FORTY-FIVE #2
“You’re not.”
So why did it feel like this marriage loophole had more to do with the politics of her being kept here as an illegal alien, than anything else?
Would marriage simply absolve them of having kidnapped her for her protection, to give her cage a different name?
Dressing it up in white lace and tulle, in an arranged marriage that amounted to nothing more than a green card.
“If I stayed, it would be my choice.”
“Yes.”
“Would I be free to say where I am from, if I stayed and married you?”
His hesitation made her step back.
“My mother was in a relationship with my father and couldn’t openly say anything. They hid what they were. And since I’ve arrived, I’ve been made to hide who I am and where I’m from.” Was he asking her to do the same, to live the same story her mother went through?
For a long moment she gazed deeply into those sea-glass eyes she’d always been able to look at. He’d been something ancient and terrifying the first night they’d met, and who was now—somehow, impossibly—the most honest person she’d spoken to in years.
Yet he didn’t answer her.
“And if I left,” she said quietly. “Would you follow?”
She watched for the man who made her smile, comforted her, opened doors, organized gowns, and carried their dinner tray nightly to make sure she ate. He took care of her. Even if it had been orders, he did it because he cared, and for the first time his eyes showed that, as well as his soul.
“Angela Duboise.” His unsteady voice was unusual when this warrior commanded armies. “I’m asking you to marry me.”
There was no ring or ceremony about his proposal.
To think they hadn’t even had a first date, and here he was, popping the question like it was an arranged marriage between families.
For what?
Some higher power she didn’t even know how to use, let alone fight her way out of a mugging without her trusty pepper spray.
How could she know that this wasn’t the Claiming pulling them toward each other since the first night, compelling them to bend laws, break oaths, and unlock centuries of discipline he’d carried as a warrior?
How much of what she felt was hers? And how much was truly his?
No one had asked to marry her before. But come on, she didn’t think she’d get asked like this.
When she had the same fantasy that most women quietly dreamed of for their romantic proposal.
She’d heard plenty of stories about those meet-cute moments, the best and worst dates, photos of those couple’s weekend getaways, and those awkward meet-the-family moments, along with surviving family holidays, to build the love that led to the proposal.
She’d seen the flashy rings, the flushed talk of the bride-to-be over her proposal, the wedding, and the hunt for the perfect bridal gown.
She had been to those weddings, carrying some gift under her arm to get seated at the back corner table where the singles and distant relatives were kept.
Sadly, she’d also overseen a few of those divorces, too.
Then she had Claudine as her only other real blueprint for marriage, all five of them in total.
Marriage number two had been a genuine love story that ended only because he’d made her promise to marry him before he passed away.
The rest were first dates that never ended, from her online dating matches that somehow survived the 48-hour mark that led to spontaneous Vegas ceremonies.
Which led to Claudine leaving messages on the shops answering machine pleading with Angela to manage things until the honeymoon finished, or that phase wore off.
That’s why Angela kept multiple applications for annulments and pre-nuptial agreements locked in the safe at the bookshop.
Just in case. Because Claudine loved weddings. And men. And romance.
And then there was her mother. Rosaleen, who had loved completely and so secretly at such a great personal cost, that she never once said his name. Carrying that secret to the grave before Angela could ask a single question about what any of it had meant.
An aunt who loved too freely to ever fully land the one man. A mother who loved too deeply to ever speak of it. The two women who had been such a huge influence over Angela’s life.
But nothing had prepared her for this.
Zarek’s fingers found hers.
She looked up, expecting the warrior. But his eyes held something else entirely.
“Angela, you must know by now that I could recognize you in a world of darkness, where I have been trapped for so long trying to contain my own magick. I learned the shape of your bones, the curve of your lips, the softness of your skin—not with sight, but with something deeper. You are my home, Angela. The place I will always come back to. You became Min Unna-lys, where my place is beside you, and that is where I belong.”
He inhaled deeply as she stared at him and felt the words through the thread they shared.
“The Claiming didn’t teach me that,” he continued.
“The Claiming only conspired to make me find you in the first place. For you are the woman who made her bed among warriors, who carried a light like a steady star the dark will never dampen. So, I’m asking you, Angela Duboise—not the daughter of an Archangel, not the bookshop owner or the ex-lawyer—but the woman I never saw coming and now don’t want to let go.
Would you do me the greatest honor of letting me become your husband? Will you marry me?”