Chapter 27 #2
“It could be a year before this thing finally comes out to meet me, so I’m going to take it with me everywhere.
” I slide the basket over and rest my left hand on it while I eat my lasagna.
“I know you think it’s weird, and that’s fine, but if it could hatch any time, then I need to keep an eye on it all the time. ”
He shakes his head, but he doesn’t argue with me.
Men just don’t get it.
The voices surge right then, making it hard for me to hear what he’s just asked, and I blink and shake my shoulders. All the head-shaking was causing headaches, so I’m trying to knock them back in other ways.
“Are the voices still calling for Jore?” He frowns. “I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, me either,” I say. “In fact, you could say I hate it. At least when my mom died, she didn’t leave me drowning in ghost-like prayers and demands.
I swear, if I was half as annoying as the stupid idiots always whining in my mind, Jore should have just saved herself the trouble and stabbed me a hundred thousand years ago. ”
He laughs. “You’re going to be a great mother when that egg hatches. Have I said that yet?”
I shove him. Hard. “Hey, you can’t stay stuff like that.”
He slides his chair over until it’s flush with mine. “You can’t teach me to be sarcastic and then not let me use it.” He kisses me then, and I know—between the bond and the way he touches me—that he thinks I’ll be a good mother.
“I love you,” I whisper.
“Thank you,” he says.
I laugh. “You know, when we get married, you can’t say that. You have to say you love me, too. No one else will get it. It’s a weird you and me thing.”
He’s beaming. “I don’t know—saying I love you too feels like a really big commitment, and we just have one egg together. It hasn’t even hatched yet.”
I glare.
“Oh, fine.” He nods. “I’ll say I love you, even if saying thank you instead would be way funnier.”
I roll my eyes, but I wish I could freeze this moment. This casual happiness is what I want to have forever. It’s what I want our wedding to feel like.
“The wedding you humans care about so very much isn’t really that important,” Axel says.
“The dress and the vows and the people watching.” He shrugs and he drops his hand on mine.
“I know it matters to you, so I hope it all goes perfectly, but what we have?” He bites his lip. “It’s already forever.”
I know he’s right.
During the day leading up to the day of the ceremony, I fight with George a lot. “I know you wanted a small ceremony, but like it or not, your wedding is now an act of state.”
“It’s not,” I say.
“It is,” he insists. “Your future husband leads his people, and there are a lot of them.” He drops his voice.
“They’re also very, very powerful. The humans who are bonded to the blessed and the ones who aren’t, they all want to be here.
They’re demanding it, and anyone you don’t invite is going to—”
“I’m about to disinvite you,” I say. “Axel and I are going to portal to Vegas and get married by Elvis.”
Who’s Elvis? Axel’s in dragon form several miles away, helping the other earth blessed prepare our wedding dais and the seating for the guests, but he can still hear every word, of course.
“Don’t ask,” I say. “It’s just a threat.”
“Ha,” George says. “I knew it. You won’t really do that, and you need to be realistic about how many guests we’re inviting, because the person who has to deal with the fallout if you slight. . .” He’s still talking. On and on.
I’ve gotten much better at tuning people out now that my head’s constantly full of noise. When the voices get to be too much, I cover my ears and scream. That gets his attention.
He straightens, glowering a little. “Give me a number. I’ll figure out who we can invite, and I’ll only include the ones who are the most important.”
“Fifty.”
He laughs.
“A hundred?”
“Five hundred,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Axel, how many people can fit in the stands you made?”
Humans?
“We need to have room for blessed too,” I say.
“They can fly around,” George says.
We argue back and forth for a bit longer and wind up at two hundred. “That’ll work, but I’m going to have to cancel the plus ones.”
That’s his problem. When I see him out, my dad shoots in.
“It’s harder than I ever thought it would be for me to see my own daughter.” He shrugs. “Heavy is the head.”
I shake my head. “No crowns here.”
“Wings,” he says. “I was going to say heavy is the head that bears the wings.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“The President’s very nervous to come,” he says. “I told him you don’t hold grudges, or at least, not badly enough to harm him.” He touches my cheek. “You look tired.”
I collapse into a chair and explain that Jore gave me all her magic after I killed her, and I can’t get rid of all the people praying to her, night and day, constantly.
