Wendy
The priest’s voice is a drone, a hollow background noise to the thunder of the organ and the frantic, rhythmic clink-clink-clink of my gold shackles. The chapel is a masterpiece of cruelty—every white lily smells like a funeral, every flickering candle feels like a countdown.
Peter doesn’t wait for the priest to prompt him. He steps forward, his shadow engulfing me, and takes my bound hands in his. His touch is steady, warm, and utterly terrifying. He looks at me, ignoring the Council, ignoring the war, ignoring the blood beginning to smear the gold of my cuffs.
“My turn, Darling,” he whispers.
He doesn’t use a book. He doesn’t need a script. He leans in close, his voice dropping into that low rasp that bypasses my brain and goes straight to my marrow.
“Wendy,” he begins, and the way he says my name sounds like a prayer being whispered in a torture chamber.
“I didn’t choose you because you were a victim.
I chose you because you were the only beautiful thing to ever survive the fire I’ve felt in my head since the day I was born.
People talk about love like it’s a gift.
They’re wrong. Love is a siege. It’s the total occupation of another person’s soul. ”
I try to look away, but his grip on my wrists tightens, forcing me to stay anchored to him.
“I vow to be the wall that keeps the world out and the floor that keeps you from falling,” he continues, his eyes searching mine with a devastating, unhinged honesty.
“I vow to burn every bridge you ever thought about crossing back to the life you had. I will be your morning, your midnight, and every breath of air you’re allowed to take.
I won’t just cherish you, Wendy. I will consume you.
I will track your heartbeats until mine stop, and even then, I’ll find a way to haunt the space you occupy. ”
My breath hitches. It’s not a vow; it’s a declaration of war. It’s so dark, so absolute, that for a flickering, treacherous second, my hatred wavers. He’s promising me a cage, yes, but he’s promising to stay in it with me.
“You are the only thing I have ever truly owned,” he says, his thumb tracing the blue vein in my wrist, right above the gold.
“And I vow to never, ever let you be free of me. Not in this life, and not in whatever hell comes after. You are the fire, Wendy. And I am the man who decided to never stop burning.”
He stops, and the silence that follows is more deafening than the organ. He’s looking at me with such raw, predatory worship that it shatters me. It throws me off my axis—I want to spit in his face, but I also want to collapse into his chest and let the world end.
The priest clears his throat, his hands shaking so violently the Bible leaves ruffles in the air. “And… and you, Wendy? Your vows?”
I look at Peter. I look at the gold chains. I look at the man who drugged me, shackled me, and just told me he would haunt my very existence. My mouth opens, but the words are stuck in the wreckage of my throat.
“Say it, Wendy,” he prompts, his voice a soft, lethal caress. “Tell them what happens to the girl who smiled at the flames.”
I shake my head, the movement frantic and jagged, sending tears flying into the lace of my bodice. The chandeliers above me blur into a dizzying, mocking halo of light. I can’t breathe. The lilies, the silk, the gold—it’s all a chokehold.
“No,” I choke out, my voice a wet, broken splinter. “No, Peter. You can’t… you can’t say those things and then keep me in chains. It’s not love. It’s not.”
For a heartbeat, he softens. It’s the most cruel thing he’s done yet.
He reaches out, his hand moving with a slow, devastating gentleness to brush a tear from my cheek.
His skin is warm, his touch so light it feels like a ghost’s caress, making me want to lean into him even as I loathe the very air he breathes.
He looks at me like I’m the only light in a dying universe.
“Don’t cry, Darling,” he whispers, his thumb tracing the curve of my jaw. “You’re far too beautiful to ruin the makeup.”
Then, the warmth vanishes.
In one fluid motion, his hand slides from my jaw to my throat.
His fingers don’t just rest there; they clamp down, not enough to kill, but enough to remind me exactly who is holding the leash.
He jerks me forward until my chest is crushed against his charcoal suit, my bound hands forced up between us, the gold chain biting into my collarbone.
