For once I could say, hand on heart, that nothing was wrong. “Your sister needs you downstairs.”
She scrubbed a hand down her face, blinking at me as if I’d spoken ancient fae. Her gaze swung to the window and back. “What time is it?”
“Four o’clock.”
With a groan, she flopped back onto the bed and covered her face with her hands.
That wouldn’t do at all. We had important business to attend to. I poked her hip. “Get up.”
She caught the corner of the quilt and threw it over herself.
If she wanted to do this the hard way, I was more than happy to oblige. I got up and went to the end of the bed to tug up the coverlet and tickle her feet.
“No. Go away.” She kicked like a feckin’ mule and screeched like a banshee. “Stop!”
“Not until you get up.” I caught her ankles with magic so she didn’t accidentally catch me in the bollocks and tickled harder.
The curses she came up with were particularly creative. So feisty, this human of mine. And so very different from the woman I’d met back in Graystones.
She pushed upright, her icy eyes blazing with the magic coursing through her veins. The flush of her cheeks highlighted the freckles across the bridge of her nose. “I hate you,” she snarled.
A lie as sweet as honeysuckle candy. “No, you don’t.” Since she was reluctantly sitting, I let her feet go. “Here. Put this on.” I shifted the blue silk robe I’d purchased on the day I left Vellana. One couldn’t travel all that way only to return empty-handed. I’d bought myself boots as well as a handful of dresses for Aveen too fine to pass up.
Still cursing, she stuffed her arms into the sleeves and cinched the tie around her waist. “I hate my sister too.”
“Brilliant. So do I.” The comment earned me a swift kick to the shin.
Before she could disappear into the hallway, I called her back. “Aveen?” She glowered at me from over her silk-clad shoulder. “No glamour tonight.”
Her eyes widened. With a bob of her head, she slipped out the door.
I evanesced out to the gardens, where my brother waited, a smile pinned to his lips. Normally, I’d want to break his teeth, but seeing as this was a special day, I smiled back.
“You have everything you need, correct?”
Tadhg nodded and patted the breast pocket on his paisley printed waistcoat—courtesy of my closet, of course. He may no longer have been cursed, but his sense of style remained as tragic as ever, and I couldn’t allow him to bring down the tone of this glorious night.
Aveen and Keelynn stepped into the garden. Aveen’s bare feet peeked from beneath the hem of her silk robe. Her eyes widened as she took in the gobs of fuchsia surrounding us, spilling from pots, threaded through the arbor, reminiscent of our first night together in the townhouse in Graystones.
“What in heaven’s name…?” Aveen’s eyes flew to mine.
Keelynn handed her a bouquet of fuchsia tied with a blue ribbon, and Eava settled a crown of white flowers over my soulmate’s golden curls. And here I’d thought she couldn’t get more beautiful. Looked like I was wrong. No music lifted into the night, no crowd stood or cheered as Eava took Aveen’s arm and led her down the aisle.
My heart sang louder than any melody. My soul erupted with each forward step.
And when my soulmate took my hand, my black heart wept with joy.
“I didn’t mean for you to marry me tonight,” Aveen said under her breath.
“Now you can’t change your mind,” I whispered back with a wink, only half kidding.
The crescent moon glimmered in her mischievous eyes. “I can always kill you.”
“Not after these vows.” Neither death nor any power on this earth would be able to separate us from one another. We would be forever bound, her light and my darkness, no longer two souls but one.
Aveen’s lips curved into the most stunning smile.
I withdrew my dagger, and she turned over her palm without a word of prompting, letting me drag the blade along the length of her left hand. Deep red welled from the wound, leaking down the creases in her palm. I cut myself and pressed my palm to hers. The heat of our mingling magic felt like grabbing a hot coal. She sucked in a breath but didn’t pull away.