His jaw flexes. His eyes shine.
“You’ve scared me. You’ve infuriated me. You’ve unmade me and remade me in ways I never expected. But you’ve also held me when I shook, kissed me when I doubted myself, written lyrics on my skin, and given me the most beautiful child in the world.”
A soft coo carries from the crib. Perfect timing.
“I promise to love you. To challenge you. To keep us honest. To protect the life we’re building. I promise not to let fear choose my path. And I promise,always, to be yours.”
The officiant barely finishes saying,“you may kiss the bride”before Zane’s lifting me off my feet and kissing me in a way that absolutely scandalizes my mother and delights literally everyone else.
The reception blurs into laughter, dancing, wine, toasts, and Mama Draven insisting the stars are aligning for our honeymoon in ways we cannot comprehend.
And then it’s night.
Our honeymoon suite.
The crib is beside the bed, tiny Zane Jr. fast asleep, fists curled, lips puckering in baby dreams.
We curl into bed, exhausted and buzzing and utterly married.
Zane strokes my hair. “You promised to let me read it on our wedding night,” he murmurs. “Your story.”
I hesitate. “It’s silly.”
“It’s yours,” he says. “That makes it holy.”
So I pull up the file on my tablet.
My paranormal fanfic. The one I wrote late at night while he composed music for our baby.
Where he’s a wolf with storm powers.
Where I’m his siren mate who hums frequencies only he can hear.
Where destiny is volcanic and terrifying and glorious.
I read the whole thing aloud.
He listens without blinking, breathing shallow, chest rising like a man being rewritten from the inside.
And when I reach the last line I look into his eyes and read it from memory.
“The wolf bowed before his siren, willingly surrendering his untamed soul. Because she met him at the edge and stayed.”
I lower the tablet.
Silence hums between us.
Then Zane lunges. “Baby,” he growls, pinning me gently beneath him, “you wrote me with superpowers. I’m so fucking turned on right now.”
I snort-laugh so hard I almost wake the baby.
“Of course you are,” I mutter. “I swear to God, if we leave Tuscany pregnant again?—”
He kisses the breath out of me, eyes wicked and soft all at once.
“Ruby Draven,” he murmurs against my lips, “after everything we survived, everything we fought for, everything we built…tell me you don’t want a house full of baby wolves.”
I groan. “Jesus Christ.”
He kisses down my neck, voice low, reverent, feral:
“Better start humming, baby. Honeymoon is just beginning.”
And because I’m an absolute idiot in love,I do.
