EPILOGUE
“CAN I LOOK NOW?” Dani peeked through her fingers as Sera poked another bobby pin into her tiara. “Ouch. I’m not going to have any hair left at this rate.”
“Just one more,” Sera mumbled through a mouthful of pins. “Trust me. Crowns are heavy and the last thing you want is for your tiara to go crashing to the floor in a spray of rubies and diamonds when Alex spins you across the dance floor.”
“Please don’t give me anything else to worry about.” Dani groaned. “I already feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“You should eat something.” Ava rustled over in her dress with a sleeve of crackers and the ginger ale she’d been sipping all morning.
Dani’s hand came to rest over her still-flat stomach.
In all the chaos following Alex’s abduction, it had been easy to mistake the nausea and dizziness that had plagued her for weeks as a holdover from her traumatic transition to vampirism.
Sera had eventually recognized the need for a pregnancy test. Her working theory was that drinking Alex’s blood in order to heal her wounds after the bombing at the distribution center caused the hormone injection she took at the auction house to burn off too soon.
When the test had come back positive, she and Alex had been overjoyed…
and a little terrified as well. Everything in Sector Four was so uncertain at the moment between the protests and the calls for Sera’s arrest. But life rarely asked if you were ready.
You just had to be strong enough to face whatever came.
“Just don’t get crumbs on your skirt,” Ava said.
Her bridesmaid dress was a soft champagne satin with an off-the-shoulder neckline. It was one of the many fancy gowns from Sera’s closet that she’d generously allowed her little sister to choose from.
Cinder mewed, brushing past her legs. Dani bent to scoop her up.
They were all living in apartments in the castle now.
Safe. Together. Ava was getting the ice-skating lessons she’d long hoped for from Alex and Henri.
They’d all been out to watch her first few lessons, seeing her tentatively learn to circle the ice behind the palace, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
Cinder had her own royal cat bed and insisted on being pampered every morning with boiled chicken. She was such a princess.
“No more rats for you,” Dani murmured, nuzzling her ears. It had only been a month and already, she was getting downright plump.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure she still sneaks out and hunts the occasional mouse.” Evan smirked. “You can take the cat out of the meatpacking district, and all that.”
Laughing, Dani set Cinder down and smoothed the red silk of her mother’s old dress, the same one she’d worn to the auction house. Alex had offered to have a new gown made for her by one of the finest shops in town. It was their wedding day after all, and she would be crowned his queen.
But this was the dress that had changed both their fates, saved them both in countless ways, and it only felt fitting to wear it on the day they were wed.
“Okay, my work here is done.” Smiling, Sera took a step back so she could see her reflection in the mirror. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you when Alex starts crying the moment you appear at the end of the aisle.”
Evan reached over to steal one of her crackers. “For a vampire, he does have a gooey chocolate center where you’re concerned.” She crunched a mouthful of cracker crumbs and waved. “Earth to Dani. Don’t you like it?”
But Dani could only stare back at her own reflection, tears shimmering in her eyes.
Her blonde hair had been braided into an intricate style of swirls and twists that were held in place by more pins than she could count. The ruby and diamond tiara was one that had belonged to Alex’s mother, Charlotte. When Dani had asked Sera if she wouldn’t rather keep it, she’d smiled sadly.
“I think we both know this sector will never accept me at court now. Our mother would have loved you, and I will love getting to see you wear something so exquisite of hers on your wedding day to my brother.”
Now, Sera frowned at her phone.
“Excuse me.” She hurried from the room.
“Is she okay?” Evan shook out the skirts of her dark blue sleeveless gown. “She’s been quiet all morning.”
“I think this is hard for her. Not the idea that Alex and I are marrying. I know she’s happy for us. Just… everything else.”
Perhaps she had naively believed that their sector, having suffered under three decades of oppression at the hands of Judas Visconti, would rejoice at the idea of being rid of him. It turned out she’d vastly underestimated Lara’s power to manipulate the free press.
As tapes of the king’s death leaked, the fallout had been brutal, with chaos and rioting in the streets.
