Elora was too happy to notice the gash on my hand. She laughed almost the entire drive from home to the beachfront. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her so happy. I wasn’t sure I’d ever been so sad.
Damn Falcon. Damn me for allowing him to care for her. I knew this would happen; I knew it! And yet I did nothing to prepare her, to warn her. Now, she hated herself. She thought I would hate her. But how could I? Even without the curse altering my perception of her, she was everything. She kissed Falcon, yes, but she slapped him good and hard after it, and that was what mattered to me. Not what happened before it. It was only a kiss. Nothing more, after all. I could live with that.
But could she? And that was what worried me. Ara and I only discovered the true depth of our connection later in life—how it guided our every move—and it made perfect sense to me now why she threw herself from the lighthouse after she slept with my brother. She could see no way to reconcile that except to remove herself from the picture completely, and if she felt anything now that she felt that night, she was in danger. And it wasn’t her damn fault.
“Dad?” Elora said, and Ali stopped laughing, the mood changing suddenly. “What’s wrong? What happened to your hand?”
“I punched Falcon.”
“Why?” she screeched, shuffling forward to inspect the damage.
“He said something he shouldn’t have,” I lied.
Elora laughed. “Silly dad.”
“I can fix that,” Ali said. “Not the bone, but I can at least fix the flesh.”
“You don’t have your kit,” Elora said.
“I do back at the ballroom. I take it everywhere normally. I only need some vampire blood and a few herbs, and it’ll be good as new.”
I nodded to agree.
“Just get through the ceremony, Dad.” Elora cupped my hand as though she could soothe it back to normal. “We’ll get you fixed right up after.”
If only that were true. Nothing would fix me if Ara refused to forgive herself. Nothing would ever take the pain away. What Falcon had done here was unforgivable. He’d destroyed everything I built with her, and for what? For a kiss.
On the other hand, I understood that need, the burn. I’d suffered surges in the past and they ended with me in tears on the bathroom floor, knowing I needed her but too smart to go find her in that state. He’d be feeling pretty bad right now too, not just for hurting her, but because he knew she’d see him differently now. He knew he’d lost her friendship, her trust.
“We’re here!” the girls squeaked, jumping around in their seats. The driver pulled over and they jumped out before he could open the door for them, the wind catching Elora’s veil and sweeping it outward. Ali fixed it and fussed over her, looking down to say something to Harry as he walked over from the other car, while I used the doorframe as a kind of portal to pass through, leaving my troubles on the other side for the day and stepping out as a different man.
“You want a bandage for that, mate?” the driver asked me, nodding at my hand.
I took a good look at it. The knuckles had split open when they connected with Falcon’s vampire-tough jaw, and I was pretty sure the middle finger was broken. It looked bad, and it hurt like hell—a painful reminder of my problems. “Yeah. You know what, thanks. That’d be great.”
Elora and Ali stood on the top of the slope, looking down on the guests, all gathered by the water’s edge on white chairs pressed into neat lines in the sand. I followed the driver around to the trunk of the car and stood waiting while he dug through his first aid kit. He took out a springy elastic length of bandage and then wrapped it around my hand. The tightness soothed the ache and the gauze he placed over the knuckles soaked up the blood.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Not at all.” He gave a little chuckle and glanced over at Elora and Ali. “Give the husband-to-be a lesson in manners, did we?”
I laughed too. “Something like that.”
“Ah, can’t say I blame ya.” He rested his hands on his hips, pushing his bulbous stomach out. “The daughter just got married six months ago. I’d’a socked the little bugger in the gob too if mi missus wouldn’t’a given me the old steel-cap in the clacker for it.”
At this point, I was glad I’d spent enough time in this country to pick up on the colloquialisms, or I’d not have had a clue what the hell he just said. Which, roughly translated was, My daughter got married six months ago, and I would have punched the prick in the mouth too if my wife wouldn’t have given me a foot up the ass for it.
