Chapter 40
40
I t’s been a month since I awoke, and it’s my wedding day.
Sounds like we’re doing this shotgun style, doesn’t it? We just got engaged and are already getting married. But don’t worry, there’s not a bun in this oven, just a woman who really really really wants to start spending the rest of her life with the man she’s loved (secretly and begrudgingly) for the past ten years.
And I’m so ready for it.
A knock comes from the door. “Come in.”
Addison appears. She’s wearing a beautiful high-waisted lavender gown that reveals her tiny baby bump. It’s adorable. I love it. Can’t wait to be an aunt.
“Do you have everything?” she asks.
“Of course she does,” Chelsea responds, handing me my shoes. “Dallas and I are here.”
Dallas grabs a white cowboy hat from the bed and puts it on. “Yeah, Addison, we’ve got this.”
“They’re taking good care of me,” I assure her. “And please thank Feylin again for allowing us to marry in the castle.”
“Of course. Let me see you.”
I take one last look in the full-length mirror and exhale. My gown, against Mama’s most motherly desire for me, is midnight blue. It’s the dress that I was wearing the night that Devlin proposed. This dress has had one great thing happen in it, and several bad things—Storm’s explosion, Cathy, the truck.
So I wanted to give it another good memory, because I deserve it. I deserve to not be pinned down by a memory that I had no control over. I’d rather live in good ones, so I’m giving that to this dress, and after our wedding, I have a feeling it’s going to become my lucky gown.
Or maybe that’s just me hoping. But everyone needs hope, right?
“Do you have your something old?” Addison asks.
Chelsea pulls out a broach that belonged to Nana. “Right here.”
She pins the pearls on me.
“Great!” Addison does a little fist pump. “What about something new?”
“Shoes.” I show her my feet and the fresh heels I’m wearing. “What do you think?”
“Oh, I love that they’re so pearly,” she says as Dallas flits around me, fluffing out my veil. “Something blue is your dress.”
I turn this way and that. “Yes.”
“And something borrowed?”
“The pin,” Chelsea says.
“Nana’s dead,” I tell her. “It can’t be borrowed because she’s not going to need it anymore.”
She grimaces. “Good point.”
Addison’s brows lift. “So you don’t have anything?”
“No, I’ve got…no. I don’t have anything.” How do I not have anything borrowed? How did we forget this? I quickly scan the room. What can I take with me? The footstool? No, obviously not. The mirror? The bed?
I need to just stop.
“I was afraid of that,” Addison says, pulling something out from behind her back.
It’s the rose bouquet from when she married Feylin, and the roses are as perfect as if they haven’t aged a day. There’s a single golden rose nestled in the middle of all the red ones, but that’s another story for another time.
I can’t believe it. “You kept this?”
“Of course I did.” She waves me away like why wouldn’t I? “Here. Take it. Unless you don’t want to.”
“No, of course not. I’m not married to my bouquet. I mean”—I sink onto one hip—“I’m not marrying my bouquet. But I love yours, thank you!”
She gives me a warm hug before pushing the flowers into my hands. “Here.” She touches the ends of my hair. “You look beautiful.”
I do a mock curtsy. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Stop it. I may be a queen here, but I’m always just your sister, who loves you.”
I fan my face to keep from tearing up. “Stop it. I don’t need to cry and ruin my makeup.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Devlin would dump you if that happened,” Dallas says sarcastically.
“One day,” I tell her, “you’ll fall in love, and you’ll talk differently about this.”
She rolls her eyes. “I doubt it.”
“Me too,” Chelsea says. “I seriously doubt I’ll be falling in love with anybody anytime soon. So, hurry up and save our magic for now, Blair! We need you.”
I burst into laughter. My sisters mean well, and I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have them.
“All right.” I take one last look in the mirror. “Who’s ready to get married?”
“You are,” they shout.
We burst into laughter, and Addison takes me by the arm. “Come on. I’ll walk you to Dad.”
The four of us head out of the room and I exhale. My heart’s fluttering against my chest. My stomach’s tight. I never thought that I’d be nervous doing this—then again, I never thought that I’d be marrying Devlin, so there’s that—but I am unequivocally nervous. So nervous.
I take a deep breath as I walk down the stairs. Addison leads me to the door that signals the entrance to the garden. Last year she got married here, in the exact spot where Devlin and I are about to tie the knot. This place holds good memories for my family. I hope to add more to it.
My sisters drop me off beside my dad.
“Good luck,” Dallas says.
I shoot her a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugs. “It means good luck. Don’t trip.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about that until you said something,” I hiss.
Chelsea pats my arm. “Ignore her. She’s young. Stupid.”
“I am not.”
Addison ushers them both through the door. “Come on. Let’s get in our seats.”
They shuffle off, Dallas still snipping at Chelsea. Chelsea was only kidding. My younger sister will get over it soon enough.
Devlin and I decided against bridesmaids and groomsmen. We wanted it to be just us, and let our families enjoy the ceremony.
My dad looks great. His hair is combed to one side, and he’s beaming at me. His tie’s crooked, so I fix it and press down his lapel.
“Never thought I’d see the day you married Devlin Ross.” He puffs out his chest with a deep breath. “Though I always liked him.”
“Even when he’d bring two dates to a dance?”
“It just showed me that he wasn’t serious about them. Besides”—insert stern fatherly glance here—“he always asked you to dance, which said even more, I suppose.”