Determined to twist the narrative away from Luciano Cavalieri’s crimes and continued exploitation of the sector, the oligarchs were demanding Alex hand Sera over to be tried for killing the king.
It was a capital offense, and they were refusing to accept him as monarch if he wouldn’t bring his own sister to justice.
The shouting outside the palace walls demanding Sera be hanged could be heard at all hours of the day and well into the night. Alex had increased security, and Finneas had reset the wards the moment they seized back control, but the impact on Sera was noticeable.
She’d lost weight. The dark circles under her eyes revealed how little sleep she was getting. She couldn’t leave the castle and clearly didn’t feel safe within it either.
“It’s so unfair,” Dani had said to her sister one afternoon as Sera watched the protestors outside the palace walls. “They’re calling her a witch, a monster.”
“Yes.” Evan’s mouth was set in a hard line. “Funny how a man can use those same powers to oppress and murder his subjects for years. But a woman uses them one time to set the sector free, and suddenly she’s a witch.”
Alex rapped softly at the door. He looked well. His hair had grown out a bit longer than before, but it suited him.
“I was sent up here by Sera with strict instructions not to crush any of the bouquets.” With a slight bow, he presented smaller arrangements of red roses, white lilies and purple violets to Evan and Ava. “Milady.”
His eyes twinkled as he kissed Dani’s hand and offered her the largest bouquet, a stunning waterfall of roses, purple irises, lilies and jasmine. “You look gorgeous, but then, you would be just as beautiful if we were getting married in our sweatpants with only Cinder as an officiant.”
“That can be arranged.” Dani laughed. “She already has the look down her nose at the lowly non-cats pose down.”
Ava twirled around the room with her bouquet. “I can’t believe they have the future king delivering flowers.”
“It’s possible I bribed the poor wedding coordinator and told her I would go mad if I didn’t get five minutes alone with my wife. It seems she took pity on me.”
“That’s our cue.” Smirking, Evan waved Ava towards the door. She pointed a warning finger at Alex. “Do not mess up her hair. I’ll be holding the Girard family frying pan at the altar just in case.”
The moment the door clicked shut, Alex hurried to her side.
Dani carefully held her bouquet to one side as he took her waist. “You’re feeling okay?”
She’d worried, of course, that their wedding day and the preparations leading up to it would bring up trauma for him after everything Lara had done.
But Alex had insisted that he didn’t want those dark days to ruin the new memories they would make together.
And he wanted a grand royal wedding so there would be no question of the legitimacy of their mating or her title as queen.
“I’ve never felt better.” He kissed her softly. “Today, I finally make you my wife.”
She rose up on her toes in her ballet flats.
Alex cupped the back of her neck, deepening the kiss.
Desire warmed her blood, her fangs aching as they began to descend.
Just her luck, at this rate, she would be slurring her vows so badly Sera and Evan would be fighting not to laugh.
She was getting better at retracting them, but it still took practice.
Alex broke the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. “I shall never grow tired of having that effect on you. Even if the thought of not being able to remove you from this dress until after the ball will be a rather exquisite form of torture.”
She poked him in the ribs. “If you keep giving me ideas, I shall never get these fangs retracted.”
“Do you need to feed?”
“I just fed from you this morning.”
“Yes, and you’re carrying my child. I’m trying to be an attentive husband-to-be. Evan has been giving me lots of lectures on that subject, along with not so veiled threats.”
“Oh, Evan. Never change.” She kissed him. “I think you just like seeing my fangs.”
“Well.” His voice turned husky. “There is that. They’re very sharp and delicate.”
“I am going to have to get used to all manner of vampire compliments making me sound like a pit viper.”
“Well, if I told you how pretty your scales looked in the moonlight…” he began seductively.
Dani burst out laughing.
“In all seriousness, I know in a minute, we’ll be out there in front of more people than we can count and probably won’t have a moment to ourselves. But I need you to know that I’ve pinched myself every night for the past month, just to make sure this is real.”
“It is real.” He kissed her. “I swear to you, I will protect you and your sisters. And though it will take time, I will restore hope to this kingdom.”
“I know you will.” She reached up to touch his cheek, eyes shining with tears. “I’ll see you down there.”