He sits next to me with a wide-eyed expression. “That is really not what I expected to hear you say.”
My laugh’s wry. “Always something new at Casa de Axel.”
“What’s your last name going to be after all this?” Dad asks. “What should I call you? Mrs. Axel?”
“Elizabeth Chadwick,” I say. “That’s the advantage to marrying a man without a last name. I’m certainly not calling myself Odinson.”
“Are you really alright?” Dad asks. “Prayers notwithstanding, you’re okay?” He shifts in his chair so he’s staring right at me.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Are you alright?” Mom and I had a fraught few months, but Dad. . .he never didn’t love her. Their whole life was full of ups and downs, but that was a pretty abrupt, pretty hard way to lose the love of your life.
“She was sorry,” he says. “She was so very sorry.” He shakes his head.
“Being ensnared was hard on your mother. She never talked to you about this, but her father wasn’t.
. .” He clears his throat. “There’s a reason we only really saw my family.
Having someone take her decisions from her, that wasn’t something your mother could handle very well.
She couldn’t parent you, she couldn’t be the mother you needed in those circumstances.
The sad reality is that as parents, we don’t always get to separate our past trauma when it’s time for us to take care of you.
Sometimes we just have to try our best to parent through the tempest.”
I glance at my egg. I have no idea what to expect of my future, and I have my own baggage to manage. “I forgave her,” I whisper. “I know she came to you a little broken.” I guess we all do. “And I know she did the best she could with me—for me.”
The next morning, when my dad holds out his arm to walk me down the aisle, he doesn’t look sad.
As we walk past the gathered heads of state and presidents, Dad holds his head high.
Coral’s behind us, holding our little golden egg on a pillow.
Jade’s walking Fluff Dog behind her with the rings tied to her collar.
And Sammy’s behind them both, holding baskets full of rose petals he has basically weaponized to bean the President of the United States in the knee. Watching the old guy flinch as Sammy pelts him with fistfuls of dead flowers is actually hilarious.
I’m smiling when I reach the stunning altar Gordon made with Axel’s guidance.
Rufus would have made the flowers much better. Gordon’s eyes are both happy and sad. I can’t blame him for that.
But Axel’s smiling and he’s wearing a tux. I didn’t think I’d ever see him in a tux, and it does not disappoint.
After leading me up to the top of the platform, my dad pivots around and addresses the gathered crowd.
“When my daughter asked me to get certified to officiate at her wedding, I thought she was crazy. I’ve been trained to speak, but not like this, not for happy occasions.
I’m usually representing companies that want to tear other businesses apart and consume the entrails. ”
The audience laughs.
“But today we’re here for something much happier.
Today we’re here to celebrate that love can be found where you least expect it, if you will only give it a chance.
A few months ago, when a massive, semi-hostile force invaded earth, my daughter was resolved to fight them to the end. ” He smiles at Axel.
“An end I assumed would come quickly,” I whisper.
Everyone close enough to hear me laughs.
“Axel here bonded her against her will, but once he did, he never used that bond to force Liz to do anything she didn’t want to do.”
I tried, Axel says. I’ve never admitted this, but I couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to do, even from the beginning.
Dad’s mouth dangles open for a moment, and then he blinks. “Right from the start, their relationship was a strange one. But for anyone close enough to see, it was obvious that it was something special.”
The voices blathering in the background of my mind surge. I’m at my wedding, and I’m listening to my dad bless my union to Axel in front of our family, friends, and hundreds of foreign dignitaries, and I can’t even hear what’s being said because of the relentless begging voices.
Help me Jore. I know you’re out there, and I’m sure—
The thing is, I don’t really believe in much, but once I heard that dragons—
I just need one little thing. My whole life, I’ve wanted to—
“Make it stop!” I shout.
Axel tightens his hand on mine, and he frowns. Are you alright?
“Did you want to stop the wedding?” Dad raises both eyebrows.
I shake my head. “Jore!” I shout. “You had all this magic, and you had all this knowledge, and you showed up and helped me all the time, and now, you’re just—you’ve ruined my life!
” I look up at the sky, even though I know she’s not up there.
She’s always drawn her power from the earth.
“Come back here and take all this magic back. I don’t want it! ”
Dad and Axel are exchanging a look.
It’s not encouraging.