2. Chapter 2
Willow
Iwas going to get married with unwashed hair. A dirty sacrifice through and through.
Luckily, there would be no big ceremony, though vampires were well known for their grand, pompous nature.
Not the Duke of Darkheim apparently. The groom had not even provided a dress or a veil as they were required to.
So, I’d worn only the presentable summer dress that hadn’t left my wardrobe since my inauguration into Agnes’s service many years ago.
My veil consisted of a lace curtain Ethel had torn from her bedroom window—the same Ethel who’d chosen to forgo the ceremony after some heated debating where the topic in question had been my sanity.
I hoped the darkness in the candlelit chapel hid the moth holes around the dress seam, along with the fact that I’d outgrown it to the point where it now barely reached my ankles.
No guests lined the endless pews on my side.
No one would walk me down an isle drenched in rose petals.
In fact, I was waiting for the groom instead.
Who was undoubtedly handing my bride price to Agnes for inspection before the Bloodletting.
Marilla—Agnes’s second in command, who didn’t seem to be in on Agnes’s plan—had pinned me with a glare so harsh I’d already scratched my nose twice. A third time, and I'd probably burst into flames. Hopefully. Please, whoever is listening.
No one in Meridian had been very discreet in their dislike of me, but Marilla’s disdain was something more personal.
I did want to rage at her putrid behaviour and treatment of me over the years, but I could not.
Not only because she was entirely too superstitious to excuse my cursed existence, but because her wife had died right outside the old orangery.
A healthy witch in her early thirties dropping dead at the sight of me wasn’t exactly ordinary, so I had become an outlet for her grief.
Besides, Marilla was nearly a foot shorter than me, and I could never be angry at someone so little.
She’d been put through enough challenges in this lifetime.
“What did you do to Moira?”
Putting my best smile on, I twirled in her direction and pushed my curtain-veil up. “Killed and buried her under my herb garden, of course. Can’t waste good compost.”
“Don’t get smart with me. Why is a jinx being handed over to the vampires? What happens when they find out we might have just cursed the Duke’s entire lineage?”
Hopefully, I wouldn't live long enough to find out. “We’re in love, Marilla. Why else would I agree to marry an old, balding, five-hundred-year-old vampire who obviously has some type of erectile issue?”
“This isn’t the least bit funny. You’re not a red maiden. And we’ve got plenty of them to spare.”
“Do you want me to cry? Because I can and I will,” I said, making a twisted sad face at her which she received with disgust.
“Agnes must be out of her holy mind,” she murmured under her breath. “She always presents insane when it comes to you.”
Agreed.
And if my groom didn’t show up in the next five minutes, I was not only going to cry, I was going to be sick.
My feet were itching to take a stroll towards the nearest docking ship that would travel the furthest from Epiron.
Because Marilla was not wrong. He’d know something was wrong with me the moment he saw me.
My curse aside, I’d not spent an hour awake in finishing classes, while red maidens were practically professional wives by the time they reached puberty.
He’d know Agnes had duped him out of a perfect witch who’d give him many, many powerful little toothy, blood-sucking babies.
Though Agnes had given me her surname when she’d taken me under her wing, I was nothing but a half-blooded witch with an unknown bloodline who spent all her fun time making human jam in her cute little formalin jars because she was convinced that one day she might come across a human rotting from the same tree as her.
He’d know. He would most certainly know I was up to something.
A gust of wind swept all the heavy purple curtains back, and the doors drew open to welcome in at least a good half a dozen vampires wearing what looked to be a military uniform—black jackets lined with gold buttons and blood red epaulettes coming down their shoulders.
The air in the room shifted, heavy and alloyed with threat.
Their bodies were larger and broader than anyone I'd ever seen, muscled and defined for hunting, like deadly beasts of prey. Heavily armed for no reason at all, they took their seats on the pews. The various colours of their eyes were bright and metallic in finish, near glowing from the depths of the shadows. Their skins appeared to be almost painted on them, without any flaw or blemish. Blink and you’d think they were porcelain dolls.
