Esmerelda smiles at him, eyes still wet. “You wouldn’t happen to have one for your future daughter-in-law, would you?”
His answering grin is proud, almost boyish. “It just so happens I do.” He pulls another cigar from his pocket with a flourish.
Her father approaches then, his expression solemn. For a moment, he just studies me, then he says, “I’d tell you to treat my daughter right, but from the look on her face, I can see you already do. And let’s be honest, you’ve been married this whole time anyway.” His mouth softens into something almost like a smile. “Just be good to her.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I answer.
He clasps my shoulder, firm. “Then it’s settled. Call me Dad.”
For a moment, I can’t speak. My throat tightens, my chest heavy with too much—relief, joy, exhaustion, disbelief that we made it here at all. I just nod, because words aren’t enough.
And with Esmerelda’s hand in mine, her yes still echoing in my chest, I finally let myself believe it. We’re free. And this time—it’s ours.
37
ESMERELDA
If the first wedding had been an execution in disguise, this one is a celebration. No shackles hidden in vows. No council decree hanging over my head like a sword. This time, I don’t feel like I’m walking toward my own funeral—I feel like I’m walking toward life. Toward him.
The air hums with it, different from the dread that had pressed down on me before. Lighter. Warmer. Hope threaded through with laughter and music. For the first time, the word marriage doesn’t taste like dirt and ash. It tastes like promise. Like a choice I made with my own lips.
And gods, that changes everything.
The air is thick with laughter, the kind that spills loudly and freely. I stand with Minerva and Serafina and bask in it. Earlier, I watched from the window as people filled the church to witness our wedding. Faces I never thought I’d see again. Faces I mourned and grieved and raged over. And now they’re here, flesh and blood, blinking at the light, breathing the same air as me. The scent of beeswax and flowers, polished pews and perfume, wraps around us like a blessing.
Our families are restored. At first, they were stunned, stumbling like newborn foals, their voices hoarse fromsilence and the trauma. But gratitude bloomed fast, fierce, overwhelming. Mercifully, they don’t remember anything. No hunger or thirst tortured them. No living corpses, trapped in their own bodies. When I heard that, I wept for days. I cried until there was nothing left to wring out, then cried again just because I could.
And now, like them, I’m grateful for every laugh, every smile, even every grouch on bad days. Hell, I’ll take it all and anything because I know the torment of losing them. The way absence echoes. The way a quiet hallway can feel like a tomb.
They don’t know every detail of what Marcus and I went through—the blood, the betrayals, the nights where survival felt like a coin toss—but they don’t need to. Their smiles are enough. Proof that the nightmare ended, that we dragged light back into the world. Proof that the gods, for once, didn’t look away.
I catch my mother’s laugh, and it knocks the air from my lungs. My father clasps my shoulder, his hand heavy with a weight that says everything words can’t.
“Are you ready?”
I nod. This time, when I step forward and see cousins, council members, allies, enemies-turned-family in the pews, it will be all of them alive, all of them here. I feel the truth settle low and warm: I’m not walking alone anymore.
For the first time in too long, I let myself believe in this moment. Believe that it’s real. That it’s mine.
Minerva smooths the fabric of my dress for the fifth time, fussing like a hawk with claws instead of talons. “Wrinkle,” she mutters, even though there isn’t one. Beside her, Serafina grins so wide I’m half afraid her jaw might lock. My bridesmaids.My bridesmaids. Who in all the gods’ realms would have guessed?
Minerva keeps leaning close, whispering half-inappropriate jokes just raunchy enough to make me snort instead of cry. Damn her, it works. Serafina, still radiant, shifts easily nowbetween her wolf and human form. She’s lost the magic that made her the vessel, but instead of mourning it, she carries herself with a new kind of permanence. Solid. Rooted. She doesn’t seem to care about what she’s lost; if anything, she looks freer. It steadies me just to stand near her.
Minerva, of course, has decided this means it’s her personal mission to tutor Serafina in “shifter basics”, with the kind of wink and brow waggle that earns her a sharp smack on the arm from me every time. Serafina only shakes her head, laughing low, and the way Minerva beams at her makes me happy. They haven’t come out and explicitly said something is going on between them, but it’s obvious. The smug little grin she throws me is pure Minerva, like making me roll my eyes is her holy duty. Who knows, maybe it is?
The wedding march starts, and the doors open. There’s a collective gasp at my gown. Simple, figure-hugging, embroidered with pearls. And if you look closely, real closely, you’ll see that in between those pearls is nothing at all but net. However, it’s so closely packed that nothing shows. Last time it was burgundy, this time scandalous. Ain’t no one going to stop me from trying to get a rise out of my husband. Whichever way I get it.
My wolf preens, and I let her.
Across the aisle, Belvedere and Leonard flank Marcus like mismatched bookends. Belvedere, of course, looks unbearably smug, as if he orchestrated the entire thing and is just waiting for applause. He’s also wearing purple sequins that’s gaudy as shit, and I love it. Leonard shifts on his feet, restless energy buzzing off him like sparks, claws probably itching for a fight even here, or to ease the tension with a dad joke. If he dares, I’ll gut him in front of our guests. He knows it. He looks delighted by the risk.
But Marcus? Marcus doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t preen. He just looks at me. As if the room has emptied, as if every candle,every face, every sound has been swallowed whole, leaving only his gaze pinning me in place. There’s reverence there, fierce and unshakable, like I’m not just the bride walking toward him—I’m the vow itself.
My knees nearly give out. I breathe, once, twice, and keep going.
The vows are simple. No pomp. No council decree scrawled on parchment, no sword of politics dangling overhead, ready to slice us apart. And none of Marcus’s prostrating. No grandstanding, either. No theater. Just us. Just words. Just hands clasped tight enough to bruise.
Just us.
