CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kayla
I try to take a deep breath, but get only a tiny sip of air as the Girdle of Doom rearranges my internal organs to give me a waist that fits into the Diabolical Dress.
Victoria decided to live out all her Disney-princess dreams in one fell swoop with this get-up.
The skirt’s big enough to need its own zip code, and the giant balloon sleeves could carry me into the sky if you filled them with helium.
But today’s not all bad. Shadow and Victoria have turned the living room into a wedding chapel once again, decorated with draped swaths of white organza and multiple arrangements of white silk flowers.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a Remembrance Spell, sending me straight back to happy memories of childhood summers spent with my grandparents, the two people I loved most in the world.
That’s what Victoria misses, too, though I don’t think she realizes it. The house thinks it’s the weddings that made everything special, but it’s the people, the feeling of welcome and love and home they always created. I want that again, too.
Shadow stands at the end of the aisle, looking flipping amazing in a tux, because of course he does.
His easy grin as he watches me makes my traitorous heart give a happy skip.
None of this is real, I remind it. This is a game to him.
My heart—as stubborn as the rest of me—ignores me and continues to race.
Dewdrop sits on one of the chairs, blue eyes bright with awe. When he catches me looking, his wings spread, and he does a little hop of joy. “Hello! Look at me! I’m your audience.”
“You’re the perfect audience.”
Right then and there, I decide to stop thinking of today as something I don’t want to do and instead look at is as a tribute to my amazing grandparents…
and to the life I’m creating here in Ferndale Falls.
It was a mistake to not invite the Witch Bitches to this—they should be here, laughing over the ridiculous wedding dress and cheering me on. I’ll invite them to the next ones.
Feeling like something’s finally going right, I smile at Shadow and take a step forward.
Which is when everything starts to go horribly, not-good, all-the-bad wrong.
I don’t know who originally wore the Diabolical Dress, but she must have been one of those women willing to bleed for fashion.
The protective layer between the crinoline and my legs stops at my knees instead of my ankles.
I’m sure soft crinoline exists somewhere in the world, but it sure as hell didn’t find its way into this dress.
The Fabric of Destruction threatens to shred my skin the second I move and entwines my calves with every step.
Like now.
My leg tangles, making my foot come down at an angle.
That would be fine in my usual sneakers, but the tiny stiletto point of the Heel from Hell slips.
I teeter, letting out a horrible squawk that already has me cringing in mortification, knowing I’ll replay it over and over for the rest of my life, like a game scene stuck in a loop.
My bouquet goes flying. I take a couple of quick baby hops, trying to get my feet back under me. It works for a split second. Then I try to bend my torso to regain my balance, and the Girdle of Doom lances into my side, squashing my last flipping hope of recovering any teeny tiny sliver of dignity.
Forget the Datepocalypse. I’m in my Weddingpocalypse era now.
The floor rushes toward me. I have one last moment to wonder if the balloon sleeves will function as airbags, and—
There’s a blur of movement I can’t process, like when a game overloads a computer’s processor and the screen glitches. I land on a hard surface with an oof of expelled air right as the familiar strains of the “Wedding March” disappear.
“Are you all right?” Shadow rumbles from underneath me. Because that’s what this firm, warm surface is: his stomach.
“What?” I lift my head, seeing only him and gray mist. “How?”
“I dove to catch you and pulled us onto the shadow roads to have a softer landing.”
“Huh.” I landed diagonally across him so his head is near my hip and mine rests on his lower abs, kinda close to an impressive bulge.
Oh, god! I press a palm to the ground to try to push up to sitting, and it’s a little spongy, not like something meant to be soft, more like it’s not fully there.
The Girdle of Doom stops me from making it upright, and I flop back onto his stomach.
Wait. His stomach? I turn away from the distracting bulge to meet his eyes, eyebrow lifted. “You dove and landed on your back?”
“I am a cat.” He grins. “I twisted in midair.”
Damn, that’s impressive.