“The time for tears is over,” he snarls, his face inches from mine, his eyes turning into bottomless pits of obsidian. The “human man” is gone, buried under the weight of the King who won’t be denied. “I gave you my soul, Wendy. Now give me your fucking word.”
“Peter—” I gasp, my hands clawing at his wrists.
“Say it,” he commands, his grip tightening just a fraction, his voice dropping to a guttural, lethal rasp that echoes off the marble walls.
“Say those two fucking words. Say them now, or I swear to God, I’ll clear this room and make you say them while you’re screaming for mercy on the floor. Give me the vow, Wendy. Say. I. Do.”
The Council leans forward. The priest looks like he’s about to faint. The organ music has died down to a low, ominous hum that feels like the heartbeat of the house itself.
I look up at him, my vision tunnelling until there is nothing but his terrifying, beautiful face and the cold certainty that I am his. I am the girl from the fire, and he is the one who finally caught me.
“I…” my voice breaks, a sob catching in my throat.
“Say it,” he repeats, his thumb pressing into the soft dip above my windpipe, his gaze unyielding.
“I do,” I whisper, the words tasting like ash and surrender. “I do.”
Peter doesn’t let go of my throat. He leans down, his lips crushing mine in a kiss that is more conquest than celebration, marking the exact moment my life became a footnote in his legend.
The priest’s hands are shaking so violently the gold band rattles against the silver tray. Peter releases my throat, but the ghost of his grip remains, a cold brand on my skin. He reaches for the ring.
It isn’t a traditional band. It’s a heavy, ornate piece of engineering, encrusted with diamonds that looks like frozen tears. In the centre, a deep red ruby pulses like a dying star.
“With this ring,” Peter murmurs, his voice dropping into that dark register that makes my skin crawl and my heart ache in equal measure, “I lock the door. I seal the cage. I make sure that no matter where you run, the shadows will always lead back to me.”
He takes my left hand. His fingers are steady, ice-cold against my feverish skin. I try to pull back, the gold chains clashing together with a desperate, frantic ching, but he increases his pressure, his eyes boring into mine with a lethal, unyielding promise.
“You’re mine, Wendy. Down to the very bone.”
He slides the ring onto my finger. It’s a perfect fit, sliding over the knuckle with a sickening smoothness. But the moment it sits flush against the base of my finger, I hear it.
Click.
A mechanical, metallic snap echoes in the silence of the chapel.
I scream.
Tiny, microscopic needles—surgical-grade pins hidden within the inner lining of the band—fire inward. They don’t just graze me; they embed themselves deep into my skin, anchoring the ring to the bone. The pain is a white-hot lightning strike that travels up my arm and settles in my chest.
“Peter!” I gasp, my knees buckling.
He catches me, his arm snaking around my waist to hold me upright as the first drops of crimson begin to leak from beneath the diamonds, staining the pristine white silk of my skirt. The blood is vivid, shocking against the opulence, a visceral reminder that this isn’t a marriage—it’s a branding.
He lifts my hand, the gold chains draped over his forearm, and kisses the knuckle right above the bleeding ring. I can see the flicker of the tracker beneath the ruby, a faint, rhythmic red pulse that syncs with my own frantic heartbeat.
“It’s a masterpiece, isn’t it?” he whispers, his lips stained with my blood as he pulls back to look at me. “It’s synced to your pulse. If you try to take it off, the pins flare. If you run, I find you. If your heart stops… I’ll know the exact second I’ve lost everything.”
He turns to the Council, his face hardening into a mask of pure power, his hand still gripping my bleeding, shackled fingers.
“Behold your Queen,” he roars, the organ music exploding into a final, deafening chord. “The only woman in Chicago who belongs to the King of the Dead.”
I look down at my hand, the blood dripping onto the marble, the red light of the tracker blinking mockingly at me. I am his. Physically, biologically, and legally. The man I thought I saw a flash of light in has just buried a machine in my flesh.