“I-” He clamped his teeth together, breathing out between them as if barely stopping himself from saying something he thought he might regret. “I just want you to choose.”

He let go of my hand, and I felt cold without his touch.

“Everything for the ceremony is prepared in the library,” he said, his voice smooth and calm, but firm, like he was making a most sacred promise. “I will go there now and I will wait for you, Torrance. I will wait there for you, at the end of the aisle, for as long as it may take. If you do not come, then I will have my answer.”

Now I was the one who shook, throat closing with tears so that I couldn’t even call his name as he turned away from me and left the room.

I watched the open doorway for a long, long time, then looked at myself in the mirror. As I took in my reflection – my pale face, glistening eyes, my human body wrapped in a dress from another world – I wondered who I was anymore.

And who I’d choose to be.

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OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Wylfrael

I waited so long for my bride in the library that I began to fear I’d made a terrible mistake. I stared at the library’s door so hard that the crystal sometimes shuddered with flickers of power I hadn’t meant to unleash upon it.

Maybe I should open the door myself, I reasoned, though I knew it was not reasonable. Maybe she’s already come and she’s on the other side, but the crystal’s too heavy and she can’t open it like this. Maybe, maybe...

But no. There was no maybe about it. If she had come, if she was on the other side of that door, I would have heard her. Plus, small as she was, she was perfectly capable of opening a door.

Even knowing all this, I did end up smashing open the door with my power from my place at the end of the aisle. If she chose to come here and marry me, I did not want a single barrier in the way that would make her pause, that would give her the chance to stop and think and turn back.

“My lord?” Aiko asked.

She was on my left. Shoshen and Ashken stood on the other side of the long, white fur carpet that had been placed here specially for the ceremony. We were in the centre of the library. I stood in front of the huge crystal-grated firestone, and all the chairs and pillows had been moved to the sides. Brekken was there, too, seated between Ashken and Shoshen, long tongue lolling out.

When I didn’t answer Aiko’s vague question, the hound added in his own.

“Where pretty pretty two leg Torrance? Where mate? Where mate?”

“Perhaps I should go help her,” fretted Aiko. “Perhaps she needs assistance with her dress. Maybe I made the skirt too heavy and long after all...”

“The dress is perfect and she is fine,” I snapped, silencing everyone, even Brekken, who only ever seemed to be quiet when sleeping or trying to sneak up on prey.

But Aiko’s question made my gut tie itself up in even tighter knots than it already was. What if she’d tripped? Twisted one of her flimsy human ankles on the stairs, and that was why she did not come? Not because she’d chosen not to, but because she couldn’t. Had she eaten enough today? What if she’d gotten dizzy and collapsed? What if some unknown human ailment had suddenly struck her down, and I had no idea because she was mortal and I was not, and maybe I didn’t truly know her, maybe I’d never know her, know her in the deepest ways so I could give her what she needed.

What do you need, Torrance? Tell me what to do and I will do it.

I should have told her that in the bedroom. I should have fought harder, made my case, made her want to choose me. At the time, I’d not wanted to sway her answer. I’d not wanted to try to persuade her or pressure her. I’d made my offer, and I’d slayed every instinct inside me as I’d done it. Instincts that told me to force the ring onto her hand, to hold her against me so tightly she’d never be able to work herself free. I’d wanted to kiss her. She’d looked so perfect, and I’d wanted her so badly, wanted to burn the image of her in that dress into my memory so I’d remember it when I ripped it off her.

But I hadn’t done any of that. I’d simply said my piece and walked away in silence, even while I howled in my own head.

And now, I waited. And now, she did not come, and I knew I should have submitted to the howling, submitted to the instincts that told me to bind her as tightly to me as I could. I should have kept her trapped, should have never let her choose, because now she was choosing and she was choosing to leave.

To leave me.

She’d still be here on Sionnach. But she would not be mine. I hadn’t thoroughly considered that when I’d made her my offer. I hadn’t considered anything, really. But now I did. I thought about her living in this castle, untouchable and oh, so beautiful. She might even grow to love someone else, might not stay in this castle at all, and I would be the trapped one, then, in my towers of crystal, staring out at a world that no longer made sense.

I thought of all this, and agony rose in my throat. Agony I hadn’t known since the deaths of my parents and the day Rúnwebbe had told me of my fate.

Something inside me was cracking so loudly that the sound echoed in the room. I breathed heavily, staring down at my hands, wondering if my star map was finally going to vanish. There had to be an outward sign of how I felt, a physical manifestation of the darkness closing in.

The sound grew louder, longer, turning from a crack to a creak. I counted the stars on my palms until Aiko’s soft mutter of, “Oh! There she is,” made me tear my gaze away.

I swallowed hard, jaw working. The cracking and creaking wasn’t happening inside myself. It was Torrance, standing in the open doorway, pulling the door open even wider than it had been before.

I’d already seen her in her dress, but seeing her again, now, in light of the choice she’d made, walking towards me, wanting me, wanting me, I was struck speechless. I straightened. She looked a little different this time. There was a face covering of sorts, a veil of thin Sionnachan silk that largely obscured her features. Its edge brushed her bare collarbones, and I wanted to tear it away. To see how she looked. See if she looked...

Happy.

I lowered one of my hands, then extended the other to her. She was only halfway to me, but I could not wait for her to get here, already stretching to touch her, to make sure this was real.

It seemed to take forever for her to reach me, a disconcerting experience for an immortal who swallowed eons like breaths. But it did not matter. I had waited for her to come and now she had come. I could wait a few heartbeats longer. That’s what I’d promised her, after all. That I’d wait for her. For as long as it took.

Torrance finally reached me, her footsteps silent on the fur carpet. Her head dipped, her veil rustling against her creamy skin, as she looked at my hand.

She took it.

And I felt like I came back to life again. I closed my fingers and thumb over the back of her hand and tried to see her through the veil.

“Is that meant to stay on the entire time?” I asked her, my voice sounding nearly hoarse. “I want to see you.”

Torrance gave my hand a squeeze, then raised her other hand to pull back the veil, settling it in a shimmering wave over her hair.

There she is.

My little bride, my accomplice, my beloved. My snow-and-honey-eyed girl. Mine, mine, mine.

Her eyes glimmered with what appeared to be tears, but her face glowed with ethereal calm. Maybe even peace. It was the first time I’d ever seen her look so serene. Like she felt she was standing exactly where she was meant to be. It was not the look of a prisoner who’d crawled back into her cage.