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The walk to him feels endless and like it’s over in a second. Everyone else fades away. There’s only him, waiting for me, and his hands are shaking. Krampus is nervous. For me.

“Fuck, Kisha.” His eyes drop to my belly and then come back up to my face, glowing so bright it’s almost hard to look at him. “You look like mine.”

I roll my eyes, but they’re wet when I take his hands.

The Ancient One appears beside us, the original monster who started it all, his form shifting constantly between smoke and flesh, nightmare and man.

“We gather beneath the old stars,” his voice echoes from everywhere at once, “to bind these souls in the most sacred of our traditions.”

Nik squeezes my hands. His shadows wrap around our fingers.

“Krampus, keeper of the list, who walks in shadow and punishes the wicked, do you claim this mortal as yours? Do you offer her your darkness, your protection, your seed, and your soul?”

“I do.” His voice rings through the whole room. “I claim Kisha Williams as my mate, my bride, and the mother of my daughter. I offer her everything I am and everything I’ll ever be.”

The Ancient One turns to me. “Kisha Williams, sinner, who walked into the house of Krampus on the darkest night of the year, do you accept this claiming? Do you offer your light, your mortality, your womb, and your soul to my brother?”

Gotta love traditional monster vows.

“I do.” My voice comes out clear and strong. “I accept Nik as my mate, my husband, and my monster. I offer him everything I am and everything I’ll ever be.”

“The blood,” the Ancient One rumbles.

Nik pulls out an obsidian blade. He cuts his own palm, then takes mine, so gently I only feel a quick sting. We press our palms together and say the words we’ve practiced a hundred times.

“Your blood is my blood. Your soul is my soul. Until the stars dim and the shadows fade.”

Power explodes through the room. Our blood lifts off our hands and swirls between us. The shadows go wild, wrapping around both of us and lifting us right off the floor.

I feel it snap into place. It’s not the mating bond we’ve had for months. It’s something deeper. His soul twists all the way through mine, ancient and dark, and in the middle of it, I feel something small and new and bright. I feel her.

She kicks, hard, and Nik laughs out loud.

“Mated beneath the old stars,” the Ancient One declares. “Bonded in blood and shadow. You are one.”

Nik kisses me before our feet even touch the floor. His shadows wrap around us and hide us from the whole room. He kisses me like he owns me, because he does, like he’s been waiting three hundred years to do it in front of everybody he knows.

“Mine,” he growls against my lips. “My wife. My mate. My fucking everything.”

“Yours,” I tell him. “Now, can we skip the reception?”

His rough laugh goes straight through me. “Fuck the reception. I have a bride to claim.”

He doesn’t wait another second. He can’t throw me over his shoulder anymore, so he scoops me up in his arms, belly and all, and stalks out of the room with his shadows trailing behind us like a wedding train.

“Nik! Put me down! I’m eight months pregnant!” I yell through a laugh.

His only answer is his hand sliding up my thigh.

Chapter Twenty-Four

NIK

My mate’s water breaks at two in the morning, in the middle of our bed, all over the black silk sheets, and the first thing she says is, “Oh, fuck. Those sheets were expensive.”

I’m already on my feet.

“Nik. Nik, it’s fine. Contractions can take hours. The doctor said first babies take…” She stops. Her whole body locks up, her hand clamped on her belly, her face scrunched tight. “Oh. Oh, okay. Okay, that one fucking hurt.”