Epilogue
Everett
“Mommy, you’re sooo pretty,” Nia, our five-year-old, says, her voice full of awe.
“Thank you, baby.” Aurora’s arms are wedged between us.
My arms make sure she’s as close as I can get her.
Still, she manages to crane her elegant neck at our daughter, offering her one of her warmest smiles.
Even my soul thaws when she aims it at me.
“Mom, please, you don’t have to keep thanking her. She’s been saying it over and over since we left the house,” August pitches in.
At six years old, he’s more sarcastic than I would’ve liked.
But not as sarcastic as he would’ve liked, I imagine. His lips twitch into a small smile as he helps his little sister throw the other end of the solar-powered fairy lights up and over my shoulders.
“August.” I look down at him, biting back a smile of my own. I’m never really upset with our children. Impossible, when I love them so much it hurts. “Apologize to your sister.”
“Fine, you’re right. Mommy’s always beautiful.” He hugs Nia, offering her his half-assed apology. Together, the two of them avoid—barely—the two white bouquets they left on the ground before the string lights mission started. “I’m sorry.”
“Aww,” Aurora whispers so only I can hear.
My beautiful bride rises onto her tiptoes.
I don’t wait for her to offer me any fucking thing. I lean in, capturing her mouth with mine.
Her red lipstick is smeared. Her gown is crumpled in my hands.
I’m grabbing her so tight, needing her so close, that the lace material of her corset is about to tear.
It will tear. Later, when we’re home. When we’re done with our real wedding, as we explained it to the kids.
That was my idea, by the way. Aurora has never gotten the ceremony that she deserves. I never had my family surrounding me like I do now, in this graveyard. With their tombstones at our feet.
Back then, our wedding was all wrong.
By the time my heart was in the right place and I wanted to make it right for her, the Clarkes’ trials started.
Then Aurora got pregnant the first and second time. Our entire focus was on our perfect children and us. Our family.
Together, we created two clever, gorgeous children. We’ve been wrapped up in them since.
Time flew, as it always does.
Now, we’re finally here.
Next to our family’s burial plot.
August, my best man, and I match in black tuxes.
Aurora is in an elegant white gown, her hair tumbling down her back.
Last but not least, Nia. My brilliant girl is wearing a glimmering blue dress that accentuates her blue eyes.
Speaking of ideas—being enveloped in fairy lights was hers. She’s obsessed with fairytales, with happy endings. With magic.
Can’t blame her for that.
I, too, believe in magic.
After all, that’s what brought her mom and me together.
No other way to explain how seeds of pain and violence have sprouted into a tree of love. Of life.
Of hope.
“Okay.” She pulls back, staring down at her big brother, even though he has a few inches on her. “You’re forgiven.”
“Oh my God.” Aurora hides her laugh by burying her face in my chest. The sound, like everything else about her, heals old wounds in me. “She’s a carbon copy of you.”
“Me?” I stroke the length of her back, moving my hand as much as our restraints allow.
“Yes, you.”
“No, Mrs. Alder.” A smirk tugs on my lips. “She definitely got it from you, brat.”
In the background, our kids are bickering again, their argument growing louder.
“You know what? I don’t need your forgiveness.” Our son huffs.
“You’re taking back your apology?” Nia gasps.
Yeah, that’s both of us all right.
Both Aurora and I turn to gaze at them.
“All I’m saying is…” There’s a crack in August’s severe expression. He’s loved Nia from the moment Aurora and I told him he was going to be a big brother. He was barely three months old, and he was all in. Parents know. “You weren’t wrong.”
“No, I was not.”
“What about you, husband?” Aurora tips her chin up, beautiful with the light glowing softly on her face. “Are you willing to admit that I wasn’t wrong?”
“Brat.” I put my mouth close to her ear. “You’re getting collared and punished tonight.”
“The collar?” Her skin heats, her cheek burning against mine.
God, I want her. I can’t wait to put the electro collar around her neck tonight, whether she’s asking for it or not.
My hands tense on her back at the idea. From the depraved thoughts of zapping her, standing above her as I watch her drop to her knees.
I can’t do that right now.
Reason one is that the kids are right here.
Reason two is that the collar is out of reach. We hide it in the closet in a locked safe, where August and Nia won’t find it.
Though there’s nothing wrong with her wearing one, the original one is bulky. The leather, the receiver. The whole thing stands out.
Our children would’ve asked questions. Ones we’d prefer to avoid.
Hence, the simple yet elegant stainless-steel eternity collar Aurora wears throughout the day.
She wears it while she’s home with our kids, being the incredible mom she is. When she volunteers at the hospital. When we stay up late, and she crawls to me, seductive and gorgeous, begging for me to feed her.