“You know, you look a little young to be a dad,” he noted, brows coming together to scrutinize my face.
“I’m the brother—standing in.”
“Right.” He nodded apologetically, probably assuming our father had passed. “Well, good luck down there.” He reached for my hand to shake it, making a joke of offering his left hand to my damaged one and then laughing, switching at the last second to shake my right one.
“Thanks. I think I’m gonna need it.” I shut the trunk and tuned my ears in to Ali and Lors, preparing myself for what was ahead.
“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Ali asked.
“No.” Elora dried her tears. “I’ve just never seen him get so emotional over me.”
Ali laughed. “You didn’t see him when you were in that coma after the beach-locket incident.”
Nor did I, but I was told he reacted to news of her death the way I had when I lost my Ara.
“Really?” Elora asked sweetly.
“He loves you, sweetheart,” I said, shutting the car door as I passed it. “I wouldn’t have let him marry you if he didn’t.”
“I know, Dad.”
I cupped the sides of her head and kissed her hair through her veil, wishing I could go back to my own wedding day and take more notice—spend a few more moments really looking at Ara, really committing her to memory.
Elora’s hand extended to the crowd then. “She’s sitting with Vicki.”
It took me a second to realize who she meant, and when I saw Ara in her pretty yellow dress, sitting in the front row, my shoulders relaxed.
“Were you worried she wouldn’t stay?” Elora asked.
My heart skipped for a beat. Those were very specific words. Yes. That was exactly what I was worried about. But how could Elora have known that? “No,” I lied. “I was just looking forward to seeing her.”
My brother looked up at me then, and I waved to say we were ready, the music my daughter would walk down the aisle to starting up a second later.
“What’s this song called again?” Ali asked. “It’s so pretty.”
“All that Really Matters by Richie Sambora.”
“Nice.” She reached down and took Harry’s hand, making sure he had the cushion with the rings. “Come on, Harry. It’s time to go.”
We waited as they walked ahead down the slope, Elora’s arm tucked into mine, our hands entwined. The fact that her knuckles were white wasn’t lost on me, even in my dark cloud of drama. My little girl—the same little girl that used to insist on wearing her pajama pants on her head for most of her fourth year; the same little girl that dressed in her prettiest dress and sat by the fire every Christmas singing carols to us in her loudest voice; the same little girl that told me she would never get married because she couldn’t love any man more than she loved me—she was no longer mine. Her heart now belonged to another—a man I once despised—and she wouldn’t be here anymore. Her life would be about something else now, and it scared me so much that I held on a little bit tighter.
“Nervous?” I asked.
“Excited,” she said, waving to the crowd as we started down the slope toward the arch of daisies. The beach gave way under our feet, though, as if it was holding her back, as reluctant to let her go as I was. We tipped for a moment, drawing a few laughs from those close enough to see it, and then walked on gracefully, my heart soaring with pride as the awe and emotion of our guests became apparent.
Elora’s once-long-haired-lout of a fiancé had cut his hair off sometime between today and yesterday, and in the grey suit, tears in his eyes, he looked somewhat worthy of my little girl. And my little girl looked lost in him. She barely heard the celebrant as he asked who would give this girl away today.
“I do,” I said. And like we’d practiced so many times, I took her hand in mine and guided it toward the man that would forever hold it, worrying at the last second that he didn’t fully understand the meaning of forever—that he couldn’t comprehend it.
I leaned past Elora and took Eric by the shoulder. I wanted to tell him what forever truly meant. I wanted to remind him that if he ever hurt her, if he ever did anything to make her cry, I would rip his eyes out and make him eat them, but he knew that. I saw the fear in his eyes as he realized I was about to speak. But as I opened my mouth, none of what I wanted to say came out. I found myself overwhelmed with the joy of seeing my baby girl so happy that I simply said, “Welcome to the family, man.”
He nodded at me, unsure what to say.
