In My Arms You Shall Hide

Epilogue

Kittie

T he courthouse bathroom isn’t the most glamorous place to get ready for your wedding, but there’s something unexplainably me about it. The idea of having a massive, expensive wedding with a dozen photographers in some glamorous hotel makes me too anxious even to consider.

Plus, who would even attend?

My mom applies enough product to my hair to keep the frizziness at bay and puts it into a neat bun at the base of my head. Luckily, the shaved section of my hair has grown out since my last hospital stay, so it blends in seamlessly with the rest of my hair.

“I’m telling you, a red lip would totally work,” Raney argues as she finishes applying a pink gloss to my lips. “You have the complexion for it. You’re definitely a bright winter.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask and laugh a little when she glares at me. I nearly smudged the lipstick by speaking, I can tell.

“It has to do with your color profile,” my mom explains. I feel a tug when she slips a white floral pin on the top of my bun. “If you want to compare, Raney is more of a soft summer.”

I still don’t understand, but I stay quiet, suppressing a smile as Raney fixes the edges of my lipstick with her fingernail.

Only two months after my hospitalization, they’d officially determined that Tucker was responsible for my disappearance. That didn’t feel as satisfying, though, as the day we got news that the state dismissed Raney’s warrant.

Apparently, while searching for details of Paul Ward’s disappearance, detectives had uncovered remains of not only his wife—Annette Ward’s—murder in the crawl space of his home but two long-dead competitors from a rival company to Tacron Global. It took a few months for Dorian and Raney to work with a defense attorney to iron out her other charges—most notably evading the police—but now, she has a chance at a normal life.

Raney’s been a little slow to come out of the estate, taking only short trips with me to the store every now and again. Today’s the first day she’s left the house for more than a half hour.

“Earrings!” Raney cries out, trying to reach around me. She gestures behind my mom toward the makeup bag on the counter. “I brought a pair of diamond earrings. We can’t forget them.”

My mom stifles a laugh. “Raney, darling, Kittie’s ears aren’t pierced.”

“What?” she squawks and leans close, inspecting my lobes. “Seriously? Ugh. Do you have a needle? I think we can—”

I interrupt Raney with a round of laughter that echoes off the restroom walls. Besides her freedom, the best thing that’s happened since Raney’s exoneration is that she and my mom have become close.

“Oh, the ring.” My mom snaps her fingers at her over my shoulder. “Do you have Dorian’s ring?”

“Of course . I’m the Maid of Honor and the Best Man.”

“Cory’s the best man, sweetheart,” my mom chuckles.

The bathroom is a little cramped for squeezing into a dress with two other women at my side, but I get it on and zipped without ruining my hair or makeup. It’s a simple, lace-topped, A-line dress with billowy sleeves.

As my mother begins to button the corset portion, she asks, “Did you write your vows?”

I drop my shoulders as panic rushes through me. “I was supposed to write vows?”

Raney cackles, digging for my white-laced flats in the backpack she brought. “Don’t worry, Kittie, I think you’ll just be signing some papers. That’s all.”

I try to relax a little; I hope that’s true.

Raney places my flats on the floor and extends her hand to me. I take it as I slip into my shoes.

“We ought to get going,” my mom says, “the others are probably waiting on us.”

They don’t have to tell me twice. I practically burst out of the bathroom door with the two at my heels. It feels a little strange being all done up as we rush through the crowded hall where everyone’s dressed casually and going about their day.

My heart’s racing by the time we reach the clerking department. A sign for the chapel leads us to a small room in the back with a podium and two rows of pews. It’s mostly devoid of people, silent beyond the faint lull of traffic outside. There’s a stained glass window beyond the redwood podium, and this room feels out of place next to the rest of the courthouse.

The officiant, Cory, and Dorian are standing in front of the podium under a dim light. Cory has abandoned his usual casual wear and stands stiffly in a beige suit. Dorian, meanwhile, captures all of my attention in his black tuxedo, perfectly tailored to him.

