A short, shocked laugh leaves him, and he combs his fingers through his long white hair as his grip on my hand tightens. “Should we get married, darling…?” Practically shy, he lowers his face. “Already? It seems…so fast. So soon. I was not at all expecting thatyou’dpropose to me.”
Huh? “We still have to get married? We’re notmarriedalready? I accepted you as my soulmate. I can feel your heart in my ribcage and your emotions traipse through my skull. What else is there to do to bind us more than we’ve already been bound?”
Heat rises to his cheeks, and I hear the answer to my own question. Graciously, he sidles by the scandal, however, and says, “Faerie marriage involves taking oaths to cherish and protect and love, usually. It’s generally a private event, but an important one. It is the point in which two souls, usually mated, pledge to do right by one another.”
It’s a private event?
The exact opposite of what my marriage to Rodrick would have been?
That’s beautiful. On so many levels.
“I…didn’t know.” I didn’t have a clue about this. I suppose it never came up when Frelsi was giving me a crash course on fae culture, behaviors, and precautions.
If wearen’talready married, though, do Iwantto marry Castor? Even with a soul bond already tying us together, marriage feels profound, like another layer of confirmation. A first spokenI love you, I want you, forever. Accepting him as my soulmate, in some ways, seems complacent. I conformed to the desires of the universe and gave in.
Marrying him isn’t compulsive. It’s all choice. A step I don’thaveto take.
His grip flinches, and he pulls back emotionally. “If you thought it was unavoidable and don’t actually want to, Iunderstand. It’s only been a few weeks. I would not at all mind savoring more moments with you before we wed. Truly, I’m not… I’m not ready for a wedding night, still.” The heat warming his cheeks reflects the lingering flames kissing our feet. “I…really had hoped that I might…that I might find a cure for my affliction and be able to…to see you. That night. So we might safely fall asleep together after it.” Pain. Acute. Violent. It stabs me through our connection, and makes my heart ache. “I know I have searched ages for a cure, and I am on the cusp of giving up now, but I feel as though I shouldat leastexhaust my options, and there are a few things I have yet to humble myself to. With you, here, I believe I may finally be able to go so far. If nothing else, I shouldn’t give up for at least one month more. A month makes it feel like I really, truly, deeply tried.”
I think…I do want to marry this man.
Quite completely.
The very idea of that sends a shiver down my spine, and I wish the fire were higher than it is. “One month more?” I ask. “Does that mean that next month, we’ll get married?”
His heart lurches, hammering. “If…if you’d like to.”
“Yes, I would.” Lifting my hand, I reach for his blindfold, and he instinctively snatches my wrist, holding it an inch away.
“Careful now,” he whispers. “Don’t make me nervous.”
“There’s a cure?”
He wets his lips, swallows. “No. None that I’ve found. I merely have…hope. However small it may be.”
Hope.
That’s a beautiful thing to have.
Even when it’s small.
“I’ll have hope, too, then. Maybe we can try to find a cure together?”
Choked, he says, “I…I’d like that.”
“And if over the next few weeks we get close enough that it seems possible, we’ll push our wedding back, but if we don’t get so lucky…we’ll get married first, then keep trying, and trying, for as long as it takes. Because, you know something, Castor?”
Frail, he whispers, “What is it, my dearest heart?”
“Before you, I dreaded getting married. My mother had plans for it. She was going to sell me off to an older man with money, and every moment near him made my stomach sick and my skin crawl.”
Castor’s grip flinches around my wrist, grinding bone.
“Now, with you, I would get married a hundred times. A thousand. More. As often as you’d like. Marrying you is not foreboding. Being with you is the opposite of dread. I like you, Castor. I think you’re wonderful. I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re precious and broken and dangerous and even mad, but I don’t think anyone else could ever love me the way I need them to. I don’t think anyone else would ever do it as effortlessly as you.” I wet my lips, press them together, savor the delicate play of his emotions in my hands. “You said I proposed before, but I didn’t. Now, I’d like to. Castor?” In the rubble and ember glow, I lower myself to kneel where the fire still licks. Touching my lips to my mate’s hand, I look up at him and say, “Will you marry me?”
He whispers a breaking swear, then follows me down into the ashes and wraps me in his arms. “Yes,gladly.”
Sinking into his embrace, I involuntarily stoke the flames around us, until they swallow us whole.
