2. Chapter 2 #2
Then his unnatural gaze fell down my body, slowly taking in every inch of me like he was about to unlock a puzzle. And like he’d locked all pieces in place, his attention caught on the pendant nestled between my breasts that were currently being squeezed in a dress sewn for the body of a teenager.
Before I could back away, the pendant was between his fingers. “Whitelock,” he said, studying the pale, milky gem encased in silver.
Whitelock had another name in our circles: Vampire’s bane.
Whitelock didn’t do much except feed into the superstition.
It was in fact the product of a long ancient trade to humans who believed keeping whitelock on their person would ward off vampires.
The necklace I wore was the only thing I’d inherited from my human mother—or so I’d been told.
Though I’d long forgotten the need for such a figure, I’d always kept this piece of her with me.
A reminder that I’d briefly belonged to someone.
“Never seen a witch wear whitelock,” he said, his dark voice as smooth as silk despite how harsh and deep it was.
“Never seen a vampire touch whitelock without turning into foam.”
He gently lowered the pendant back against my chest. “I’m sorry for the disappointment.”
“Well, there’s other things we could try. Don’t be sorry.”
He reached into his pocket, bringing out a silver tin and pulling a cigarette from it. “Already so eagerly planning my demise.”
I lifted my shaking finger to the tip, lighting the tobacco, watching him as he watched me—like a snake sizing up his prey. “Not eagerly at all. I mean, you’re some fancy duke. Your chances were never that great to begin with.”
“Willow!” Marilla hissed under her breath.
He shot a scathing glare at her when she stepped towards me, blowing a dark cloud of clove-scented smoke in her face. “I don’t like reminding people they can’t touch what is mine. It should be implied. And you’re clearly not a child.”
Marilla nearly flung herself down the aisle in an attempt to get away from his violent attention, which strangely softened when it returned to me.
His eyes briefly drew shut as he stretched his neck from side to side, his nostrils flaring before he brought the cigarette to his lips again and took a long drag. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
My ribs swelled with the next clove-scented breath I inhaled. “Or—”
His gaze narrowed. “Or?”
I blinked at him. “Honestly I don’t know what I was about to say. Give me a minute.”
He flicked the ash with the tip of his thumb and stuck his other hand in his pocket, relaxing as if this was just another walk in the park. “Want a dictionary, too? A phrase book, perhaps?”
“Don’t be funny, I feel sick. I will hurl at you. In a very non-romantic way.”
“Try to aim away from my shoes.”
“They do look like nice shoes.” I sucked in a few mouthfuls of air.
“I think I’m ready now. Let’s get leg-shackled and live happily ever after in your big mansion.
You have a big mansion, right?” I asked, picking on a hangnail until I could feel a bead of blood roll down my finger.
“I’m sort of marrying you for your riches.
Been scheming high and low on how to bleed your pockets dry. ”
My rich husband-to-be drew another slow drag from his cigarette as he studied me intently. “And here I was, thinking we were marrying for love.”
“I might have loved you if you were old and bald. The erectile issue would have been a bonus.”
His lower lip rolled between his teeth. “What a shame.”
Squaring my shaking shoulders, I said, “Let’s do this before I faint.”
He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the pews lined with his men. “Art, get them all out.”
All who?
I looked around, and a tall, dark-haired vampire shot up from his seat, ushering everyone up and out of the chapel.
Marilla stuttered on her feet when another vampire with bronze eyes, umber skin and shaved, short dark hair politely tried to beckon her in his direction by curling his fingers at her. Her mouth parted without words several times. “We…we have to witness the union. It is tradition.”
“They know how it goes.” His charming smile didn’t have the intended effect on the old witch, given…well, the fangs.
Marilla shot me a bewildered look as the smirking vampire pulled her out by her arm. The hard slam of the door echoed, forcing the candlelight to flicker and drench us both in a massacre of shadows and utter silence.
My husband-to-be loosened his tie and grabbed a silver-hilted dagger wrapped in rubies from the altar. “What’s your favourite colour, Willow?”
I jumped back when he dug the tip of the blade into the pad of his thumb. “My what?”
