Chapter 14
THREE WEEKS LATER
I t’s my death day.
Father calls it my wedding, but let’s not kid ourselves.
I’d rather die than tie myself to a monster like Boris. So that’s what I intend to do.
My stepmother—of all people—finished applying the last touches of my makeup and now she’s uselessly fluffing the train of my wedding dress.
I’m sure Father sent her because he knows she doesn’t have a soft bone in her body for me and would make sure my ass makes it down the aisle come hell or high water.
I feel nothing as I look at myself in the mirror.
Dark, hollow eyes stare back at me. My fading peach curls have been artfully contained in an elegant bun that hurts my fucking scalp and my makeup is unfortunately flawless.
The dress… This fucking dress is tragically beautiful for such an ominous day.
It’s a fitting lace gown with long sleeves and a backless detail. The neckline was purposefully designed to cover the mark over my heart. Unfortunately it’s a perfect fit, despite refusing to eat a full meal for three weeks.
I couldn’t.
Not when I had been reduced to nothing more than an empty vessel, doomed to roam the confines of this gilded prison until my dying breath. Not when my heart ached and my soul cried for the man who was larger than this life could’ve ever allowed, and terrified even death himself.
Adris, who lived without fear, because a man at the top of the food chain never had to look down.
I searched for him in my dreams, but was greeted by only nightmares that foretold of my impending doom that is marrying his fucking father.
Adris was certainly no saint—nothing short of a fucking nightmare, actually—but he was my nightmare and I would have sold every last shred of my shattered soul to have eternity with him instead.
My stepmother looks at her diamond-encrusted watch and glances at me. “It’s time, Odessa.”
She ushers me to the door, and we’re greeted by a security guard standing just beyond the threshold.
My head remains bowed in grief of what I’m about to endure, but I note that he’s wearing a formal suit as opposed to the typical security uniform.
A bouquet is thrust into my vision and it surprises me.
“For the bride.”
There’s a gritty rasp to his tone, but something painfully familiar about the sound. I push the notion away and just stand there, blankly staring at the bouquet, wondering if it’s some kind of cosmic joke.
All the flowers are dried and dead.
One would think they’re a bad omen, but in truth, they’re eerily beautiful.
“For Christ’s sake, Odessa,” the woman beside me snaps and hisses as she snatches it from his hand and shoves it into my chest, some of the dried baby’s breath fluttering to the floor around me.
Bitch.
Without a word, the guard turns to leave. Before he disappears from my line of sight, I swear that I catch the faded cut of silvery- white hair peeking from beneath an eight-point newsboy hat that’s pulled down to cover his downcast eyes.
My heart beats in a slow, sorrowful rhythm as I’m led to the beginning of my end.
“Where is your father?” my stepmother grits through her teeth as we approach the rear foyer of my father’s estate, but I don’t answer. I don’t know where he is and I don’t care, either.
Just as we reach the double doors, she looks around again. “Wait here,” she hisses before scurrying off in search of him. I shift from foot to foot, debating trying to make a run for it, but a crunching sound beneath my feet gives me pause.
The air in my lungs completely seizes when I look down. I bend as much as my dress will allow and pick up the tiny object I just crushed. A shocked gasp is forced up and out of my lungs as I stare at the two perfect halves of a candy heart and the four letters split evenly into two.
M-I-N-E.
The candy remnants fall from my now trembling hand and my eyes refocus on my bouquet. My dead bouquet. My heart rate kicks up when I spot a small, rolled piece of paper tucked artfully into one of the dried rose buds.
With shaking fingers, I pluck the parchment from its hiding spot and unroll it.
A bouquet so befitting for one betrothed. Breathtaking, even as she walks amongst us as a living apparition.
See you soon. -X
What?
My initial thought is that this is all just a cruel joke, a heartbreaking point to finally drive home that Adris is never coming back.
It’s been several minutes and my stepmother still hasn’t returned, and my father is nowhere in sight. I can’t find it in me to care because I can’t stop reading this note over and over, scanning the words for any sign that this is more than just Boris’ vicious cruelty.
Suddenly, a new birth of curiosity and fear has me reaching for the door handle. The moment both doors before me swing open, my jaw drops in shock and horror at the scene laid out before me.
