Epilogue
Anne
Violet will not stop adjusting my veil. Sienna, seated on the bed behind us with a glass of champagne, has been watching us with great amusement for the last ten minutes and doing absolutely nothing to help.
“It’s fine,” I tell Violet.
“It’s slightly off center.”
“No one is going to notice.”
“I’m going to notice.” She steps back, tilts her head, steps forward again. “There. Perfect.”
I look at myself in the mirror. The dress is simple—ivory, fitted through the waist, falling in soft folds to the floor.
The veil is a length of sheer fabric pinned into my hair that Violet has adjusted six times.
My reflection looks like someone who is about to get bonded to her mate in front of her entire pack and is trying very hard not to cry before she even gets to the ceremony.
“Don’t,” Violet says, reading my face. She points at me. “Do not cry right now. Your makeup is perfect, and I will not redo it.”
I laugh, which is better than the alternative. “I won’t.”
“You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The look you get when you’re about to insist you’re fine and then immediately not be fine.” She takes my hands, her grip firm and warm. Her eyes are bright with joy for me. “You’re allowed to be happy, Anne. Just happy. Nothing complicated today.”
“She’s right,” Sienna says from the bed, clearly enjoying being entirely unhelpful. “Also, you look beautiful. And I’m going to cry at the ceremony, so don’t look at me.”
I squeeze Violet’s hands. She’s right. I know she’s right. There is nothing complicated about today.
The clearing has been transformed.
I knew it would be. I planned it, spent two weeks deciding on flowers and candles and the exact placement of ribbons through the trees. But seeing it in the golden evening light, actually walking toward it on Violet’s arm, is different from planning it on paper.
White flowers line both sides of the stone pathway. Candles burn inside glass orbs hung from branches, swaying gently, and the ribbons catch the light and move in the breeze. The whole clearing glows, as warm and soft as a held breath.
The pack is assembled on both sides of the path.
I see faces I know from the office, from years of morning greetings at the coffee machine and shared lunches and the quiet, daily fabric of working alongside people for so long, they become like family without you quite noticing.
Priya from accounting, who cried when I told her, who asked four times what she could bring to the reception and was finally told firmly that she could bring herself.
Marcus from the fourth floor, who shook my hand and looked so genuinely pleased, I had to smile.
Half a dozen others who know nothing about the attack, nothing about the Covenant, nothing about what these past months actually were.
Who simply knew that Anne from administration had found her mate and was happy, and that was enough for them to show up in their good clothes on a Tuesday evening and cheer.
I am glad they don’t know. I want today to be exactly this. Ordinary joy, simple and straightforward, with no shadow of what it cost to get here falling across the light.
Tonight is just this. There will be time for the rest of it later.
I see Kain, and the rest of it falls away entirely.
He is standing at the end of the pathway in dark, ceremonial attire, watching me with an expression I have no proper name for—beyond fondness, beyond want, the expression of a man who has come a very long way to get to this exact moment and knows precisely how valuable it is.
He looks like himself. He looks like the boy from the photograph on my desk and also nothing like him, and both things at once are almost too much.
He smiles when he sees my face, and I force myself not to cry.
The walk down the pathway is both very long and over immediately. Kain takes my hands when I reach him; his grip is steady and warm, the bent, gold ring solid on my finger where I hold on. He looks at me like there is no one else in this clearing. Like there is no one else anywhere in the world.
“Hi,” I manage.
“Hi.” His thumbs trace circles on the backs of my hands. “You look beautiful.”
I cannot say anything to this. I just hold on tighter.
The officiant begins. I listen to the traditional words, the old language of pack bonding that I have heard at ceremonies since I was small, familiar as a song I know by heart. Through our bond, I can feel Kain clearly, steady and full and entirely certain.
When it is time for the vows, I say mine and mean every word of them. I feel him mean his in return, the bond carrying the truth of them back to me so there is no room for doubt.
“I now pronounce you bonded,” the officiant says. “You may kiss your mate.”
Kain does not wait. He brings one hand up to my face and kisses me, and the pack erupts around us. Our bond rings between us like a struck bell—warm and resonant and right.
When we break apart, I am laughing and crying at the same time, which is undignified and completely beyond my ability to stop.
“We did it,” I say.
“We did.” He wipes a tear from my cheek, his eyes glistening. “Took us long enough.”
I laugh again, without tears this time, and he kisses me once more while the pack is still cheering.
The celebration that follows is everything I wanted.
Priya wraps me in a hug so enthusiastic, it lifts me slightly off the ground. She tells me Kain is wonderful, and she knew it the moment she met him—which is not true, but I love her for saying it.
Marcus shakes Kain’s hand with great seriousness and tells him he had better take care of me, and Kain, with equal seriousness, agrees to do so.
The rest of the office follows in a warm tide of congratulations and questions about how we met and exclamations about the dress and the flowers, and I stand in the middle of it all and smile at my mate.
Violet and Sienna find me eventually, a bottle of champagne and three glasses in their hands. Violet pops the cork and pours us each a glass. Sienna’s eyes are visibly red-rimmed, which she is pretending is my fault.
“I told you not to cry,” she says. “And I told you not to look at me!” She holds up her champagne glass as if it is a shield.
“I didn’t cry until after we kissed. That doesn’t count.”
“It absolutely counts.” But she is smiling. She clinks her glass against mine. “You look radiant. Annoyingly so.”
“Thank you for today,” I say. “For everything.”
Violet shakes her head. “Don’t thank me. All I did was adjust your veil.”
“Seven times.”
“Six.” She sips her champagne and smiles at me. “Go dance with your husband.”
Kain finds me before I can find him—the bond giving us away to each other as it always does. He takes the glass from my hand and sets it on the nearest table before pulling me onto the dance floor.
I go willingly. I will always go willingly with him.
He holds me close, one hand in mine and the other at the small of my back, and we sway together in the golden light while the music plays and the pack celebrates around us and the candles in the glass orbs glow warmly overhead.
His chin rests on my head, and I can feel his heartbeat—not only against my cheek where I’ve pressed it to his chest but also through the mate bond.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
I consider the question before replying. Honestly, I am thinking about every moment we’ve ever shared and how none of it brought us anywhere except here.
“Nothing,” I say. “Everything. I don’t know.”
He pulls back slightly to look at my face.
“Good everything or bad everything?”
“Good.” I pull him back toward me. “All of it good.”
He presses his lips to the top of my head and holds me closer. We keep dancing, the music carrying us away, and through the bond, I can feel him feeling the same thing as me: the peace of two people who have come a very long way and have arrived, finally, at the place they were always meant to be.
The candles glow. The pack celebrates. The stars come out above the clearing one by one.
I close my eyes and let myself have it. All of it, entirely, without having to brace for what comes after.
Nothing comes after except more of this.
And this is enough. This is everything.