Chapter Thirty-Eight-Atlas
The room glows like something out of a fever dream.
Not a nightmare.
The other kind.
The one you wake from with your heart racing and a smile on your face, praying to every god in existence that it was real.
We’re standing in the castle’s indoor arboretum, transformed for the ceremony.
Thousands of tiny white lights drip like icicles from the vaulted glass ceiling, reflecting off frosted panes and making the whole place shimmer like fresh snowfall.
Outside, January whispers against the walls of stone and steel, but in here?
It’s warm. Lush. Alive.
Cecilia’s idea, of course.
She said if we were going to do a wedding—our wedding—it would be on her terms.
That meant a theme.
That meant food from everywhere—dumplings and dolmas, sushi and souvlaki, grilled cheese, caviar, lobster, pasta, brisket, pernil, and of course, all matter of sourdough breads.
Each dish is a nod to someone we love.
Someone who shaped us.
It meant that all the women wear white.
All the men wear black.
Except us.
My wife—my beautiful, brilliant, fierce wife—is standing across from me in a gown of brilliant blue.
The color of royalty. The color of courage. The color of the Aegean Sea at dawn.
Her hair is wild and loose, tumbling to her shoulders in fat, glossy curls, crowned in winter roses and tiny pearl pins. Her lips are red. Her smile is trembling.
I’m wearing white slacks, a royal blue jacket tailored within a millimeter of its life.
Beneath it pounds heart that doesn’t give a single beat unless it’s for her.
We don’t look away from each other. Not even for a second.
The world narrows to the space between us.
The officiant—an old Greek Orthodox priest with a soft voice and a steady presence—speaks words I don’t fully hear. I know the vows. I’ve memorized every single one.
In Greek. In English. In truth.
But none of it matters unless she says yes.
Unless she stays.
Unless she chooses this life.
Chooses me.
When it’s time to speak, I reach for her hands and see the shimmer in her eyes—emotion, wonder, love.
My voice doesn’t shake. But something inside me does. Because this is the moment.
And Cecilia?
She is everything.
My home.
My ruin.
My redemption.
She is the part of me I never let anyone touch until now.
“My heart was a secret searching desperately for someone to tell. A locked vault,” I say, voice low, steady, and certain.
The truth hums beneath every word. “And you, Cecilia, are the key I didn’t know I was searching for.
I vow to love you, to guard your joy as fiercely as I’ll guard your life.
To protect you. To choose you. To stand by your side for the rest of my days. ”
Her eyes shine like emerald glass catching the light.
“You are my home,” I breathe. “My whole heart. My every dream made real.”
Her breath hitches—a soft, broken sound that punches straight through the armor I used to call a personality.
The priest clears his throat, trying to steady the moment.
“Do you, Atlas James Stavros, take Cecilia—”
“I do,” I cut in immediately. “I already have, and if you ask me every damn day, I will always say yes to you.”
She laughs—wet, beautiful, trembling—and the sound feels like absolution.
Then it’s her turn.
Her hands tremble in mine, tiny shakes she tries to hide but can’t.
But her voice doesn’t falter. Not for a second.
She looks up at me like I’m something worth vowing to—like I’m hers to claim.
Please claim me.
“Atlas,” she whispers, but the word wraps around my ribs like silk and wire.
“My heart,” she says, pauses, her breath catching again. “My heart didn’t live before you. It existed, it beat, it survived—but it didn’t live.”
I swallow hard. My grip tightens around her hands, as if anchoring myself.
“You are the man who saw me,” she says, voice trembling but steady. “Who chose me without hesitation. Who ripped down every wall I tried to hide behind and showed me I was worthy of a home. Worthy of love.”
My chest cracks open.
“I vow,” she continues, tears glimmering, “to love you with everything I am. To be your peace when the world makes you a weapon. To be the haven you return to—the home you have always deserved.”
My vision blurs. I blink fast.
“I vow to worship you the way you’ve shown me it’s possible to be worshipped. To never run from the depth of my feelings for you. To stand with you in every storm, every battle, every victory.”
Her thumbs brush the backs of my hands, soft and sure.
“I vow to be your home,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Because you—Atlas—you are mine too.”
I feel it then. That final lock inside me unlatches.
I am undone.
The priest says something—legal, ceremonial, necessary—but I don’t hear any of it.
When we kiss—when I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her clean off her feet to thunderous applause—it isn’t just passion.
It’s possession.
It’s peace.
It’s a broken prince laying down his arms because he finally found a reason not to fight.
Her.
It’s always gonna be her.