I wandered back to my chair, after kissing my daughter for the last time as my little girl, and sat down beside Ara. Her hair smelled like strawberries again these days and she was wearing perfume today—something fruity that she’d never worn before. It was nice. And different. I liked it.
She paid close attention to what was being said in front of us, and every now and then when the guests laughed, I looked up to realize I’d missed something, but they hadn’t reached the vows yet so my mind kept wandering, reaching out to the beautiful girl beside me and wishing I could hold her hand. Her cheeks were stained with dried tears, fresh ones layering the old, her little chin quivering as she watched our daughter’s life change. And I decided to just go for it. My heart hurt for so many reasons right now that, as Elora began her vows, I needed comfort.
I reached around the back of Ara’s chair and held onto her. She didn’t push me away, maybe for fear of seeming cruel or rude, but it gave me a little hope.
“I made a promise to you once, Ric,” Elora said in a clear, controlled voice, “but I’m afraid I have to break that promise now.”
Ara smiled, her lips twitching with emotion, like she would whenever she watched ‘The Notebook’.
“We were sitting on my car,” Elora added, and everyone laughed. I wasn’t sure if I missed something, but nothing about that confession seemed funny. “And you said you sometimes wanted to tell me that you loved me, even though you didn’t really believe in it. And I promised you that day that I would never fall in love with you. But I’m not sure if it’s a broken promise now or if maybe it was a lie at the time.”
It warmed my heart to hear my daughter speak that way. It painted this entire story, this entire life of experiences that she’d had without me, making it feel a little less like I was losing her now, and more like I already had.
Ara’s hand moved sideways then, shocking me as it wrapped around mine and I noticed her wedding band, positioned like a statement on her left ring finger. I couldn’t breathe. I just listened on to what my daughter was saying, looking down at our hands.
“I love you, Ric Mason, and I pinkie-promised you my heart, mind, body and soul, forever. Today we make that promise official, and that means I can add something on.” There was a pause. “I promise to love you eternally, even when times get hard and we might not like each other. Like I learned from my mom and dad, love has no end.”
My head whipped up. Ara turned hers and smiled sweetly at me.
“We might fight,” Elora continued, “we might fail as a married couple and wonder why we ever did it, but this is my promise to you now that, no matter what happens, I will stay by your side, and I will always look for a way back to where we started.”
Eric lost his sense of composure then, blubbering like a man-baby, and I couldn’t help but smile. Not because it was idiotic or pathetic, or because I’d always wanted to see the little shit cry, but because Elora deserved to have a man that could cry. She deserved to have a man that was overwhelmed by emotion purely because he would have her heart forever. She’d chosen wisely. No, my Ara chose wisely for her.
“Lors,” Eric whispered, voice vanishing on the tail-end.
“It’s okay.” Elora kissed his hand. “You can just whisper the vows if you like.”
He laughed, wiping his tears away. “For a man of many witty words,” he started, giving the crowd cause to laugh. It was rather entertaining to see such a smart-mouth so lost for words; even I laughed. “I had a hard time trying to write my feelings down when it came to you, Lors. It was as if I was cursed, my mind a void. And then a song came on, and I realized that, if I could have sung our vows with another artist’s song, one of them would’ve been ‘Collide’ by Howie Day. And if you don’t know the words to that song, I’ll tell you what I took from it.”
This intrigued me. I sat forward a little, removing my arm from around my wife but keeping hold of her hand. What had he taken from that song?
“It terrified me to fall in love,” he explained. “Nothing looked the same, nothing felt the same. I felt like I was in a vacuum—that I’d be there forever by myself. Until I realized you were in love with me too. And I realized it long before you did.”
We all laughed. I knew that would be true. I wasn’t there to see it all play out, but I knew my little girl was the most reluctant girl in the world when it came to love. I truly did not believe she would ever love.
