Page 54 of Omission: Part 2

I’ve never wanted to buy everything in sight before, but I was very close that day to spending a small fortune. My first real shopping spree. I perused the racks for hours that day, looking for something to wear to Isabella and Xadiel’s re-do ceremony, as she calls it, when I found it.

My dress. The one I’d wear on the night of my wedding.

Made in the palest shade of lavender, the satin slip dress falls elegantly to the floor with a high split over my right leg. Then, there are the spaghetti straps with a plunging neckline that accentuates the larger breasts the pregnancy left behind as a gift to my male for months of crazy hormones and cravings.

“Are you almost ready? The sun sets in less than five minutes,” Gabriella calls out, knocking on the door once while I hear Isa herding the kids out of the room with the help of my mother, who’s become super grandmother to all our kids. She loves them and they adore her spoiling ways, but lately, there’s a new sparkle in her eye. A change in her, and I wonder why…

Maybe Isa knows? I’ll ask her after.

“Just slipping on my dress, almost out.” Fixing and adjusting, I check myself in the mirror, and what I see brings a smile to my face. My blonde hair is curled and my makeup is soft, shades of shimmering pink and light purple with a nude, glossy lip and a bit of mascara tie in the look together. I’m beautiful and feel it, too. I’m happy, truly so, and there isn’t a single thing left behind of the broken fae princess Leo met a little less than two years ago. “I belong with him.”

Tanix and I are waiting, my female. Come to us.

Exiting the bathroom, I pick up a small tiara and hand it to Gabby, who pins it in place and then hugs me before tugging me along behind her. The ceremony is being held on Wiccan grounds, but my people are in attendance along with other close friends. There’s an open portal between the two realms; it sits on spacious land with easy access to our home while still being private enough to not intrude on the daily lives of our coven.

Not that they don’t love it, because they do. Most take vacations there and have made lifelong friendships with new business opportunities or Friday night board games: a new craze in the fae world.

However, it’s the four waiting on my path to Leo, a little sunflower and lily in their hands, that make me cry. I can’t help it. I’m touched by the gesture. More so when Gabriella, who’d rushed to her spot after exiting the house, comes right back and wipes under each eye. She snorts and shakes her head, but then tells me tobuck upbecause all the women in the family have been super emotional on their wedding days.

She has a way with words and a bigger heart, and I’m laughing with her between trembling chins and deep breaths to calm down. Her mate is next.

Theodore’s never been one for a lot of words, but you know he cares in subtle ways. It’s bringing you a present just because, or amusing me when I send him emojis of how Tanix is doing that day or the way he says, “I’m proud of you, little sister.”

He hands me his flowers before I can respond and then glares at my tears, which makes me laugh again. It’s a vicious cycle that carries over when I notice his lily is blood red, and I don’t care that it doesn’t fit in with any decoration or theme—the thought counts. He wanted to be a part of my day.

Isa and Xadiel join us next, and the werewolf zooms in on the red flower immediately. “That cheating arsehole.” Not the first time I hear it and it won’t be the last, but I am amused, as is his wife when he ties a green and gold ribbon around the makeshift bouquet. His mate raises a brow, which he only shrugs to, unashamed of the one-upping games the two men play. “I came prepared, little moon. We know how he is.”

Said vampire was right behind me and merely responded with a hiss, my cue to find my male. The calmer of the three, yet just as deadly when you touch what he holds dear.

Up ahead, there’s a break in the pathway he created for this day.

At first, we wanted to have our ceremony right away, but then ideas formed. The things we wanted shifted, and having Tanix be a part of this day was something that felt right for Leonardo and me, and we were right.

I find the two most important people in the world standing under the rising moon in their coven colors and with the cutest smiles on their faces. They watch me walk the rest of the way to them while our siblings find their seats, and when I accept my male’s hand, I hear it.

That second heartbeat.

He hears it, and the blue eyes that I adore smolder as he wraps his other arm around me and holds his family close. It’s a little difficult to have a binding ceremony when the man’s hands are occupied and unwilling to let anyone go, so in the end, the ribbon is wrapped around the three of us and the new addition who’s decided to say hello from his cozy home inside my womb.

“You’ve made me the happiest man in the world, Anaya Moore. I will never love or love for another, and when the time comes that the goddess calls us home, I will search for you in the heavens to love you all over again.”

EPILOGUE #2

ANAYA

Four Years Later

Ican’t help but smile as I look around the table.

It’s full and loud and add in the occasional growl—can overwhelm at times—but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. This is us—my family.

Growing up the way I did, this is all I hoped my future could be, but it felt so out of reach. Because of lies. Because of the hurt drilled into me, but then I met my Leonardo.

My heart. My king.

Right now, he’s sitting at the head of our dining table with our Tanix in his lap and the latter is digging his chubby fingers into hispapa’splate. He’s our little food pirate, unapologetic and without shame. To make it worse, stealing is the only way to get him to eat, so Leo has two plates: his real one and the fake, baby-approved decoy.

Across from us is Theodore and Gabriella who are visiting with their three kids. Beloved, their firstborn, and then twin boys who are just a few months old. She’s sitting in a highchair next to her cousin Atticus, Xadiel and Isa’s little boy, while the twins sleep in a portable bed not far from us.

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