I leaned closer. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“No one does. Most of us make it up as we go. There is only one part at the end that is the same.”
I dug my teeth into my bottom lip, hiding the grin. Alver vows. A request Jonas asked of me shortly after Natthaven was joined to Klockglas.
Our original contract felt marred and tainted. Jonas took it as the Norns telling us we needed to re-do vows, but add a bit more to them. An alver touch.
“Want me to go first, Fire?”
“As long as you give me the last word.”
Jonas chuckled and drew me closer, pressing my body to his, not the standard distance most couples kept. “Skadi, I want nothing more than to walk my days with you at my side. I have been caught in the blaze of your fire, and I swear to you, I will never douse it. You are the thief of my heart, and I will give it to you every day so long as we live, and through the eternities of the Otherworld.”
My thumb tugged at his bottom lip. I forced myself to hold steady and not devour his mouth. Not yet.
“You are my sweetest nightmare. A fiend, a thief, a gentle heart, and I will love every side of you forever. I will always be there to take your fears, share your hopes, and give you everything in my heart, day after day.”
New power rushed through my blood like the roar of the tides. Something heated that tangled with the ice of my affinity in my veins.
“Now the alver vow.”
I didn’t know if it would do anything different since I was not an alver, but I suspected it might bond us closer, offer insight and senses of each other that were deeper than unbonded folk.
Last night, when the great hall was packed with visitors here for the new vows, I spoke with Gunnar, one of the shared cousins of Jonas, Sander, Aleksi, and Livia.
He was a Profetik alver who could command another’s mind to follow his every demand, even if he desired them to slit their own throat. He’d recited alver vows with his wife, a glamour fae from Mira’s kingdom with a gift of sight from celestial occurrences.
Gunnar insisted even though his mate was fae, the pair could sense emotions within each other. When she was troubled, he knew it. Even when she was pained during the births of their two littles, he knew how to help ease her discomfort without a word.
He knew when one of her premonitions was going to take hold, and she had unintentionally compelled a mind to do her bidding more than once.
“Alver vows are sealed in blood, Fire.” Jonas took out a narrow knife.
I watched as he carved the rune onto his palm, then didn’t hesitate to do the same on my own. Jonas cleared his throat and placed his bloody palm over mine.
“Just repeat what I say,” he whispered, then let out a slow breath. “What power I have is yours for all your days.”
The tug of power drew me closer, as though my body could not stand to put even the smallest space between us.
My voice was soft when I spoke. “What power I have is yours for all your days.”
Jonas laced our fingers together. A bite of heat rushed to my head. Damp mists and inky shadows swirled around our hands, like a burst of the darkness within the both of us could not be contained. The shock of power ended abruptly, and lingering ribbons of mists absorbed into our flesh.
There was silence for a breath, then roars of applause rippled through our audience. Mira had her arms around Livia, shrieking in delight as she bounced on her toes, shaking the Ever Queen enough it drew out an irritated glare from the sea king.
Malin held onto Kase’s arm, a bit of glassy tears in her eyes. For the first time I saw the full grin of the alver king.
We were swallowed by Sander and Aleksi before Jonas shoved them away with a grunt of frustration. “Let me kiss my damn wife.”
I laughed, curling my fingers around his tunic, and pulled his mouth to mine. Warm, inviting, I kissed my husband a second time after vowing my life to his. In the beginning I thought love that would start wars, that would draw a heart to kill, was only a thing of romantic fae tales.
I never believed my own would unfold when a prince of nightmares dared love the monster in the mists.
Celebrations lasted (to my father-in-law’s horror) for a full week. When the Black Palace returned to its quiet mystery, Jonas and I settled in thepalace of Natthaven. Close enough we were still drawn into the schemes of Klockglas, but with a new palace to claim as our own.
Raum kept his word and left to Grynstad with Valdis. The alver king and queen did not let on how much they would truly miss the man until Kase damn near threatened Raum with a fearful death if he did not write and return for the Jul revels during the frosts.
Aleksi returned to his Rave unit in the Northern peaks, but with Jonas’s harvest duties to inventory the camps, we would see him in coming weeks.