“I wasn’t as scared then. I kind of just sat back, waiting for you to realize, but it gave me time to think—to see love for what it really was. And it wasn’t some scary world where your heart lays bare, just waiting to get hurt. It was this world where I had a sidekick, a partner—someone to stand beside me, someone I wanted to stand beside, through everything. And all this loneliness I’d felt all my decades alive just withered away. The sadness and emptiness of that world slipped back and there was just you and me in a room by ourselves, and it was the only place I ever wanted to be. We’re friends, Lors, best friends, and that’s the best foundation for a life together. I wanna wake up beside you every morning for the rest of the world’s existence and, even better than that, I promise to see you, to look at you every day for all of our lives and never stop appreciating you. I promise to be there when you fall down, when your songs don’t rhyme, when your mind is filled with doubt and when you can’t see me anymore. I will open your eyes in those times, and I will be the song you sing when you can’t find the music in the dark places.” He nodded knowingly. “And you know we’ve been there.”
Elora nodded sadly, an entire chapter of her life closing in around her like agony—a kind of pain he had fixed. A problem he had fixed. I trusted him more then, to see her trust in him too, to know that he could care for her mind, body, and soul.
“I promise you more than just my heart, mind, body and soul,” he said, and I was taken aback, wondering if he just read my thoughts, “because that won’t be enough to make it through eternity. I have to promise you that I will stick by you. That I will take a moment every day to remind myself why I love you and also just how beautiful you are, and I will come back to you too—when life gets hard and we don’t collide the way we used to—I promise I will never walk away. I’ll keep searching until I find the part of me that loves you.”
Elora’s breath hitched in her throat as he finished, and I wanted to run and comfort her as much as I wanted to applaud his vows.
“Don’t cry, Blondie.” He wiped her tears away, just as I would when she was little. “The best part’s yet to come.”
“Which part is that?” she whispered under the loud voice of the celebrant, gasbagging about the rings and the meaning of the unbroken circle. Everyone burst out laughing then, aside from those of us who were human. I looked around, trying to get a handle on what had been said.
“He said the best part is yet to come.” Ara leaned in. “And when she asked what that is, he said consummation.”
I laughed, trying not to think about the fact that he actually meant that.
As Harry offered the rings, I watched with one eye, paying only half my attention, the other going to Ara.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
She wiped her face and then her nose, laughing. “I didn’t think it would hit me so hard.”
“What?”
“This.” She presented the happy couple, as Elora slid the ring onto Eric’s finger.
“You’ve always been a highly-emotional person. You even cried whenever you’d watch those rescue animal videos.”
Her eyes fixed on my face, sparkling a deep sky-blue with the sadness behind them. “Do you hate me?”
“Hate you?” I unintentionally leaned right forward, taking both sides of her face. “I can never hate you.”
Her lip pouted and she just nodded, breaking away from me as everyone cheered. I turned just in time to see Eric put Elora down onto the ground, glad I didn’t see them kiss.
“What happened to keeping that kiss PG?” Elora said. The celebrant drowned out what they said next, droning on about some other nonsense to do with being together through all of life’s trials. If that man had any idea what they were likely to face in the future of the immortal world, or what they had already faced, he wouldn’t need to be so preachy. He could just throw them the damn marriage contract and say ‘Good job so far, folks. Keep at it’.
“Here it is.” Ara jumped excitedly in her seat, the skin on her arms tightening with goosebumps.
The man stood proudly behind Elora and Eric, and in his loudest voice, announced them as husband and wife. And the words ‘Mrs. de la Rose’ made my ears ring, made me forget where I was for a moment as the reality truly hit me. I needed to stand. I needed to run or walk away. I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t watch. She would never leave us. My daughter would always be here when I needed her, but she was no longer a Knight. I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
I tried to push past Ara, but as I stood, so too did everyone else, cheering and clapping.
Ara grabbed my wrist, holding me in place. “What are you doing?”
“I just need some air.”
