33. The Choice
M y voice is hoarse from screaming. My head’s on fire from every blow these bastards behind me landed. My ribs grind like broken glass every time I breathe.
But nothing compares to the agony of watching the woman I love say vows that were meant for me. She’s marrying my enemy, holding his hands when he’ll use them to hurt her the first chance he gets… and it’s all to save me .
I’m not worth it.
Bossie had it all planned out too. She brought vows, the guests, hell, even a white veil. Somehow she knew she’d get us here one way or another, and now Luna trembles beside Bart on a dais that feels as high as a mountain from where I’m bound.
He’s clutching her hands tightly enough to bruise, and the veil mocks me, hiding tears I know she’s trying to hold back for my sake.
I see them anyway, shimmering at its gauzy edge, firelight mirrored on the drops as they trail down her chest with every silent, hitched breath.
She’s trying to be strong, trying not to let me see her heart break, trying to keep me from drowning in guilt over ruining her life. It isn’t working.
“Please, baby,” I rasp for the millionth time. “You don’t have to do this. Please, Luna, I’d rather die.”
And goddamn, do I mean that.
I twist my glare on Bossie, rage tightening my jaw. “You better think real hard about letting me go. The second I’m out of these restraints, I’m coming for every single fu?—”
“Too little. Too late, don’t you think?” Sol sneers nearby, his voice slicing through me as sure as any blade. “You were supposed to protect her, Fury. Short of a miracle bursting in and saving the day, we have to sit here and watch my daughter sacrifice herself. For you .”
His scowl sears my skin, his unscarred side giving me a pointed look. If he didn’t hate me so much, I’d think there might be a message beneath his words. But even if there was, my mind is too fucked up to figure it out.
All I can think is… he’s right.
I failed to stop a woman I love from falling to the Wildes.
Again.
Don’t give up.
Protect her. Protect her. Protect her.
I blink hard and summon all the will I have left to focus and search for any way to get her out of this.
A Wilde digs my own crossbow bolt into my shoulder, mocking me, and Sol and Nox are disarmed now too. Nox paces like a caged animal inside a ring of five guards, and Sol stands stock-still with fists at his side, the only tell he has that he’s on the verge of exploding.
Two more guard the chapel entrance, while the ones on me might as well be posted up on a pissed-off rock for all the damage I can do trussed up like this. Another pair stand by Bossie, who’s back to her bullshit Sunday school teacher act as she prattles off the vows.
My throat seizes when she reaches the final question.
“And do you, Bartholomew Wilde, take Luna Bordeaux, to have and to hold, from this day forward, till death do you part?”
His grin stretches wide. My stomach churns at his lecherous gaze sliding up and down my girl like she’s a slab of meat.
“I do.”
Lightning cracks. Thunder booms immediately after, shaking the chapel’s ancient bones.
Bossie turns to Luna, her expression suddenly unforgiving. “And do you, Luna Bordeaux, take Bartholomew Wilde, to have and to hold, from this day forward, till death do you part?”
“No!” The word tears my throat raw, bursting a metallic tang on my tongue. Another punch slams into my skull, lurching my jaw to the side.
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him!” Luna’s voice clears the fog threatening to take me under. I fight to focus on her, to hold on. She’s lifted the veil to see me, and I suck in a breath.
Even now, eyes glittering with fear and pain, face crumpled with defeat, she’s breathtaking on a stage. My chest aches to kiss her tears dry.
“Don’t pay him no mind, boys. I already skipped the ‘who objects’ line,” Bossie laughs dryly, all mirth gone as her eyes cut to me.
“I didn’t gag you because we’ve got some things to discuss.
Don’t make me change my mind.” Then she clasps her hands over the crook of her cane and fixes that glare on Luna.
“Now. I believe I asked you a question, honey.”
Luna inhales, opens her mouth?—
“You know what? That’s enough. If you think taking my daughter hostage will unite our families, you’re delusional,” Sol snaps. “You think we’ll be allies? I’m warning you, if you force my daughter into this farce, I’ll rain hell on every last one of you.”
Bossie’s smile twitches. “Threatening to hurt people is some blasphemous talk in a house of God. It’s a mighty fine threat, though, I’ll give you that.
But it ain’t got no teeth. Once your daughter’s in Old Bridge, we’ll take care of her well enough.
So long as you play nice when we call on you to stand against the Furys.
The rest of the Troisgarde will follow suit once we have their daughters too. ”
Fuck.
Dread hangs my head. I was afraid of this. My brothers are gonna go ballistic.
Luna’s breath hitches. “Wh-What do you mean?”
I swallow past my dry throat. “It means your sacrifice is just the beginning, baby.”
Luna’s eyes meet mine, worry creasing her brow, but Bossie’s chuckle snaps her attention back.
“He’s right. We ain’t stopping at the Bordeauxs. It’s the Troisgarde daughters . The three of you are part of this, and if we don’t finish the job,” Bossie says, narrowing her eyes at me, “the King Furys will.”