“Besides, it’s a lot more fun to catch you chest to chest, my wife.” The low purr of his voice washes over me as his eyes noticeably track how close my mouth is to his dick.
“We should get back,” I blurt. “Make Victoria happy before she disconnects the electricity or something.”
“Agreed.” Then he lifts an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to get up?”
I give an experimental shimmy, trying to see if the Girdle of Doom will let me lift, but it’s a no-go. “Umm.” I bite my lip, cheeks burning with heat. I’m clearly under a Mortification Curse, doomed to eternal flustered embarrassment. “I can’t.”
“Allow me.” He smirks, and then his hands are on me, lifting me up as if I weigh nothing. It’s damned intoxicating, is what it is.
Shadow keeps hold of me even once we’re both on our feet, when his eyes drop to my cleavage. I have to give the Diabolical Dress one thing: it makes my boobs look flipping amazing.
It’s my turn to say, “Well?”
“Right.” He takes a quick step sideways, pulling us into the living room directly in front of the podium.
“Kayla! You’re okay!” Dewdrop gives a delighted chirrup and waves my bouquet. “Look what I rescued!”
I give him a big smile of thanks. “Hold on to it for me, sweetie.”
The echoing sounds of banging doors fade, and the flickering lights brighten to regular intensity.
Shadow pushes forward against the front of my skirt to take my hands, and the mass of crinoline shifts around me, scratching my legs and threatening to tip me backward. But his grip is strong, holding me upright.
Shadow clears his throat, his eyes tracing over the parchment hung by the door. “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here this day…” He continues on, playing first the officiant and then the groom saying his vows.
When we get to my vows, I pause, frozen, then whisper-hiss, “I don’t know what to say.
” I should probably know them by heart, but I can’t remember, even though Shadow just said his.
Public speaking is so not my thing, my social anxiety always kicking in and tangling my tongue. The Weddingpocalypse has struck again.
“Simply read them off the parchment as I did,” he murmurs.
I squint at the paper across the room like a person trying desperately not to fail the eye exam of their driver’s test. But no matter how hard I strain, I can’t get the black squiggles to turn into legible words. I give up with a sigh. “The parchment’s too far away. I can’t read it.”
“Repeat after me.” Shadow squeezes my hands and walks me through my vows line by line without a single smirk or hint of amusement. Until he reaches the final line, that is, his wide grin flashing bright as he says, “You may now kiss the bride.”
His fingers ghost along my jawline, leaving behind shivers as he tips my chin upward. He presses a kiss to one corner of my lips, then the other, soft teases that set my heart racing. By the time his mouth covers mine, I’m panting.
My hands glide up his chest, fingers curling around the tux’s lapels to keep us close as the Diabolical Dress’s skirt does its damnedest to shove us apart.
Then he growls, his arms banding across my back to crush me to him.
Shadow kisses me like a starving man given his first bite of cake, like he won’t live another second without possessing all of me.
Hot, frantic kisses that make my head spin and send a shock of tingling awareness sizzling through my entire body to center on my aching clit.
I’ve never been this turned on by another person, and all we’re doing is kissing.
The lights flicker on and off, and we keep kissing.
Doors slam in the distance, and we keep kissing.
The swaths of draped fabric forming an arch around the podium fall on top of us in a gauzy haze of white, and we finally break apart, laughing, as Shadow shoves the organza away.
He reads the magical parchment on the other side of the room. “Victoria demands we do the recessional in order to complete the ceremony.”
I cast a skeptical glance down the aisle. It’s not long, but between the Diabolical Dress and the Heels from Hell, there’s no way I’ll make it that far. “You’ll have to help me.”
The werepanther battles his way through the multiple layers of the Fabric of Destruction to reach my side, where he wraps an arm around my waist and lifts me until my feet barely touch the ground.
Dewdrop flies over to give me my bouquet, then precedes us down the aisle like an honor guard.