Seeing Dorian look so dashing makes my heart jump.

It’s untraditional—heck, so are we—but I dash down the aisle, leaving Raney and my mom to file in behind me. I nearly collide with Dorian by the time I reach the end, and he catches me, mirroring what I can only imagine is a massive grin across my face.

“You’re so beautiful, Kittie,” he breathes.

The officiant chuckles behind him, but I can hardly register anyone else in the room. “Are we ready to get started then?”

And it goes by in a blur. I almost entirely forget about not writing my vows when the I Do’s take place, and I can’t rip my eyes from Dorian’s face. It all happens so fast that I can hardly process the eruption of applause from our family as he leans down and kisses me.

We all rush out of the chapel, and my mom and Raney are busy taking as many pictures as they can with their phones. Raney even manages to snag Cory for a selfie before she ushers my mom and me together for a few shots.

When my mother gets a call from someone I can only assume is her boyfriend, given her smile, I realize that Dorian has disappeared.

I leave Cory and Raney out in the main hall, bickering with each other about lighting and possibly going to another location for better photos. I push the door open to the chapel.

The lights are turned off, with only a dim lamp in the corner casting an almost ethereal glow onto the podium and stained glass behind it. The officiant is long gone, but Dorian’s at the front, his back to me as he studies the blues and greens of the glass.

Slowly, I walk back down the aisle and touch his back.

Dorian turns to me, a serene and complacent smile on his face. “Yes, Mrs. Ward?”

Having him call me that makes joy tingle through me. I can feel my face heating up, but I don’t let it derail the question on my tongue.

“Um…” I want to ask him what he’s doing, but something more pressing is on my mind. “We never said our vows.”

Amusement quirks his brow. “Did you have vows for me, Kittie?”

“No, I didn’t write…I mean…” Why is it so hard to get out? “I know marriage is a governmental thing, but it’s also a spiritual thing, in a sense.”

“If you make your vows to me in front of God, he may truly think you’re beyond saving,” he says, still amused. “At least this way, you have a pass. You can tell the Almighty I forced your hand at every turn, and He’ll believe that. You have too good a heart.”

I frown at him. “But I want to make my vows to you. Not for any god to hear, but for you to hear it.”

Dorian’s smirk melts into a warm smile. “I know that you love me.”

“Then why don’t you want to hear my vows?”

“I’m not denying your feelings for me. If anything, it’s my fault because I denied you and myself the reality of knowing the truth. In a way, I made you fall in love with me. And at the very least, if God knows that you have made no choices in this, He will see you for the innocence you bear and keep me from you.”

I can only shrug. “So?”

Dorian blinks at me as shock overwhelms his features. “ So ? I tell you my desire to save your immortal soul from me, and your only response is so ?”

“How come you want us separated in the afterlife?”

Dorian heaves a sigh and then levels a dark look at me. “Our bodies limit us. Can you imagine what my depravity would do to your soul if we were unbound by them? The things that I would do to you for all eternity? Have you no preservation for yourself or the need to be free of me?”

“And you expect me to go to this Heaven—” I say, using air quotes, “—without you, and I’m supposed to be happy about a huge chunk of my soul just missing?”

Dorian’s shoulders drop, and he looks almost surprised. “What do you mean?”

“Whether or not you want to take the blame for me loving you or not, you can’t undo it. Sorry. You’re embedded in me, and even if you wake up tomorrow and decide that you’ve gotten over me—”

“Katherine—” he starts, chiding me softly as if the idea’s insulting.

“—then, if you pull away, you’re leaving me incomplete. Maybe you carved your shape out of my soul and slotted yourself in there over time, or maybe that piece was always missing from me. I don’t know. I like to think it’s the last one, and that’s what pulled me to you in the first place.”

Confusion is scribbled all over his face.

