Epilogue
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Face it. It was always going to end this way.
Morana
“At last, we can finally pronounce our undying love before everyone we care about,” Crisis says, starry-eyed, as she holds Crimson’s hands beneath a large flowering arbor in the Bachelors’s lush yard.
Petals stream on the breeze, catching in any of the five present wedding dresses, and I sigh, smiling at my friends.
“Does anyone else feel like we’re imposing on this beautiful moment?” Clara asks, sweetly tucked against Lukas’s bare chest, because not even a wedding will get the man into something that might hope to cover his rippling pecs.
Alas, I did have some small amount of hope that my eyes might not be blinded during my proper ceremony.
Viktor, nudged to the side with Kaleb, mutters, “I don’t feel like I’m imposing on anything. In the slightest.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Kyran states, a finger lifted to his dry eye. “What a moment.”
Zakery snorts.
Very cutely, Crimson plucks a flower from the arbor, checks it for bugs or bees, then places it in Crisis’s hair once she’s sure it’s safe. “My love for you burns ever brighter each day, dearness.”
“My heart seldom beats without you in my mind.”
“Darling.”
“Angel.”
Viktor snaps, intrudes upon the precious moment, and separates the two of them to corner his bride away from her one true love. Despairing, Crisis throws out her arm. “Crim, noo!”
Kaleb intercepts Crimson as she makes to regain Crisis. “Cris!” she cries.
It’s all very…cinema.
“Wow,” I tell my husband, “I sure am glad we’re normal.”
“I absolutely agree with you, mistress.” Kyran’s gaze meanders over me, in my pink and black wedding gown…with wings. Because pretty. And because who’s going to stop me if I want to look like a celestial tokidoki on my big day? No one, that’s who.
Not here.
Not surrounded by people who love with their whole hearts and care for each other like family, because we are, because before we were, we chose to be.
The cellophane of my wings catches light and casts rainbows across Maelin, who giggles as she reaches for my hand. “Do you think this is what Dad wanted our wedding to be like?”
Glancing out toward the first row of chairs where our family sits in the swathe of green amid so many more flowers than I thought could exist in one place, I say, “Yeah. This is exactly what he expected, I’m sure.
” Leading five girls up an aisle, as the designated only good father among them.
Standing in a sea of petals, as the two chaotic besties of the bunch abandoned their grooms in favor of each other.
Tearing up beside our mother, who has been making a point of slow clapping after every kiss.
What else would anyone even expect of a wedding, right?
Maelin’s smile competes with the sun as Kaleb and Crimson finish their vows and get their kiss. She whispers, “My turn,” then joins Zakery before the officiant, who is Peter, because Kyran insisted he really knows how to marry people, and Crisis could not care less.
Settling in closer to me, Kyran murmurs, “We’re next.”
My stomach flutters as our hands find each other to tangle. “Yeah, we are.”
“I still can’t believe we went oldest to youngest.”
“Viktor was going to have a meltdown if he couldn’t get married first when everyone else already has been.”
“Your point?”
I roll my eyes toward my husband.
He rolls his toward me. Then sticks out his tongue.
“Brat,” I clip.
Drawing my hand to his lips, he murmurs, “Baby.”
With a huff, I say, “Husband.”
Lips tipping into a smile against my skin, he replies, “Wife.”
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This concludes Morana and Kyran’s story! As well as the Bachelor Brother series! Thank you for coming along into the wonderful world of Sunset, West Virginia. If you’re interested in a new adventure, might I recommend How to Fake Date Your Grumpy Boss? It has kittens.
This was supposed to be an opportunity to get the job of my dreams…now it’s an absolute scandal. Good thing fiction has taught me how to handle those.
Read Now.
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