“We’re outside,” she noted, her smile fading as she really took in the expression on my face. “We haven’t talked about this.”
“About what?”
“How it feels for our daughter to be getting married.”
I covered my mouth so she wouldn’t see my lips turn down.
“It’s okay.” Her shoulder pressed against my arm, her small hand reaching down to tangle in mine. “I know you probably feel like you’ll be all alone now, but we still have Harry. And…” Her gaze travelled down to her belly.
“And this one,” I said, placing my hand there before quickly dropping it away. She wasn’t sure if she should’ve pointed it out, given everything that happened today and the fact that I hadn’t wanted another child with her just yet, but in truth, she wasn’t wrong at all to bring it up, or to have wanted another child. I was wrong. I should never have made her feel bad for it.
When my eyes met hers again, they were smiling. She’d lost that sad, doe-eyed little-girl expression, and the strong, playful woman I loved had replaced it.
“We’re gonna be okay, you know?” she said.
“Then you’re not running away?”
Her head moved to say no. “I messed up. Big time. But I know what it feels like now to want someone else for a moment and…”
“And?” My gaze moved past her, and I waved at Elora as she sat down at the table to sign her marriage contract.
“I know it will never happen again,” she promised, her round eyes pleading for forgiveness. But there was nothing to forgive.
“And what about the curse?” I asked.
“What about it?”
“You said my love for you isn’t real.”
“Of course it is.” She laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “Isn’t it?”
“I…” I touched my chest, grasping for words.
“And besides”—she turned as Eric and Elora stood again, clapping her hands along with everyone else—“I’m not about to leave you alone in this. I love you too much for that. So if you’re cursed to love me”—she shrugged—“then I think that’s a pretty compelling reason to stay.”
As new tears forced themselves out over my eyes, I let them fall freely. Every man, woman and child here could see it, were shocked by it—by the old king’s tears; the king who never showed emotion—but I didn’t care. They would assume it was for the occasion, and a part of it was, but mostly they were for the joy. It felt so good to finally cry tears of joy. Ara hadn’t betrayed me today; she’d given me something I could never have asked for: not just the promise of her love, but proof that I could trust her. Proof that, when faced with a choice between her darkest, most unspoken desires, and me, she would choose me. And that was an immeasurable gift.
Sadly, after what I did to her mother only weeks ago, Elora and I had grown apart. She was trying, for the sake of our relationship, or maybe for the sake of the wedding day, but I could tell she was still hurt by my actions. Nothing ever cut me as deep as seeing the disappointment in my little girl’s eyes, and I felt like it took some of the joy away from the moment when we were called to dance at the reception.
We’d spoken about going for the traditional soppy song or switching it up for something up-beat and fun, maybe a bit of swing, but being the musically-inclined beings we both were, neither of us, despite everything between us right now, wanted to deny ourselves the right to an emotional, meaningful song.
And it had been hard to choose. So many times over the years, a song would come on the radio and we would name it ‘our’ song, and now, to listen to some of those, my heart broke. This beauty in a white wedding dress wasn’t daddy’s little girl anymore. Not just because she was grown up, immortal, had faced demons greater than any child should ever have to, or because she was getting married, but because I’d hurt her. I’d made her cry when I showed her the darker man. And it was all because of this damn curse. I’d wanted to tell her that several times, but I just didn’t know how. I didn’t think she’d understand.
As I took her in my arms and stood proudly in position, I felt the distance between us. I hadn’t felt it earlier today when I first saw her in her wedding dress; it seemed absent as we walked down the aisle; but it was here now, after the day was done and she had time to think back on it all. It was the same rift I’d felt last night as we talked about her future, the same hurt I’d seen in her eye whenever we spoke over coffee since that day. I couldn’t let it go on. It wasn’t the right time, but there may never be another chance after tonight.
“I love her, you know,” I said.
“Who?”
“I know you think I hate her, but I love her.”
