ROGUE

EPILOGUE

'Till death do us part.

The morbid words were sitting on my tongue like a bad aftertaste.

I had never really admired the idea of parroting the monotonous wedding vows that had been - for centuries - spoken by priests and echoed universally by couples willing to accept the mortality of their devotion. It felt impersonal, like reading somebody else's love-letters and using them as my own.

The way I felt about Jason was different.

Our love was timeless and imperishable, something that prevailed without the need for an expiry date. If I could endure through a thousand lifetimes, I'd want every single one of them to be with him and I'd die a thousand deaths with him too. If that was not what it meant to love somebody beyond all rational existence, then perhaps I'd never be able to say what was.

Jason was positioned beside me, standing beautifully erect in a black suit that I wished would morph into his skin so he'd never have to take it off - except only for when it was necessary. His lips were twitching, fighting against a sheepish grin. Marriage was the one thing that he'd never done before. He was exposed, defenceless and unaccustomed, yet doubtlessly inclined to accept the nourishment of another soul existing inside of his own.

Except that was not true.

From the day we met, somehow, our spirits had been fused, our thoughts had been in sync, and our heartbeats had been harmonious in the most sublimely songful way.

It was not an unfamiliar feeling, just an exhilarating one, the acknowledgment of an omnipresent force that had always survived within us.

As the priest spoke incessantly before us - despite his illegitimacy because Jason was still legally deceased in the blinded and oblivious eyes of the law - my heart felt as though it was swelling beyond the capacity of my chest. Yes, I was marrying the man that epitomised me. Yes, within minutes we'd be visually united by little bands of gold and we'd be amidst the signing of a synthetic contract; promising that I belonged to him and he belonged to me 'till death do us part.

But no.

We belonged together, as one boundless and interminable being, in both life and in death. It eradicated every ounce of surviving fear left in my body, substituting it with power and immobilised security. To stand beside a man like Jason, in a moment like this, was a dream that I was never obliged to awaken from. And it was the most wonderful feeling of my entire life.

꧁꧂

"How's life as a married woman, Mrs McCann?" Matt's voice - thick and unmistakable due to his distinctive English heritage - forced a break in the crowd that overpopulated the buzzing hallway. He slinked through it with an air of superiority, accompanied by a pretty red-head and a glass of amber liquor that spilled over the rim as his body rocked towards me.

"So far so good," I grinned back, glancing briefly past him to try and navigate the whereabouts of my husband amidst a swarm of dancing dipsomaniacs. "Nobody's been killed yet."

Matt, because of his black sense of humour, laughed throatily and his timid companion smiled as though she was too shy to speak but too polite to remain unresponsive. "You've only been married for a few hours," He taunted, swinging his arm around the girl's shoulders in an uncomfortably casual sort of way. "Give the bloke a chance."