Page 30 of Married to the Devil

“Mommy, you didn’t tell me you were getting married! You’re so pretty!”

I pull back, heart racing. Cassian looms over me. “It’ll be okay, honey, don’t worry.”

“You look like a princess.”

Hattie’s beaming with pure wonder and innocence.

The woman arrives and gently steers Hattie away. “Don’t worry,” she murmurs. “She’s fine no matter what.”

Cassian grunts and tugs me to my feet as my daughter is led back to her position at the front. “Don’t forget what I said,” he mutters, jaw set, and we resume our walk.

The final twenty feet. I make myself focus. Now that I see Hattie’s well, there’s extra space in my brain.

I’m getting married. I’ve been planning my own wedding for a couple weeks. Rafe’s brother is escorting me to the altar, and there he’s standing with an old man wearing priest’s robes⁠—

Rafe looks like Lucifer incarnate.

His suit’s all black. His shirt beneath is black, his tie is black, his shoes, his tattoos, every inch of him is black, except his skin and his eyes. It’s startling, how handsome he looks, like a demon built to pleasure me and break me and make me full of hate. I tremble as I’m deposited across from him and Rafe takes my hands, holding them firmly, staring down into my face like he’s trying to read something.

“Your problem now,” Cassian mutters as he stalks off to sit at the very back of the room.

“Please be seated.” The priest clears his throat. If he knows I’m being forced into this, he doesn’t show it. But now I’m thinking about Cassian brutally murdering that stranger in my house, about his warning in the hall⁠—

And Hattie sitting among them.

Monsters, all of them are monsters, and Rafe might be the worst of all.

“Dearly beloved, we gather here to witness the union of these two souls. Rafe Corvino and June—“ The priest hesitates, glancing at me.

“Ashworth,” I say, voice shaking.

The priest clears his throat, smiles apologetically, and continues with the ceremony. All the while Rafe watches me with that disconcerting desperation, and I don’t understand any of this. There’s blood in my kitchen and a killer in a suit, and I’m wearing a dress that must have been meant for someone else, because surely⁠—

But no, I’m deluding myself.

This was always about him from the start.

He’s back and he’s not going anywhere.

Not this time.

I curse myself a thousand times as the priest says the words that will damn me to hell. Why did I ever sleep with this monster? Why did I go back to that room? But if I hadn’t, I never would’ve gotten Hattie. Can I really hate him this much?

Yeah. I sure as fuck can.

“Rafe Corvino, do you take this woman to be your wife—to have and to hold from this day forward, to honor and to keep her, in plenty and in want, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?”

“I do.” No hesitation.

This can’t be happening.

“June Ashworth, do you take⁠—“

“I do,” I say before he can get through the full list.

The crowd titters. Rafe tightens his grip on my hands. “Let the man finish, love,” he says softly.

“I’m not your love. Rafe, what is⁠—“