Epilogue

Rhokar

Three months later…

Standing beneath the old trees of the Elder Grove, I feel the air stir with magic around us. Ella is beside me dressed in a softly flowing white gown, the twins fidgeting in their own little white outfits just a few steps to our left, and somehow, despite our plans to keep this whole affair small and private, half the town stands behind us to see us married.

"Do you, Ella Davis, take this man as yours, to cherish and to love, to stand beside for all time, until Fate sees fit to welcome you back into her embrace?"

Ismelda speaks with gravitas as our officiant, but her blue eyes spark with joy as she finishes the ceremony with what's become a traditional fae closing.

Ella's fingers find their way to mine, and she squeezes. "I do."

"And do you, Rhokar Strongarm, take this woman as yours; to cherish and to love, to stand beside for all time, until Fate sees fit to welcome you back into her embrace?"

"I do."

I thread my fingers through Ella's and pull her towards me, as Ismelda says something about husband and wife kissing, but I find I'm not listening anymore. All I can focus on is the woman in my arms as I press her body against mine, and smile.

"There's no escape now," I murmur for her ears only, as I lean down to claim my first kiss as husband.

"No refunds or returns," she whispers back, but before I quite manage to make it to her, a tiny body wriggles its way between us.

"Mamma!" I look down to see Rylah standing on my toes, raising her little arms up. "Mamma, up! Up!"

I chuckle as Ella sighs through her smile, and I release her as she bends down to lift our daughter before anyone can come forward and herd the little girl away. "Why do you always get so jealous whenever daddy kisses me?"

"Lah-Lah kiss." Rylah, who's been getting better at speaking these last few months and has taken to calling herself Lah-Lah, turns her chubby cheek towards her mother. "Lah-Lah kiss!"

"Looks like the groom's got himself some competition," Ismelda says to the crowd, and a round of chuckles spreads around us.

I flick a quick glance over the gathering, taking in the colorful array before me. I've always thought of myself as something of a loner, but as I look out into the sea of familiar faces, I realize I'm surrounded by people I've known all my life, people who care enough to offer support as I celebrate one of the happiest days I've known, and with my new family at my side, I feel like I'll never be alone again.

My mother and father are on one side of the aisle, standing beside—and utterly dwarfing—the small figures of Ella's parents. But I noticed them chatting to each other a few times throughout the ceremony, and the sight warmed me. Our families seem to be doing a good job blending together already. Even Lucas, Grace's little blonde son, seems drawn to my side of the family, currently sitting on my father's shoulders and tugging happily on his gray topknot.

Olistaire seems rather drawn to Grace, too, if I'm not mistaking that particular expression of his as he leans over to mutter something in her ear, and she smothers a giggle. As Man and Maid of Honor, weren't they supposed to be standing on either side of Ella and I, rather than together?

I smother a grin of my own. Interesting .

"Alright, I think we still need a kiss here, you two," Ismelda says with a chuckle, as Ella continues to pepper a giggling Rylah with kisses. I draw my attention back as she continues to speak. "Rhokar, Ella, if you will? And then we can get the drinks flowing."

"Alright, baby," Ella says, and moves as if to put Rylah down. "Mommy has to—"

"Wait," I say, stopping her with a squeeze against her arm before I turn and stride towards Rowan, and scoop him up.

When I come to stand before her again, Ella's grin stretches. "We're ready."

"Yes, yes." Ismelda puts on an air of exasperation, but she's smiling as much as the rest of us. "You may kiss the bride."

And with both our arms full, Ella and I step together and kiss, and the crowd cheers.

My body fills with warmth, and my heart tug, tug, tugs in the way that tells me it's syncing with Ella's beat. I've never felt so full, so brimming with love, and a surge of emotion completely overtakes me as I lean further down and wrap my free arm around my woman, with our two children between us. I close my eyes and prolong the kiss, simply because I can.

The warmth within me surges and an odd, pleasant tingle trickles down my spine.

Then Ella gasps, "Rhokar," and pulls back, and I hear the crowd begin to murmur. "Look!"

I open my eyes, and blink. Strangely, there's a warm golden glow surrounding us, slowly brightening as it expands from its center where our bodies meet—mine and Ella's and the two children we hold pressed against us.

"What the?" I begin, but Ismelda gently shushes me, a look of wonder in her eyes.

"Watch," she says reverently, and the crowd goes quiet.