“Colour—what colour do you like most of all?” he asked, wrapping a hand around my jaw and holding me still while he slid a step closer to me.
He was cold…but warm—sort of. My entire body shook as I tried to be very still while his hand slid off my jaw to cup the back of my head. “Blue, yellow, purple?”
“It’s kind of a deeply personal question,” I said, swallowing hard. “And I feel very vulnerable right now. What’s yours?”
Carefully, he brushed his bloodied thumb over my lips, smearing his blood across them. “Red.”
His fingers tightened around my jaw and his voice was very low when he said, “You should breathe.”
I did. Though not very well.
“And exhale, Miss Briar,” he quietly said when I held it again as he pricked my thumb. “Good.” His eyes rolled down to mine as he brought my bleeding thumb to his parted lips, coating them in my blood. “That’s good.”
His entire body tensed. For a few long moments, he breathed in and out as if there wasn’t enough air in the room.
Colour had disappeared entirely from his eyes, swallowed by the weight of his pupils.
They locked on mine as he leaned down and whispered something in his vampiric tongue before pressing his mouth to mine.
A sweet, coppery taste filled my mouth, and my eyes fluttered shut.
His hand at the back of my head had lightly grasped a fistful of my hair as he held me still, and at some point, my fingers had grabbed the fabric of his shirt so tightly I could feel each dent of muscle in his stomach.
His chest touched mine with each breath we took—breaths we were sharing.
I’d counted almost to fifteen when the weight of his body shifted away from my proximity.
As he pulled back, he dragged my bottom lip between his, sucking off the blood.
My first kiss. Bloodied. Cold. And so very gentle.
He just stared at me for a few very long seconds, not pulling back entirely as he slowly reached to wipe the remaining blood from my lips with his thumb. I nearly choked when he brought it to his mouth and sucked it off—licking his lips, too.
I swallowed, and his eyes dropped to my throat.
“Are you sure you’re not sick?” he asked, straightening his tie. “Or contagious?”
My voice slightly shook as I said, “Well, whatever I have you have now.”
He looked between us, at where I was still clutching fistfuls of his shirt. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I think we should keep our clothes on for the rest of this.”
He tipped his head to the side, just watching me. “Miss Briar?” Then that strangely pacifying gaze of his started gathering into a scrunched up frown, dropping to my mouth.
Shit.
Not mouth. My nose.
I was bleeding again.
I pulled my hands off his shirt. “What now?” I asked, sniffling as I held my white sleeve to my nose.
“Your rites,” he said, and his eyes dropped to the blood stain soaking and spreading across the old cotton sleeve. “Unless you don’t want to.”
Clearing my throat, I dabbed the sleeve to my nose one last time and quickly grabbed the red string from the table.
He just looked at me, his pale eyes tracing my frantic attempts at tying it around his ring finger and then mine.
After quickly reciting the vows under my breath, I hesitated over the wedding bands.
Silver would lock in the vows, making both our souls bound for this eternity and all the others beyond.
As it was spoken in both the Compendium and the Chronicles, mine and his holy books.
His shadow fell over me as he reached to grab the rings.
My teeth dug hard into my bottom lip when he slid the first ring over his wedding finger and then mine, sealing both our fates.
As he left the chapel, he reached for his necklace, briefly pressing the pendant against his lips.
It was done. My eternity was now also his.
And he had no idea that we were doomed.
His men were clearly anxious to leave, but he’d said ‘you have half an hour to pack up your things’.
If only he knew I never had connected to anything long enough to consider it my belonging.
Clothes, furniture, books—they were things I’d touched, things I used, but they weren’t things that belonged to me.
I glanced across the distance of my cold room one last time.
The ugly paint job Ethel had given the charred walls a long time ago now was peeling along with the many words we’d written across them.
When Ethel would leave without seeing me, I’d come back to her note on the wall.
When I’d leave, she’d come to find mine waiting there for her.
The walls had amassed the story of our entire lives on them.
Ethel stood at my doorstep, eyes red and angry—at me. “Why are you doing this?”
I shrugged. “Why not?”