Anyway.
Unless we’re playing, she has this collar on.
“Yes.” One kiss to her jaw has her shivering. She’s pressing herself up against me. The love of my fucking life. “The collar.”
She sucks in a breath. “This isn’t a good idea tonight.”
“Who said you had a choice?” I part my lips, my teeth grazing her neck in a silent threat.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to shock me because…” Her pulse races against my mouth, her breathing shallow and quick.
I’m not a patient man. Even less so when my wife keeps things from me.
I bite her. Taste her skin.
“Pregnant.” Aurora grasps the lapels of my tux. “I’m pregnant.”
My eyes squeeze shut as emotions race through my body. These feelings, they’d been nothing but words before Aurora walked into my life.
Love.
Obsession.
Possessiveness.
An unrelenting need to keep her and my family safe no matter what.
The power of them slams into my chest like a wrecking ball.
“Daddy, are you okay?” Nia peeps, jumping so she can reach my hand and tap on it. “Daddy?”
“He’s a little surprised, that’s all.” I feel Aurora’s head turning to the side.
“He looks like he’s about to fall on you.” August is worried. I hear it in his voice. “Or something. Dad?”
“I fucking love you. Fuck, Aurora. You’re fucking perfect,” I murmur in her ear.
“I love you too.” Her lips are soft on my throat.
“What’s going on?” both our kids demand. Then, as always, they both scream, “Jinx!”
Fucking adorable. I hope they never change.
Before a second round of bickering starts, this time about who said it first, I stand up taller.
In the hush of the graveyard, I look at her, then at our kids. I swallow around the lump in my throat. Let the immense happiness show by offering them a faint smile. We’ll bring up their future sibling later. At home. Once these feelings aren’t as suffocating.
“Are you okay?” August’s eyes narrow.
“I’m fine,” I manage, thanks to Aurora’s steady hands on my chest. She helps me breathe. “All right, you two. Why don’t you recite what you practiced so well at home?”
In other words, our kids are going to officiate their parents.
This is a private ceremony for our family alone.
Stafford was the only one invited, but he couldn’t join us.
After Winston and Molly were thrown behind bars for abusing a minor and the murder of my sister, Aurora’s mother, he bought their business for cheap. Paid them thirty cents on the dollar since no one wanted anywhere near it.
Aurora was excited about it. She wasn’t interested in their empire, their wealth.
Being my wife means she’ll never want for anything.
Plus, I knew it was a good opportunity for Stafford to get richer and help more people in need.
And that’s exactly what he’s been doing.
In what little spare time he has, he’s been a vital part of our family. He’s the closest thing our kids have to an uncle.
He loves them, and they love him.
Hopefully, we’ll get to be in his wedding soon.
“Okay.” Nia nods. Both she and August pick their bouquets off the ground. They stare at each other, then at us. “What’s the first line again?”
Aurora’s lips curve up. “Dearly beloved.”
“Dearly beloved.” August opts to try to mimic the tone of my voice when I’m on a business call.
I’d laugh if these two weren’t taking it so seriously. My precious kids.
“Granny, grandpa,” Nia goes after him, referring to my parents.
Technically, they’re their grandparents and great-grandparents. We explained to them how our family tree is built. When it comes to their titles, though, we keep it short and to the point.
Same as we do with—
“Graunty Lotus.” Grandma-Auntie.
Aurora’s breath catches at the sound of her mother’s name on our son’s lips. My heart twitches as I cast my gaze over their tombstones.
They’re resting now, I’m sure of that.
They are. Together, Aurora and I ensured that justice was served.
“Very good,” I encourage them.
“Dad, you want to marry Mom again?” Our son recites what was easiest for both him and his sister to remember.
My eyes lock on Aurora’s. New tears swirl in hers, the blue in them reminding me of the sea in Capri, Italy. We spend two months of the year at our beach house in Europe, waking up to the bluest waters I’ve ever seen.
But they’ve got nothing on her. Nothing is as deep, as soulful, and perfect as my wife.
With her smeared lipstick and streaks of mascara running down her cheeks, she’s easily the most stunning woman in the world.
“I do.”
“And you, Mommy.” Nia tugs on the skirt of Aurora’s wedding gown, coaxing a sweet laugh out of her. “Do you want to? Marry Dad? Again?”
“I do,” she tells our kids.
She tells me.
I can’t take another second of not having my lips on hers. And though this kiss is a peck on the lips, as tame as possible compared to our first wedding, we still hear ew from below us.
Adorable. Sickeningly so.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’m theirs and they’re mine.
For the rest of our lives.
The End.