Chapter 37
Three Days Prior…
“Are you sure about this?” Aziel’s hands were warm against her own, his thumb rubbing over the ring on her finger.
Nymiria looked down at the simple silver band and chuckled. “Don’t you think that it’s a little too late to ask me that?” She hummed.
Dieve looked between the two of them, holding the ceremonial candles in her hands—waiting.
“Light represents the good of nature. In all things good, there shall be no darkness and no deception. It is a nature built from Cadaith’s love of her children, something that cannot be wavered even in the darkest of times.
Each of these flames represents a soul made with love, a tapestry woven before our mother’s mothers were born.
It represents a path. And when these two paths converge, they do not create other alternate paths…
they create one.” She handed a candle to Nymiria before passing the other to Aziel.
There, situated between the two of them, on a pedestal engraved with unity runes, was a single candle.
Both of them brought their flames to the unlit wick, watching as it sparked to life.
They held it there, letting the heat melt the wax, and watching as that wax dripped down the stem of the candle.
It flooded through the runes, filling each small line until it turned into a waxy cast.
Nymiria felt a tingle along the inside of her wrist, eyes going wide as she watched a white light flash along her skin.
When the light dissipated, left in its wake were three silver runes—each of them matching the ones carved into the stone.
Across from her, Aziel was examining his own wrist with a look of awe, tilting his arm back and forth in the light.
“It is done.” Dieve declared. “As it once was, it will always be—a blessing from the Mother, a blessing of Life, and a blessing of Fate.” She smiled, her eyes nearly vanishing beneath deep wrinkles. “You are now husband and wife.”
Nymiria felt all of the air rush from her lungs, her head swimming with a thousand thoughts and emotions that all seemed to blend with joy. She held Aziel’s gaze, neither of them realizing that Dieve had even left the room.
She remembered, months ago, that disastrous night they’d spent in the inn together.
It was a night that ended in death, but one that would forever be seared into her memory.
He’d kissed her. And it wasn’t just any kiss—it had been his first. He’d moved his hands over her body with such determination, it had awoken something inside of her that she’d never quite been able to quell ever since.
“What if you were my wife?” He’d asked. “What if you were my wife and I told you that I wanted you to keep as many layers of clothing on your body in a place like this because I couldn't stand the way all of those men downstairs were looking at you?"
If anyone told her, at that point, that their paths would lead to this, she would have laughed in their faces.
Now, it was impossible to imagine any other alternative.
There was no future for her in which they did not belong together.
Whether it was as mates or married, it did not matter.
They’d made that decision the moment they accepted their bond.
Aziel was the first to move. One glance at him and her body tensed, her stomach coiling with a mixture of fear and excitement that she’d never felt in her life.
There was a different look about him, one that she’d seen only during her Caddat and when they’d claimed one another.
It was a look that could bring anyone to their knees—a look that had her entire body flushing a bright pink hue, shivering in response to his body heat when he finally cleared the distance between them.
“Why are you being so bashful?” Aziel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, fingers drifting down to her jaw once it was perfectly secured. “Seeing you without that fire in your eyes is unnerving, Moonflower.”
If she managed to laugh, she knew that it would quiver. The truth was that while she was brave and horrifyingly comfortable with him, Nymiria suddenly had no earthly idea what to do with her hands.
She certainly knew her way around a belt buckle and could unbutton a dress shirt with her teeth.
She was not some untouched woman, as they both knew.
But there was something about the way he looked at her, the way his fingers brushed over the runes on the inside of her wrist that made her forget that there had ever been an intimate moment before this one.
Perhaps it was partially fear, she thought.
Fear that he would regret marrying her, let alone touching her.
Once they crossed that threshold and he laid her on that ceremonial bed, there would be no easy way out of this arrangement.
Granted, either of them could leave the other at any point in time, but Nymiria knew that her fragile heart would never be able to beat quite as perfectly as it did with him.