The bodies of every security guard litter the ground, and the once-white decorations, right down to the flowers, have all been smeared and splattered in the deepest crimson of blood.
It’s a fucking massacre. But it’s what awaits me at the end of the aisle that urges my feet to move.
Four concealed figures stand, waiting behind a bloodstained veil that blows gently in the breeze.
My heart pounds at a renewed, rapid pace when I take that first step over the threshold and into the aisle created within my father’s garden.
Unsteady steps carry me closer, because my legs threaten to buckle beneath me with every inch that closes in between me and whoever awaits me at the end of the aisle.
My ankle is still swollen and sore from the shackle that kept me anchored to the floor for three weeks, and walking in the grass does not make my shaky stride any stronger.
The breeze kicks up and the veil concealing the men at the altar flutters in the wind, the blood splattered material parting down the center, and that’s when I see it.
My heart stops entirely before kick-starting again.
Two hauntingly beautiful, impossibly bright silver eyes lock onto mine and hold me captive. The sheer covering settles back in place and I stand frozen, utterly rooted to the spot, because this must be a dream. There’s no other way to explain what I think I just saw.
I force my body to take a step. Then another.
Another. Step after step, I move forward until all that separates me from the answers I seek is the bloody veil between us.
As if nature were a sentient being, a soft breeze pushes the delicate material open, allowing it to part. With downcast eyes, I step through.
I squeeze my eyes shut, sending out a silent prayer to any greater power that may be listening that I’m not going crazy. Footsteps shuffle against the grass, and when I peek through my lashes, I see a pair of dress shoes before me, completely covered in blood.
“Shit, guess I’ll have to have these cleaned, too.”
At the sound of his voice, my head whips up and an involuntary cry bursts from me. I cover my mouth with my hand to try and contain the sobs from within.
It’s him.
It’s really him.
Adris.
He’s alive. Here.
“How?” I whisper, looking at the beautifully scarred man before me. He looks exactly the same, save for a few new cuts along the left side of his face.
“Oh, my little wraith.” He tuts, but his deep, smoky voice alone threatens to cause the dam to break.
His hands—warm and very much alive—cup my face as he tugs until we’re standing toe to toe, chest to chest. “You should know by now that there is no force on this plane of existence or any other that could keep me from you.”
Before my brain can even form a response, another familiar voice pipes up.
“Not even a fucking bullet to the chest.” I look around Adris’ shoulder, and my lips part in shock to find Rune and Calix standing next to a very terrified looking priest. Calix, like Adris, has a few healing cuts on his face, but looks otherwise uninjured.
Rune is wearing not only an expensive looking suit, but on top of his head rests… an eight-point newsboy hat.
His eyes lift to mine, and it’s then that I notice the bright pink burn scars on the right side of his face.
Scars I hadn’t noticed earlier, because he was the one who delivered my bouquet to me.
Rune simply winks and wraps an arm around Calix’s waist, placing a delicate kiss to the scar on the side of Cal’s neck.
I look back to Adris, still unbelieving that this is real. That all three of them somehow miraculously survived .
With trembling fingers, I lift my hand and place it just over the place on his chest where his heart should be, and let the tears free-fall when I feel the beautiful, chaotic thump, thump, thump.
In true Adris fashion, he leans down and licks a stray tear from my cheek. My entire body shivers beneath his touch. That familiar slow, maddening grin takes over his entire face when he leans back and looks down at what is most certainly my expression of disbelief.
An awkward sputtering cough sounds from behind us, and Adris turns his head to the priest who looks like he’s about to either piss himself or pass away. Which is fair, considering we’re in the presence of the three ghosts whom he helped to bury three weeks ago.
“Shall we, Father?” Adris asks, and while I know he’s addressing the priest, my mind gets flashbacks of when he was addressing Boris on Santino’s estate.
“ Father?” I echo before I can stop the word from leaving my mouth.
Adris’ eyes find mine again and he barks a laugh.
“Oh, no, baby. He’s taken care of.” He says, nodding toward the seating that created the center aisle.
It’s then that I notice two bodies propped up in chairs on either side.
He pulls back one of the sheer curtains and the sight before me pulls a shriek from my lungs.
Both of our fathers look as if they’re sitting and observing this miraculous rising from the dead, but then I notice the arrows protruding from each of their chests.