Suddenly, with a woosh that sounds like a thousand whispers in a thousand languages, the light shoots up from between us in a bright golden beam, before bursting like a fountain at the tip and spreading. But instead of raining over us like a golden shower, the strands keep moving, searching, whirling through the air and shooting towards every tree in the grove to connect us in hundreds of golden threads. I feel them pulsing, and I see Ella press a hand over her breast.

"It's beating in time with our hearts," she whispers.

Then the light shoots away from us, absorbed into the trees and down to the earth, and for a moment I can see the intricate network of roots below us, glowing gold and spreading out over the town, before finally fading.

There's a long, stunned silence.

Then a loud, Russian voice bellows, "THIS I DID NOT EXPECT."

Another murmur starts up through the gathering, surprised and mystified, and I turn to see Oskarr, the troll who cooks at Silver Spoon, leaning down as his werewolf boss whispers something agitatedly in his ear. Presumably, telling him not to shout at wedding ceremonies.

A buzz of wings has me turning back around as Ismelda's niece touches down beside us, her lilac dress fluttering and her brows pulled in concern.

"Uh, is this something we need to worry about?" she asks Ismelda, wringing her hands and sending us furtive glances.

"No, dearie," Ismelda replies, which frankly I'm glad to hear, because I wasn't sure what to be thinking myself. "It's a good thing. A blessing from the Fates."

"Oh." Nib's uncertainty drops, and then she smiles. "Really?"

Beside me Ella shifts, leaning into my shoulder, and I wrap my arm tighter around her. "It definitely felt like a blessing."

"Aww," Nib cries, clasping her hands together under her chin as she rises back into the air. "This is the cutest wedding ever! I'll go explain it to everyone and get them to disperse towards the tables. Auntie Isme?"

"I'll organize the witnesses for the signatures. I'll meet you two by the table in a minute with the marriage certificates."

"I guess we don't need to walk back down the aisle," Ella says, as we watch everyone trail off. "Bit anticlimactic after all that!"

"Shame," I mutter, leaning down to brush my lips over her forehead. "I was going to throw you over my shoulder and everything."

"Barbarian!" Ella gasps, ginning, as she smacks at my chest. "Rowan, smack daddy! He's being naughty!"

Rowan's already huge eyes widen further, and he shakes his head, before gently patting my cheek. "Daddy," he mumbles quietly, with another little pat, pat.

It's the first time he's called me that, and my heart swells in my chest as I meet Ella's surprised, happy blue gaze. But then Rylah immediately squeals in delight and begins to smack at my chest with both hands, and I laugh and grab her in one hand, throwing her over my shoulder and holding her wriggling, giggling body firmly, as I turn to walk down the now empty aisle.

"At least I got one of my girls down the aisle like this," I say, shooting a mischievous look over my shoulder at the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on. My future. "Are you coming, love?"

"Yes, sir!" Ella lifts her gown and comes to walk beside me down the aisle, the four of us striding together towards our future.

"Good girl." I grin, feeling my lips stretch wider over my tusks at her eyeroll.

And I know that whatever comes, we'll be ready to face it together.

Meanwhile in Whispering Pines…

Ismelda

Three stirs clockwise, one anti-clockwise, wait three seconds… now the pinch of powdered moonstone.

The gently bubbling potion before me shudders within the cauldron, and then shimmers from deep brown into a translucent silver. Yes!

I suppress a little hop of excitement—because my hips haven't supported hopping

for a good twenty years now—and I remove my silver stirring rod and lower the fire, allowing it to simmer for a few minutes before the next step.

Standing straight, I crack my back with a satisfied groan and shuffle towards my surprisingly comfortable gingerbread chair, reaching for the now cold and forgotten tea I left on the table when I started brewing. I heat it between my palms with a little magic as I start my timer, and sip.

My, my, this potion really has given me the run around these past few months. A luring potion is easy enough, of course, if you're happy to lure anything and everything that moves and breathes. Not particularly useful, though. Not unless all you need is a bothersome distraction.

Getting it to lure children is only marginally more difficult. Just a few tweaks and one unfortunate slip up with the twins—which I still feel a little guilty about, although it triggered Rhokar's Claiming Chase and got those two stubborn mules together finally, so not too

guilty. Still, in the end, I had that potion perfected within two weeks.

No, that isn't what I've been cooped away in this little gingerbread cottage every other weekend working on for months. I have specific people I need to draw to Whispering Pines, and it's rather more difficult to narrow this thing down to a single being only.

Especially since I don't know who I'll be targeting yet, exactly.