She nodded to herself. “I know you love her, Dad.”
“No, you think I loved her—the way she was. But I love her now just as much,” I stated. “I messed up, Lors—”
“Yes, you did.” Her jaw set, eyes barely meeting mine. “And you know what’s weird is, I never thought you had it in you. Even when, and I know we’re not supposed to mention her name, but when Morgana once told me you were evil—that you mistreated my mother—I never believed it until now.”
I nodded sadly.
“Okay, hang on, that came out wrong.” She stopped talking as I twirled her out. “I just… You’re not that kind of man. I know you and Mom had your differences over the years. I know for a fact that you were crueler than you intended at times… and I don’t know what came over you that day when you beat her, but I just won’t believe you were always like that.”
“Not to that degree. There were other things going on then, Lors.”
“Like what?” She stopped me in the middle of the dance floor, the music playing on without us.
I cast my eyes shamefully down and then moved them around the room, taking us in step with the music again when I noticed the curious whispers. “I’m not sure you’ll believe me—or that you’ll agree it was any excuse.”
“Try me.”
My throat tightened, so it was hard to get the words out. “I’m cursed, Elora.”
Her eyes widened. “As in…”
I nodded.
“Oh my God.” She stopped again and hugged me tight, her thin arms so much stronger now than they were when she was human. “How did I not realize that?”
“You’ve had other things to worry about.”
“But… that all makes so much sense,” she said, pulling back a bit, keeping her hands on my shoulders. “So it was a surge?”
“It was,” I whispered, overcome with emotion.
“Aw, Dad.” She hugged me again and held on, this time not pulling away. We moved our feet softly, swaying from left to right, but the elaborate and rather clever dance we’d prepared was left to the wind, and I didn’t care. My little girl was in my arms again, hugging me like I was the only man in her life, a thousand sorrowful apologies for everything—for thinking so poorly of me, for being cursed in the first place—coming through in the warmth of that embrace. “I’m glad you told me,” she whispered.
“I wasn’t sure I should.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really see it as an excuse, because you’re right, Lors. I’m not that kind of man, and I hate what I saw in myself that day. I hate what your mother had to see, and I can’t bring myself to…”
“Shhh.” She squeezed a bit tighter. “Don’t cry, Dad. Mom understands, I’m sure of it.”
“She does now, but she only found out today.”
Elora pulled back a bit. “So that’s what’s been eating her up today? I knew it was something!”
I nodded. “She’s okay, but it’s been hard for me—having to live with what I did and not being able to tell her why.”
Lors nodded. “I think she loves you, Dad. I know she doesn’t say it, but keep trying with her. I can see it in her eyes. She is head over damn heels.”
I wanted to laugh, to tell her we were back together, but I felt Ara should be here for that. After all, it was her gift to Elora today. So I just smiled softly instead. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And I still love you, Dad,” she said, her green eyes shining as I looked at her. “I was mad with you, but I also knew there was something bigger going on here. I just… I forgot about the curse is all. But now that you mention it, so many things make sense.”
“Well, let’s not dwell on it any more tonight.” I moved her hands to the correct position for dancing. “I only get one more night to dance with you, and then you’ll be gone forever—”
“I’m not going anywhere, Dad,” she said, laughing. “I’ll be living just down the street.”
“Yes, but you aren’t my little girl anymore. You’re… Eric’s.”
“I am not Eric’s little girl,” she said firmly. “I’m his wife. We’re partners in crime, Dad, like you and Mom, like Uncle Mike and Aunt Em, and that changes nothing between you and me. I know I always said I’d never get married, but we were wrong when we said it meant I’d belong to someone else. I’m my own person, as I have always been but, in that, no matter what, no matter how old I get or how far away I am, you are my father and I will always be your little girl.”
I brought her in close so she wouldn’t see me cry, but she laughed then anyway as a tear dripped down past my chin and landed on her heart.