I stare at myself in the mirror, my cheeks flushed, eyes circled in black liner, lashes coated in the darkest mascara, a ruby lipstick atop my naturally tinted lips of the same colour. I don’t recognise myself like this, but equally, I’ve never felt more myself before either.
“You look beautiful, Lady,” Delphine says softly, a gentle smile on her face as I glance back at her reflection in the mirror.
“Thank you,” I reply, ignoring the sight of the rest of my exposed skin, the healing cuts and fresh scars, it makes my fingers twitch.
“Are you ready, Miss Penelope?” Isabelle asks, the question leaving a soft smile on her pink lips.
“Yes,” I say with a smile of my own, answering the only way I know how.
With a lie.
The doors to the Abbatia groan open, and every whisper dies. Hundreds of red hooded figures turn towards me all at once, their attention hitting like a physical force, a wave of heat and hunger that slams into me, stealing the last little breath I had left from my lungs.
The room is vast, cathedral-high ceilings, tall black pillar candles dripping wax like molten night, an aisle carved between bodies that feel less like witnesses to our union and more like sentinels waiting to judge the shape of my soul.
My pulse stumbles, then hammers, loud enough that I fear they can all hear it. They part for me, these followers, these believers, as if I’m something holy instead of something trying to prove her worth.
And at the far end of the shadowed aisle, up on a stage like platform rising high above everyone else, standshim.
Milus.
His face is this smooth, shiny, fresh smirk, dark brows and bright eyes, all of him smart and polished and outwardlynormal.He smiles this polished toothy smile when he sees he has my attention, my feet almost stopping me dead when my heart pounds harder than it ever has before.
Blood rushes into the front of my brain making me feel as though I’m going to keel over, flop forwards, head first into the stone floor and bleed out for all to see. But they don’t stop, bringing me closer to the only thing in this life that actually matters.
Billy.
The only steady thing in the room, the only reason my legs keep me moving, the only anchor in a sea of eyes that would devour me if he weren’t the one waiting to claim me first.
His black slacks are tight on his muscular thighs, his long sleeved black shirt tucked into the low rising waistband, the top few buttons left open, exposing his brand for all to see.
Formeto see.
To remind me why we’re here.
For each other.
For a moment, fear and devotion coil together inside my chest like a serpent trying to seduce me, indistinguishable, inseparable. Yet still, I walk towards him. Because in this room full of darkness, he is the one I choose, and the one who chooses me back.
Milus stands towering high above everyone else, many steps between him and the congregation. Dressed in all black, his light skin making him look ghostly beneath the flickering candlelight, his light blue eyes devilish as flames seem to dance within them.
Billy’s brothers stand in the front row, Dolly between Gore and Bram, Rune on the end beside Tolly, only their five hoods down in this room full of cloaks, staring up at us as I take the seven steps up to Billy, the two of us on a platform of our own between them and Milus, a further three steps above us, hands clasped at his back, standing beside an altar, a circle of lit black candles surrounding it.
When my hands finally reach Billy’s, it feels less like a touch and more like a binding. His fingers close around mine with a certainty that steals the air from my chest, the blood from my heart, the soul from my being. Warm and steady against the cold tremor running through me.
For a moment, the room disappears, every hooded witness, every candle, every breath that isn’t his vanishes as if the world has narrowed to the single point where our skin meets. Histhumb sweeps over my knuckles, a quiet vow, a silent claim, a promise I feel all the way down my spine.
I should be afraid.
Of him.
Of this.
Of what we’re about to swear before hundreds of watching eyes, but the moment he moves in closer, the fear folds inward, becoming something else entirely.
Something sharp.
Inevitable.