“Either way, I don’t really believe in Heaven, but if there is one, I don’t know if they’d let me in with an incomplete soul, and I don’t want to be there if you’re not there. So, yes, if it exists, I’d rather go to Hell. And if I have to jump the line because you’re toward the front, then so be it.

“And so what if you think you forced me to love you? Do you think that the right thing I should feel is to want to be away from you? I was away from you, and all I did was cry. I’d rather be here now and happy than be morally right and somewhere else, miserable.”

There’s a flash of pain again, then slow recognition. The emotions ripple across his face one by one, starting with gratitude and relief, then ending with another smirk.

“Should I take all of that as your vows to me?”

“If you think they were good enough. And if you think there was the right amount of blasphemy in them.”

Dorian tips his head down and kisses me.

“You’re sure you want to spend the rest of eternity together?” he murmurs. “The whole part of ‘til death do us part’ is that it gives you an out.”

“My life already belongs to you,” I tell him simply. “Why not the one after it, too?”

Dorian returns to my lips, deepening the kiss with so much need that I get a head rush. My knees buckle a little, and I hold onto him to stay upright.

Dorian’s arm snakes around me just as my legs begin to shake. Instead of steadying me, he lowers himself to one knee, laying me down across the short steps up to the podium.

Is he planning on…? Here? Anyone can walk in!

One hand remains wrapped around my back, tucked between the first and second steps to support me, and the other slips up my dress.

I squirm under him, lifting my eyes to the ceiling and feeling a blush flood my face. Heat permeates through my entire body. His knuckles run the full length up my thigh, leaving a fire in their wake.

“Someone will see,” I say in between kisses.

“Let them watch.”

Dorian swallows whatever protest or argument I have next. His hand slips between my thighs, rubbing against the fabric of my underwear. I tremble, grateful that his mouth on mine muffles any of my moans.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders, fingers digging into the fabric of his tux. My face burns as the unforgiving, familiar, hot surge of need darts through me.

Moving the silk fabric out of the way, he slips his fingers into me. I catch only a glimpse of his face before tossing my head back.

He doesn’t show a drop of shame, only hunger.

I bite back on my moans, trying to be as quiet as I can force myself to be as he rhythmically pushes his fingers into me, pressing his thumb to my clit.

“Dorian,” I plead, writhing against the steps, struggling to be quiet.

“What?” he says huskily, feigning innocence. “I can’t make my wife feel good?”

The pleasure in my body demands to be released from me, like bottled steam. I dig my fingernails into his clothes, breathing harder.

“Come for me, kitten.”

The free hand that isn’t simultaneously torturing and pleasuring me slides out from under me and clasps the back of my neck, bringing my lips to his again.

I climax at the heels of his words. I groan against his mouth as he holds my shaking body, steadying me in the wake of the orgasm that rattles me from my head to my toes.

Dorian doesn’t stop kissing me, even as my body relaxes. He adjusts my panties, pressing his hand against my inner thigh.

“You’ll come to Hell with me?”

I breathlessly nod before letting my head thump back against the upper step, too caught up in the euphoria fading from my system.

“If you’re lying to me, I’ll rip Heaven apart to find you,” he promises darkly, pressing his mouth to the base of my throat. “I’ll use that halo of yours as a collar.”

“I belong to him,” I declare.

Fingers in my hair, he angles my head up again, his silver eyes scanning my face. “What did you say, kitten?”

I peel my arms from his shoulders and bring my hands to his face. “I was talking to God. I told Him that I belong to you, to nothing and no one else, including Him.”

There’s a moment of hesitation before a smile breaks across his face, softening his features. He presses himself between my legs, snaking his arm around me again and bringing my mouth to his. On those steps, I chant in my heart that I belong to him and won’t settle for any eternal grace if I can’t have him.

I let Dorian believe that I’d follow him in blind obedience until the end of time. But in the depths of my heart, I know he can’t go anywhere I can’t reach because he belongs to me.

The End