Ella was easy enough to bring here. Once Nib told me what Olistaire had let slip about Rhokar's one night stand, I'd put two and two together and had barely needed more than a scrying set for my tracking spell, and some good old-fashioned meddling to get her here.

My instincts had been right about those two being Fated, and once The Reawakening had happened at their wedding and pumped magic back into our little town, I knew my mission was blessed, and I set my mind to it more seriously.

Bring more Fated Matches to Whispering Pines.

Specifically, bring more human

matches to town, to help restore balance to our little corner of the world.

A warbling, high mewl sounds from the window, and I stand to open the candy-glass pane and let Gigi in, who butts her fuzzy black-and-white forehead against my palm before slinking through. She drops wild sage on the windowsill—collected by a Familiar on the day of the brewing—before running to immediately take the seat I've just warmed for her.

"Oh, you little thief," I mutter with a smile, but my timer goes off and I head back to the cauldron and leave her to her victory seat. "You're lucky this time, Gigi."

She purrs as she curls into a tight ball, wrapping her tail over her nose and watching me.

I pick off four sprigs from the bundle in my hand, throw the last one over my shoulder, and sprinkle the other three into the simmering liquid. With three more clockwise stirs, it should soon turn a deep gold.

I've been keeping my eyes and ears open to catch the rumors of human-fae Fated Mates that have been cropping up. Previously unheard of in all our histories, the strange phenomenon seems to be snowballing all around the world since the first recorded case in New Zealand, and it's gaining traction rapidly in recent years.

My druid contact in Ireland has mentioned a return of unicorns in an area where five or six of the cross-fae Mates have been confirmed. A shaman in Iceland says their mermaids were drawn back to the surface and re-opened trade after the fourth human-fae couple came together in their area, and my friend Luana in Brazil swears up and down that she saw a caipora, a guardian of the rain forests, mere days after the first human-fae Fated Match was made in their village.

It's more than just promising. It's downright exciting . All my life I've been struggling with the loss of our culture, of our magic and our creatures, all progressively dwindling as the industry of the humans rose, and they took over the land. It's the reason we had to band together as fae so tightly, to keep our magics combined and stop them from fading away, like bringing many branches together to make a roaring fire rather than letting the singular flames die out more quickly on their own. For generations us fae coming together in secret communities to boost our magic was working…until suddenly, it wasn't enough anymore. There weren't enough of us, there were too many humans and too few natural magical keystones to build our communities around. Everything was off balance, and we were beginning to get smothered out as a consequence.

It was getting more and more difficult for us to hide ourselves, and then out of nowhere the centauress in New Zealand stepped into the light and made herself know to the world, and everything changed. At the side of her Fated Mate, who was leader of his country, the two of them forged a path forward with integrative policies, in one of the rare countries that had more fae—and sheep—than humans, and set a precedent that the world slowly followed.

But there's still a lot of strife between our two sides—the magic, and the mundane. It's neither the human's fault, nor the fae's, that our ways don't mesh. And yet blame is still slung and hate still simmers.

But this— this is our hope. We don't need to fight one another, we need to come together, as the first mixed Fated Mates couple did. With the merging of human and fae spirits in love, we're forging a new path forward, one that strengthens both sides and restores wonder and balance to our world.

And I, for one, have every intention of… Well, hurrying

the process along here in Whispering Pines, so to speak.

Taking a golden sieve out of my cabinet, I potter back over to the cauldron and fish out the sage, watching in satisfaction as the potion deepens into a warm gold.

"Oh-ho!" I cry with a fist pump, "I did it!"

I make sure to throw the remaining three sprigs over my shoulder as well, before clattering through my clay pots, looking for my supply of troxi wings. If I can get this potion to glow, I'll be able to lure any being I desire. And then I'll be able to bring in more Fated Matches.

Well, first I'll have to figure out how to blend this with the Fated Search potion so that the Luring Potion knows who to lure, without it exploding in my face. But we'll cross that bridge later.

First, I have to find my wings…

In any case, I'm in no rush. It may take a while before I can directly call a Fated Match to town, but that won't stop me from starting on the next Match much, much sooner than that.

I've already got my eye on that Grace Davis girl, Ella's sister. My instincts roared to life when I saw her at the wedding, and after Nib relayed all the gossip concerning her and our town's most charming minotaur, Olistaire, I have a very good feeling I can bring the next Match in before this potion is even complete.

A very good feeling.

The End