“No,” Luna chokes. “You can’t cage Brylie like this. And Lucy… Lucy’s not strong enough for this life, Bossie. Let’s end it here. None of this has anything to do with them.”
Bossie leans forward, a copperhead ready to strike. But her position is all the more chilling as she replies calmly.
“It has everything to do with them. The King Fury branch attacked my kin. Murdered us. It’s them who tried to destroy us from the roots up.”
“Really?” Rage hurls out my accusation. “Tell her what y’all did. Tell her how my mom was murdered by your sons.”
“You mean… her brothers.”
I open my mouth to shout back, but the words hit their target.
“What?” I breathe.
Bossies sighs and shakes her head. “Figures no one ever told you about your momma’s side of the family tree. Can’t say I blame them. Before she was your ‘Queenie,’ she was my princess. My namesake… my Ruthie.”
“Wait.” I can barely form my mouth around the words. “My momma… she was a Wilde?”
As far as my brothers and I knew, she had no living family. Never talked about it. We didn’t think much of it, since my dad had family to spare. But to hide something like this ?
Bossie nods. “Wilde through and through. Until she was bewitched under your King’s spell. The moment she set foot in Dark Corner, she was no kin of mine.”
“You exiled her?” I spit.
It’s the Wilde way, to cut off your family like that. But how could anyone be so cruel to someone as good as my mom?
“Your momma cut us off. She knew the consequences of running off with your daddy and she still spit in our eye, choosing Fury.”
Jesus, no wonder her branch of the tree in our books starts with her and ends with…
Us.
My eyes widen at Bossie as she slowly nods.
“Which makes you and your brothers my grandsons.”
She says it with zero warmth, and I feel the same. But I can’t help throwing her own words back at her and raising my bound wrists.
“Then what’s this, huh? What happened to ‘kin is kin’?”
“It’s the reason you ain’t already buried out back and the last courtesy I’ll give my late daughter,” she counters, hands tightening on her cane.
“I have no love for you, boy, and I’ll do what I have to for this family.
Her line is rotten to the core, and rot’s gotta be cut off or the whole tree falls down.
I won’t have y’all’s traitorous blood continuing your line and infecting mine.
The Furys will be defeated, and King Fury’s direct line will end with you, Dashiel, and Hatton.
We’re stealing your precious Troisgarde daughters for our own, like King did with mine. He started this. I’m finishing it.”
“He knew what was coming,” Sol muses low, then raises his voice. “ You’re the reason he made this pact in the first place. To ensure his line was protected by us, and that his legacy would live on.”
I wince. He makes it sound so… calculated . And maybe it is on paper, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way at the heart of it. Not to my brothers, and certainly not to me.
It feels like Fate. Destiny. The Fury call we get when we meet the ones who give us peace, the call I know my father felt for my mom. But whatever the motive behind King’s plan was, our wives are ours , and no Wilde can stand in the way of that.
Bossie nods then levels me with a hard stare. “King tried to ward us off, but he gave us an opening instead. It’s life for life, young Fury. Your father will rue the day he crossed Bossie Wilde.”
I’m stunned, slack-jawed and vision tunneling, but even as I face off with Bossie, my senses quiet, trying to register everything in my periphery.
The guards surrounding Nox and Sol are dialed in, listening to the argument and not giving the Bordeauxs nearly as much attention as the deadly men deserve. Sol studies me and Bossie like he’s tracking the storm raging inside the church, while Nox has stopped pacing, bracing to weather it.
Even Luna’s posture has straightened, her expression carefully blank aside from narrowed eyes she’s pretending aren’t solely focused on her brother and father.
The Bordeaux family vigilance thickens the air.
Does Bossie feel it too? Or is it because I’ve watched them for so long that I can tell something’s up?
“Now then, that’s quite enough family story time, isn’t it? Luna!” Bossie snaps her fingers, redirecting everyone’s focus back to the sham of a wedding. “I asked you a question. Do. You… take my grandson as your husband?”
“I…” Luna closes her eyes, gathering courage, and breathing hard through her nose.
Bossie’s eyes flick beyond Luna, and she nods to her kin.
Then it happens exactly how I knew it would.
Like wolves rising at their alpha’s command, every barrel slowly, silently lifts to aim at me. Even my own crossbow digs harder into my shoulder.
My eyes close. I lift my chin, ready for my judgment. As soon as Luna says yes, it’s over. I just hope some trigger-happy bastard puts me down before then. I can’t watch the woman I love sell herself for me in vain.
“Answer the question!” Bossie’s shrill voice cuts through the chapel, no doubt to mask the sound of guns cocking…
“I—”
…but someone’s too slow.
Luna gasps at the click , then screams.
“ Don’t! ”
She’s airborne before anyone can react, leaping from the dais like it’s a cliff. Bart grabs for her, but only catches her veil, tearing it free. With just a few strides, Luna crashes into me, her skirt fanning out like wings as she wraps her body around mine.
The woman I love is shielding me.
Saving me.
And now every fucking weapon in the room is pointed at her.