Page 38 of Our Dark Winter Wish

All I do is frown down at her. That’s all I can think of to do.

Because… I’m confused.

She takes a deep and readying breath. ‘I share a link with Dorian. Part of me lives in him, and it always will. He feels my emotions, and we’re connected in a deeply spiritual way. I’m Archie’s Mate. We can speak with our minds, and we’ll need one another until the day one of us dies.’ She takes the ring from my palm. ‘In my coven, there is a way to share magics. To create aneternal connection with another. To belong to a person. A wiccan vow slightly differs from the one the king would have made us do. It’s less a legality and more of a connection. You would be able to feel the earth a little like I do and tap into it a fraction. Not as much as me, but a little. There’s also a way to remove the pain from the other if you want. It was supposed to help share the burden of childbirth,’ she giggles. ‘But that’s not exactly a problem we need to worry about. So I wondered if maybe…’

I swallow dryly as she finds her words.

‘Maybe, what?’ I ask.

‘Will you marry me?’

‘Pixie… I…’

‘I know the first time we were engaged, it wasn’t ideal. I didn’t want to marry you, and you didn’t want to marry me. We were being forced to by the king and you had no intentions of going through with it. I had a crazy ex, and you were secretly planning to kill me or whatever.’

‘Pixie…’

‘But now all I can think about is being connected to all three of you in every way possible. So, although I love all three of you, I wantyouto be my husband.’ She rests the ring on my finger. ‘Will you marry me?’

Of all times, now is the moment I lose the ability to fucking speak. Now is the time I forget to breathe. To move. To tell my face that I’m not about to slaughter a threat.

She looks up at me, growing upset as I glare at her.

Silently. Like a psychopath.

‘You can say no. I just thought…’ She gets up, and I continue staring at her, frozen in time. ‘I’ll give you a blow job if you prefer. It was a stupid idea.’

She goes to take the ring back. I grip her wrist in a quick motion that startles her and hold it so tightly that it would have snapped if she were human.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, the hurt in her voice making it tremble. ‘It was a terrible idea.’

‘If you take that ring back, Pixie, I will break your fucking hand.’

A strange and unsuitably violent statement to make to the woman who is asking you to be her husband, but that’s what comes out. And I mean every word. I will tear her arm off rather than allow her to rescind her offer. But she’s my Pixie through and through, and she smiles at my violent threat.

‘Put that ring on me right fucking now, Pixie. You’re my wife in every way but this anyway, so make it official. You’re not leaving this spot until you do.’

I ease up on my grip and her smile blossoms.

‘And I want the lot. I want to take your pain. To tap into your magic so I understand how you feel. You don’t have a choice now you’ve asked. I’m a“Give me everything I want, or I’ll take it anyway”kinda monster.’

And I know that she’s delighted that I’ve made that perfectly clear.

She places the ring on my finger and mutters some words in her witchy dialect. A deep purple light begins to glow between our palms and travels up our arms, shimmering in our veins. Dark lines spread around her eyes, and their blacks glow a vivid purple.

It reminds me of Athir. An unsettling thought, considering that the last time a powerful witch like this existed, he was captured and trapped by a coven so they could steal his magic. And he went mad and swore to destroy everyone.

But she lifts her gaze, and anything from Athir is gone. Sure, she’s still glowing and veiny, but she’s mine.

‘Do you accept me as your eternally bound wife?’

‘Always.’

She waits, her brow raised.

‘You need to ask her, Shaw,’ Archie adds.

‘Oh. Right. Do you accept me as your eternally bound husband?’

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