The “Wedding March” plays as Shadow half-carries me back down the aisle, but from the outside it hopefully looks like we’re both walking.
When we reach the entryway, Victoria’s already writing on the parchment: “On to the wedding reception!”
“Okay, but not in this.” I gesture toward the dress. I had to do a weird-assed hover squat when I tried to sit on my bed earlier, and there’s no way in hell I can make it through an entire meal in this thing.
“Kayla, you promised!”
Think fast, I goad myself. Then I mentally snap my fingers. “You know I can be a messy eater. I don’t want to get anything on the dress. White lace is impossible to get stains out of.”
“Well.” The words form slowly. “I suppose you have a point.”
“Shadow, can you do your trick again and get me upstairs using the shadow roads?”
“Nope.” He smirks and bends over, arm diving into the mass of the Fabric of Destruction to wrap around the back of my knees. When he stands, he sweeps me off my feet into a bridal carry and bounds up the stairs.
“Show off,” I say.
“You love it.”
I kinda do. The one and only time Bradley tried to pick me up, he swore more than all the characters in Grand Theft Auto combined and didn’t stop whining about it for months afterward. It’s flipping delightful to have Shadow carry me around like it’s no big deal.
He sets me down in my bedroom, then shoves his way past the skirt to unbutton my dress. When the balloon sleeves start to slip, I press a hand to my chest to hold the bodice in place until he finishes.
“This would be a lot more fun without this in the way.” He taps one of the Girdle of Doom’s pieces of metal boning.
“Everything would be a lot more fun without it,” I mutter. “Like breathing.”
“You can’t breathe?” His voice becomes deadly serious. “That’s unacceptable. You’re never to wear this contraption again.”
“No arguments here.” I flutter a hand. “Now shoo. The faster you go, the faster I can get out of this torture device and into something more comfortable.”
My closet door bangs, and Victoria writes, “Still a dress!”
“Okay, yes, a dress.”
Shadow stops in the doorway. “Should I change as well?”
“No,” I say. “Keep the tux on.”
“I do look magnificent.” He smirks and gives me a flirtatious wink.
“And humble,” I call out. “We can’t forget that.”
His laughter echoes from outside.
I go into battle, vanquishing my foes one after the other.
The Diabolical Dress falls from my upper body, and I wrestle my way out of the Fabric of Destruction, leaving it a defeated heap of white crinoline.
Next, I tackle the Girdle of Doom, ripping it from my body with a sucking sound and taking what feels like my first deep breath in years.
Finally able to sit down, I collapse onto the mattress and strip the Heels from Hell from my feet and wiggle my toes in the soft throw rug I keep beside the bed.
Victoria flicks the overhead light on and off, and I hurry to my closet and pull out one of the dresses I haven’t worn in ages, a long-sleeved lavender wrap dress that’s both comfy and pretty. I leave my hair up and slide on a pair of flat silver sandals.
Shadow and Dewdrop wait in the formal dining room, where Pepperpot will serve dinner.
This time, Shadow’s gone ahead and put us all at one end of the table, so we can see each other without worrying about the candelabra.
The table settings are even fancier than before.
Victoria had him get out my grandmother’s good china, which I never use.
He’s also arranged for the brownie to bring food for Dewdrop, and the little dragonet falls onto his fruit appetizer of strawberries and sliced kiwi with relish.
Shadow butters a roll for me and sets it on my plate. The brownie bread is so light and airy and perfect it practically melts on my tongue.
As we eat our delicious five-course meal, he asks me about video games, and I pepper him with questions about all the different places he’s seen in Faerie.
By the time we finish the last bites of our “wedding” cake dessert, I’m full and happy and a little buzzed.
Shadow lifts his champagne glass, looking absolutely gorgeous in his tux as the candlelight plays over his handsome face. “To my wife.”
My lips curl as I drink. Everything—and I do mean everything—went wrong with the ceremony, but maybe the Weddingpocalypse didn’t turn out so bad after all.