The music begins and Dad leads me outside. It’s a gorgeous day in the fae garden, as it should be. Guests fill every seat. There are witches and wizards, werewolves and vampires. Magicals have come from all over to witness my marriage.
“Psst.”
I glance over at Nana, who’s sitting in a seat. She’s actually sitting in an entire row filled with other ghosts, who are all smiling and giving me thumbs-up.
Once her existence was out in the open, it didn’t take long before other spirits started coming out of their proverbial closets. For all the people that pretended to be so offended and terrified at the ball the night Nana showed herself, almost half of them were being haunted by their own relatives.
Can you believe that?
I suppose it’s no surprise, because folks like to point fingers a lot, even when they’re doing the same thing that they’re pointing the finger for in the first place.
“Knock ’em dead, kid,” Nana says.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
For some reason I don’t think brides are supposed to talk when they’re walking down the aisle. That seems like something that would only happen in a romantic comedy.
Devlin’s been standing with his back to me, but just now he turns around and I’m knocked over by how handsome he looks. He must think the same thing about me because he clutches his heart with both hands and pretends to stagger back.
I grin and press the bouquet to my nose bashfully. He is so beautiful. His hair is raked back from his forehead. It’s thick and wavy. His golden skin is nearly glowing, and he looks like his handsome old self.
After his collapse, my family wouldn’t take any more of his magic for the store unless he limited what he gave us.
So he did.
Me being back helped him make that decision, and I’m more than grateful that he didn’t kill himself trying to save my family.
A life without Devlin is no life at all. Now that I’ve gotten him and I’m swimming in the ocean that is Devlin, able to see him whenever I want, talk to him, cuddle with him, I honestly don’t know how I survived this long without him. He is everything to me, and always has been.
I’m pretty sure that I’m everything to him, too.
Just kidding, I know that I am.
In the front seat sits Hands. Beside him is Lilly, Devlin’s grandmother. She smiles warmly at me. Hands gives me the okay sign, and I wink in return.
And then Dad delivers me to Devlin and he takes my hand, kissing it like a gentleman.
“Sorry,” he tells the priest, “I couldn’t wait for ‘man and wife’ to kiss her.”
The crowd laughs. I laugh. He’s just the most charming fellow. He knows it, too.
“You look beautiful,” he whispers.
“So do you.”
“Thank you. So. You ready to get married?”
“More than ready.”
As soon as we say, “I do,” a heaviness fills the air. Magic imbues my body from head to toe—the family’s magic. Two daughters down, five to go, and our power won’t be secure until each of us is wed.
But for now, we’re safe.
And then the ceremony is over. I’m being kissed and everyone’s dancing and celebrating.
My heart is so full that it could explode. It might . I don’t know. Maybe . Actually it better not. That sucker better keep on ticking for another hundred years. I want to suck every drop of life from this existence with my brand-new husband that I can.
After my family’s many congratulations and our guests shower us with so much love, the sun begins to set and fairy lights flare to life around us, suspended in the air by magic. A breeze moves through the trees, and Devlin eyes me from the other side of the makeshift dance floor, where he’s talking to Feylin. When Addison joins them, he excuses himself and approaches where I sit, basking in all the joy.
“Dance?”
I grin. “Aren’t you tired of dancing?”
“Not with you.” He extends his left hand that now sports a wedding band. “I’ll never get tired of dancing with you.”
I let him pull me to standing, and we move slowly, my cheek on his shoulder and Devlin holding me to him. He chuckles.
“What is it?”
He sighs happily. “I was just remembering that tango we did to make Storm jealous and how I was ready to rip your clothes off by the end of it.”
“You can rip my clothes off tonight.”
“It would be my pleasure, and I’m sorry to bring up Grayson.”
Storm is currently sitting in a cell, all his money unable to buy him out of the Castleview jail. That’s because Devlin has about as much money and can hire just as good of lawyers as Storm.
“You know, there’s one thing that bothers me,” I tell him.
“Now what could be bothering you on a night as perfect as this one?”
“I never found out what kind of supernatural Storm is.”
“What? You don’t know?”
I lift my head and study him. He is genuinely baffled that I have no clue. “No. Do you?”
He chuckles. “Of course I do.”
“How do you know?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I scoff. “If you know, then what is he? Not that it matters, because the type of supernatural a person is, isn’t important. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, but Storm’s insides aren’t any good, so maybe his outside is better.”
“Well said.”
“It wasn’t, but thank you. So. What is he?”
Devlin’s lips pull back into a seductive smile. “What will you give me if I tell you?”
I throw out my arms dramatically. “The world.”
“I don’t want the world. I only want you.”
“Then you have me. So?”
He grimaces. “I’m not sure it’s my place to tell.”
I tickle his side. “Devlin Ross, if you don’t tell me right now, I’ll scream.”
“Fine. Fine. Storm Grayson is half wizard.”
“That much I guessed. What else?”
He clears his throat. Devlin’s really milking this suspense. I just about want to tickle it out of him. “The other half of him is fae.”
My jaw drops. “How did I not ever think that?”
“I don’t know. Why didn’t you?”
“I should have. All the signs are there except for Feylin inviting him to the castle and loudly proclaiming it.”
“They sure are.” He lifts my hand over my head and spins me. When I fall back onto him, he says, “So. Are you ready to go to bed?”
I tug my teeth over my bottom lip. His gaze flicks to my mouth. “I’m ready to be your wife.”
“Then let’s go to bed.”