There would be no others. If he woke up one morning and decided that she was not worth it, she would be wholly alone in the world.
“Promise you won’t regret marrying me.” She said, finally.
The fingers on her jaw moved lower, dragging down the column of her throat before resting on her shoulder. “I swear on every piece of my blackened soul that I will never regret marrying you, Nymiria. Now, will you try to breathe?”
Was she not breathing? What if this was a mistake? What if they’d done something foolish and none of this ended well for either of them? What if they grew old and fluttered off into the ether together? What if—
“Breathe, Moonflower.” He whispered the words into her hair, his fingers gliding down the center of her back until they reached the shimmering gauze slung around her hips.
The decision to marry had been made so quickly that Nymiria hadn’t had time to think of what could possibly happen after.
She’d hardly had the time to think at all.
One moment, Hilla was standing at their door, informing them that Everand had completely taken over Thorn’s palace and the next, she was running through the forest with Aziel, stumbling in through the door of Dieve’s cottage and asking for the witch to marry them.
Dieve didn’t hesitate. She’d rushed Nymiria into the back room of the cottage, stripped her bare and pulled out a sheer, shimmering fabric that was then woven around her body in such an intricate and skilled way that it’d formed a dress.
One single tug at the knot on her hip and the entire dress would fall to the floor.
It was customary, she knew, just as the ceremonial bed was customary and an important part of marriages in their culture. And it was that thought, alone, that made the situation feel absolute.
With what little bravery she felt, Nymiria lifted her eyes to his once again, gooseflesh forming on her arms when his fingers began to toy with the knot of fabric on her side. “I won’t do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” He whispered. “If this is too much for you—”
“Don’t be foolish.” She chuckled breathlessly. “I’m just… I’m your wife.”
The look on his face could have rivaled a look of pain, but she knew otherwise.
And when he swallowed, she didn’t miss the small sound of pleasure that managed to wrangle itself loose from inside of him.
“Yes, you are.” He smiled, then. And good gods, if she hadn’t already been struggling to breathe properly, that smile would have done the trick.
“I’m not certain that I’ve done enough good in my life to deserve you, Nymiria.
I might just be the luckiest bastard this side of the universe. ”
“You’re happy?”
He nodded. “Are you?”
Curling her fingers around the thin fabric of his tunic, Nymiria nodded. “Very.”
His fingers wove through her own, drawing it close to his chest. He flattened her palm to the pounding organ in his chest, his pupils flaring when she spread her fingers wide.
She could feel those wild and ruthless branches shifting away from her touch, retreating just enough to allow her in.
“I told you,” he whispered. “It’s yours. ”
She felt the moment that fire in her spirit returned.
The ruthless and cruel thoughts that lived inside of her mind were silenced, no longer trying to convince her of what she did or did not deserve.
Nymiria moved her hand up to the hard line of his jaw, her thumb brushing over the rough line of those silver scars. “Kiss me.”
The warmth of his lips against hers sent a rush of heat through her body, burning away every ounce of residual fear that’d hidden itself in the corners of her soul.
His hands pulled her closer, her body flush against his own.
Those tender, languorous and sultry kisses turned ravenous the moment her fingers curled into the soft silver strands at the nape of his neck.
A rumble of a groan vibrated from within his chest, his fingers flexing against the dip of her spine.
He peeled himself away from her mouth, only for his lips and teeth to take purchase of her neck. Her body shuddered against his, her breaths coming out in soft pants as she threw her head back to allow him more access.
The world around them was a silent blur.
She no longer felt the weight of the war, the leering of the danger that awaited them outside of these walls.
Even her own war, the one within herself, ceased to exist. The pressure of his lips against her collarbone, the feeling of his hands gripping at and gliding across every part of her body—it was all her mind was able to comprehend.
Nymiria braced her hands on his chest, pushing him back just enough to look at him. The look he gave her rivaled that of a starved beast, his darkened eyes boring into her own, glossy and dazed.
She took a single step forward.
And then another.