” Victoria teased. Elias caught her by the waist and pulled her close to him.
“What do you think of all this?”
“Of what? Your uncle’s marriage?”
“Yes. Don’t you think it’s odd for a man his age?”
“Not at all. Elias, do you mean to say Lord Reginald is too old for love?”
“The man is almost ninety!”
“And do you not constantly promise me that your love will never fade? I hope you will still want me when we are ninety.”
“I will want you until I am a hundred, Victoria.”
“That’s not good enough.” She poked the tip of his fang.
“I will want you beyond this life and well into the next.”
“That’s better.”
“I will love you, my wife, for all eternity.”
“That’s it.” They kissed and Elias shifted easily back into his human form. It seemed that the moment the relationship between himself and Victoria became stable, the potion began to work again. Lord Reginald pointed his finger at some mysterious thing he called hormones. But Elias attributed it to the peace he felt in the presence of his wife. She grounded him and it made the shift easier and more natural than it had ever been before. And now, instead of always fighting his true form, he remained in it often—in the woods and in the safety of Edenbridge Hall.
Now, as he changed into his fully human disguise, the alteration in size caused them both to tumble back onto the bed. Victoria squealed and giggled. “You’ll wrinkle my dress! I want to look nice for the reception!”
“You always look ravishing. You could go downstairs stark naked and all people would say is how ravishing you looked.”
“I’m sure they would,” was her sarcastic reply.
Victoria kissed her husband again before rolling out of bed.
Elias followed her to the wardrobe, where she chatted with him as he buttoned his shirt and vest. He pulled on his trousers, only half listening to the story she was telling about some clever thing Mrs. Rebecca had said in the laboratory the day before.
Victoria spent a significant amount of time with Mrs. Rebecca, ever since Lord Reginald had invited her to come to stay at Edenbridge three months before. The visit was meant to last a month, but one month turned to two, two to three, and three to an engagement. Eighty-seven years a bachelor were about to come to a happy end.
“It makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“What does?”
“Love, marriage, aging, all this happiness.”
“Yes, I suppose it does.”
“Do you miss the sea ever?”
“Oh, sometimes I wish you and I were sailing—the sun and wind on our faces. But I don’t long for it the way I used to.”
Elias hummed, acknowledging her words.
“But what does it make you think, husband of mine?”
“I think it makes me feel connected to something quite large, something bigger than myself and eternal. I feel connected to the love my parents had for one another—and even the love your mother and father had, though I had never known George. Still…
Elias considered it more deeply.
“I think I feel like I am part of an eternal family that will hold me forever and unconditionally. I don’t feel like an outsider anymore. I don’t feel like a monster.”
“You were never a monster.”
“Perhaps not. But until you taught me how to love, until you opened these doors for me…I certainly felt like one.”
“My darling.” Victoria kissed her husband deeply, and at the culmination of the kiss he rested his forehead against hers.
“Let’s go enjoy the party, love. I will be the most charming and social man in the room! I will make you, my uncle, Mrs. Rebecca, and your mother proud. Hell, even Mary will be in awe.”
Victoria laughed as her husband slipped his fingers between hers and led her downstairs to the bustling wedding reception below.
Edenbridge Hall was alive, and happy, filled with friends and family—and so it was, for many generations to come.