My heart started racing again, and I reminded myself that he had left me paper and a book. He had done it from the kindness of his heart; there was more to be seen in him than met the eye.

Took you long enough, I signed, trying for a hint of playfulness, to show that I wasn’t afraid of him. Were you having second thoughts?

He did not meet my gaze. I lowered my hands, reknotting them in front of myself. He didn’t understand; that was fine. Everything would be fine.

The fiend moved closer, slowly; there was something in his posture that spoke of nervousness, his shoulders held higher as though in defense.

He raised his hands, displaying dark claws that had been hastily cut down and filed to bluntness, and I just managed to not flinch.

And then he made words, his large, powerful hands clumsy in forming them, but still legible to me.

Not fear. Not hurt… you. Marry me. 

The last one might have been ‘cats’, his thumb crooked a little too low, the gesture performed awkwardly, but I was sure he meant ‘marry’.

He had spoken to me.

In my own language.

I took a deep breath, wanting to say ‘yes’ to him, to say the most important word of my life out loud for once. To feel the weight of it in the air.

But it wouldn’t come.

Instead, I stared at those brutal hands, still hovering hesitantly in the air, shaping words he had learned solely to speak to me. He had learned it… for me.

He was the first person in my life to ever try to hear my words, to return them in kind.

Without warning, tears spilled over.

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Chapter 8 Bane

Inearly recoiled from the sight of Cirrien, tears pouring down her cheeks, staring at me with… dismay? Horror?

Only the bracing presence of Visca at my back, the thin cut of Wyn’s mouth, and the press of my highest-ranking legionnaires around us kept me in place.

None of them would allow her to leave. Now that she was here, the clock ticking steadily towards midnight, this wedding would be accomplished, whether through tears or fighting.

I’d tried to speak to her, hoping that the little I’d managed to learn from the Brother would help put her at ease, but… it was because I had gone deeper into the fiend, allowing my body to warp into even more monstrous proportions. She would never look at me and see anything close to the vampires around us.

She could only see the beast.

I lowered my hands, staring at the ground, wishing I had kept the words to myself. Perhaps I had signed something terrible to her, or had mangled her language so badly she was ashamed that I had even tried.

The silence between us was broken only by Cirrien’s soft breaths as she cried, and the faint chirp and trill of crickets.

Ancestors help me. Any progress I had made with the journal—if I’d made any at all—was now destroyed.

“Well, let’s get on with it then, shall we?” Visca said, forced cheer in her tone. “Who’s got the cup?”

Cirrien surreptitiously wiped her face with her hands, but the tears still flowed freely. I watched her sidelong as Wyn stepped up to the altar, producing a large iron goblet set with chips of ruby, and one of her trusted maids poured wine into it from a silver ewer.

Visca took the maid’s place next, releasing a handful of crushed bloodrose petals into the wine. I knew that Wyn had cut bloodroses from her and Visca’s own wedding brambles for this, hoping the strength of their union would help aid ours.

She moved to hand it to the fragile human in our midst, but Wyn stopped her.

“She must say the vows in whatever way she can,” my advisor said softly, and Visca nodded, keeping the goblet for herself.

Wyn inhaled, her eyes on my bride.

“Cirrien lai Darran. You come before Mother Blood, the first ancestor, to give yourself, body, blood, and soul, to this vampire before you. Will you have him?”

Cirrien straightened, the spill of hair down her back as red as the petals in our wine, every line of her body limned silver in the moonlight. It was nearly impossible to keep my gaze away from the slim form wrapped in spidersilk, but… for her sake, I couldn’t slaver over her like a starving wolf.

She lifted her chin, tears glittering like diamonds, and signed with strong, confident motions. An affirmative.

My muscles relaxed infinitesimally, tension leaking from my shoulders.

Despite the cadre around us, the determination of my commander and advisor, I had half feared she would break and say no. Or worse, try to flee the Bloodgarden, and have to be dragged back and restrained.

“Will you protect him with your life? Will you offer your heart freely? Do you accept his aegis over your body?”

Yes, she signed, one of the few I recognized. Yes and yes.

The words had been adapted slightly for her sake. Ordinarily the vows would ask her to take my blood as hers, but that was one point on which I steadfastly refused.

She would not become a vampire merely for drinking my blood, but I would not prolong her life with me unnecessarily. She would have a hope of freedom in the end—the freedom of death, the shackles of marriage unlocked in the afterlife.

“When you stand before your ancestors and your soul is weighed, will you claim him as yours?”

Yes, Cirrien said, and added something else with punctuated ferocity. Wyn tipped her head slightly, but didn’t seem to take issue with the addition.

“Very well. Visca, give her a taste of the hardships to come. There is no love without pain.”

My commander stepped forth, holding a length of freshly-cut thorny vine from the Bloodgarden’s roses. The sharp scent of its sap almost overpowered the perfume of the flowers as Visca quietly ordered Cirrien to hold her hands together before herself and wrapped them with the vine.

The thorns dug into that smooth skin, drawing drops of blood that made my mouth water. Cirrien inhaled sharply, but she didn’t pull away.

Wyn’s sharp blue eyes landed on me.

“Lord Bane Lifegiver. You come before Mother Blood, your first ancestor, to give yourself body, blood, and soul to the woman before you. Will you have her?”

“Yes.” My voice emerged in a low growl, and I made myself look into those teary green eyes as I made my vows. I would look her in the eye as I bound her to me for life. “A thousand times, yes.”

Wyn asked the same questions, and I answered yes to every one, meaning them with every fiber of my being. Cirrien was mine now, whether she wanted it or not, and every fragment of what I was would defend her to my dying breath.

“When you stand before your ancestors and your soul is weighed, will you claim her as yours?”

Cirrien’s eyes were so bright. I couldn’t read the horror in them, and wondered if I had misread, but… no. I couldn’t be mistaken, not when her tears had poured so freely.

We might be vowed to each other. I might want her with the intensity of a beast, but I would not force myself onto her if she wanted nothing to do with me. I would simply want from afar, and that would have to be good enough.

“Every part of her. My soul would be nothing without hers,” I said roughly, and a frisson of surprise ran through me when she smiled faintly.

What did that mean?

“Visca, give him a taste of the pain the future holds. There is no love greater than that which weathers the storms.”

I held my hands out, my newly-blunted fingertips nearly touching Cirrien’s, and Visca wrapped me with the other end of the vine. The thorns dug in as she tightened the bond around us, our blood spilling on the same length, which would be buried in this garden.

Wyn finally handed the goblet to Cirrien, who held it awkwardly, rivulets of red spilling over her pale fingers from the thorn-pricks.