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Epilogue
Vahadr
“Well, this is going better than expected.”
“Hmm?”
I turn towards Ana, who is seated beside me at the center of a long, formal dining table facing a sea of mingling guests, and it’s almost like I’m seeing her for the first time. It’s been like this all day; every time I catch another glimpse of her looking absolutely breathtaking in her traditional joining ceremony ensemble (well, almost traditional—she insisted that the outfit must be white), my mind flickers into a brief blankness and all I can think is, My wife.
“Today is supposed to be about you and I coming together,” she continues, happily unaware that her new husband has lost his mind, “but look over there.”
It takes more effort than it should to draw my eyes away from her, but I look where she is pointing.
“Yes,” I say after a moment, not particularly sure what I’m supposed to be seeing. “Kiryn is sitting with Mari.”
“Uh-huh,” she draws out, and when I look back she has a conspiratory little grin on her lips. “Even though their seats are supposed to be up here on opposite sides of us, they’ve been down there for hours. Sitting together. Very close together.”
“Are you implying a sexual interest between the two?”
She finally turns her gaze back to mine with a glare and smacks my forearm. “I was implying a romantic interest, Vahadr! That’s my baby sister you’re talking about!”
“I see,” I hum, taking the mild, clinical tone that I know will make her eyes spit a little more fire at me. “And you’re under the impression that she is therefore a chaste and pure female?”
Ana leans a little closer and although her green eyes narrow, her perfect lips lift into a grin. “You’re doing it on purpose again, aren’t you? Trying to make me mad?”
My own lips lift to match hers. “Perhaps.”
“I don’t know if I should hit you or kiss you.”
“Kiss me, obviously.”
She rolls her eyes, but when she closes the distance between us and does just that, it’s probably fair to say I am the happiest male on this sphere.
A few humans whoop and cheer down on the tables when they see us, clinking cutlery against their glasses in their insistence on displaying every emotion that passes through them, and I smile faintly as I pull back from Ana. “Your species is strange.”
“Too late, you’re stuck with me now!” She grins. “No take-backsies.”
“Never.”
“Ana!” Asili’s high voice shrills as he storms over to us, his face scrunched in a scowl. “Marco won’t play with me anymore!” His shoes clip to a stop between my chair and Ana’s, and he crosses his arms haughtily. “Order him to come and play with me again!”
“Asili, Marco’s your cousin now,” I say, and his angry little face turns towards me. “We don’t order our cousins around.”
“But Father…”
“We don’t order anyone around,” Ana corrects, leveling me with a glower over the top of Asili’s head, before she takes his hand in hers and draws him closer. “If Marco’s tired of playing, why don’t you go see what Bianca’s doing? Maybe she can teach you how to do the Macarena.”
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t you go and ask her?”
She pushes Asili back off into the crowd, but as he leaves with his new mission and she turns to me, her face looks downcast and she sighs, fiddling with the edge of her napkin.
“You are thinking of Elena again, aren’t you,” I murmur.
“Are you sure we’re doing the right thing, here? Not telling Asili that Marco and Bianca are actually his relatives, and not just because of our marriage? That I’m his aunt? That this baby in my stomach will be his…his cousin-sibling?”
I lay my hand against Ana’s still flat stomach and give it a gentle caress. “Do you think it is the right thing to do?”