Which one was my old, balding vamp—
The candlelight fluttered like the tides of an angry dark sea with each step he took down the aisle on his way to me, enshrouding my husband-to-be in a veil of horror.
Logan Duncan was a mountain of a man, at least a foot over my already nearly six-foot stature, his dark uniform stretching tightly around his thick, muscled limbs and wide shoulders.
His yellow eyes were almost luminescent in the dark, and as he got closer, I realised his hair was a very soft, light golden colour, not the brown it had appeared under the shadows.
My eyes remained frozen on him as he crossed the nave in very few steps, walking in my direction like a jungle cat ready to pounce on weak prey.
But the predator seemed like he’d also been prey once, too.
Across the face that looked like it had been carved by a steady-handed sculptor with an understanding for beauty, there were scars—angry, deep, old scars.
Warm blood dripped from my nose, pooling between my parted lips as I took in my husband-to-be.
From the corner of my eye, I could see the stunned expression on Marilla’s face that shifted to absolute bewilderment as she took turns staring between him and I. And I was sure he could see her, too, but there was only boredom on his face, like he was used to wandering gazes.
He glanced over his shoulder at the empty pews on my side, his gilded gaze narrowing. Probably wondering why no one had come to see his unlucky bride off to her new home.
Marilla muttered a long string of a warding prayer when he stopped beside me, as if he were some evil cursed spirit, and he either didn’t hear her or willingly ignored her—for her sake at least. Which would be odd as his kind were not known for their genteel manners.
In fact, his kind were known for the very opposite.
Vampires had the most violent reputation amongst all species in Epiron.
Even though the lycans were the most beastly looking of the bunch and the fae had a taste for gore, violence had almost always been attributed to vampires.
Perhaps it was their known lack of empathy. A side effect of consuming human blood.
Blood.
I smacked my lips together, tasting it.
Shit.
I snatched my curtain-veil down, hiding under it to wipe the blood from my nose. I’d been having these nosebleeds for so long now. I couldn't even remember when they’d started. But they only occurred when my heart beat so hard I could feel it pulse through my throat.
My attention flew back around in his direction at his gruff voice. “Witch.”
My spine steeled straight though I very much enjoyed the act of slouching. “Blood-sucker,” I muttered, lowering my head in a quick bow.
Besides being sold to them as breeding stock, I was first and foremost a peace offering. Refuse or harm me, and he could face the fallout of a five-hundred-year-old pact.
Marilla’s low gasp broke the quiet room, and tension seeped into the air.
The men who sat neatly along the pews had all finally straightened on their seats.
There’d been only a few rare incidents in all five hundred years during the exchange on Sunstead, so I trusted they wanted to leave Meridian with a witch today and for the foreseeable future.
Despite the odd stillness my groom was carved from, I could have sworn those strange gilded eyes of his deepened, descending into a dark endless abyss to swallow me whole. “Have they not told you my name at least?”
“They have. And I suspect they’ve also told you mine, too.” Asshole.
I flinched back when his gloved hand came up to pull back the curtain-veil.
As the lacy cloth slid down my shoulders to pool at my feet, the tips of his fingers traced the string of pale grey hair covering the corner of my eye.
They ghosted over the skin around it, brushing over my pale lashes.
Though the darkness hid much, at this distance, he could probably see the patches of much paler skin scattered here and there around my face.
Pressing my finger to his, I slowly pushed his hand away.
“I’m not sick,” I quickly said. “Also not contagious.” I must have repeated those exact sentences more than my name throughout my existence.
My hair and skin had started losing pigment around the time I’d turned eight or nine, and if the fact that I was a witch carrying a curse had not been enough, this had surely been the nail in the coffin—no vampire pun intended.
Did they nail their coffins? It seemed inconvenient.
Anyway, if I uttered the word vitiligo at anyone, they’d think I was putting a pox on their entire bloodline, so I always stuck to the long version of it.
Because people always asked—unless they took it upon themselves to assume, which most did.
“I didn’t ask.”
I blinked at him. “You’re not balding or old. And I am starting to doubt you might not have erectile issues either.”
He studied me for another moment, the corner of his mouth twitching as he leaned in. “I’m as surprised as you are.”