Page 99 of Solstice

Yet, in so many ways, nothing had changed at all. As much as I loved him, it wasn’t complete.Weweren’t complete. While we were made for each other, we were never meant to be a two. Others had been made for us as well.

My heart swelled to think of Carter, beautiful, magnetic Carter, and I longed for him, even as I lay next to our husband. Then my heart drifted to Miri, and I sighed. It had been weeks since I’d seen her, the most we’d gone since before Samhain. Her absence ached like a glass splinter in my brain. I could tell it was there, but I didn’t know where to push to pry it out.

“We’ll get her back, X.”Lex pressed another kiss to my knuckles, his hazel eyes searching mine for sincerity.“I promise. We will.”

I bit back a sob and met his gaze, the rising tide of panic nearly crushing my chest. Going through with this was a stupid idea. If I were the king, if I knew where my enemy’s entire family would be, I would go in guns blazing. I’d take them all out, or threaten to until I got what I wanted.

“We should call off the wedding.”

He shook his head and sighed. “We can’t. You know that.”

Did I?

I couldn’t imagine having that conversation with my mother, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. Especially if I found out she had something to do with the photo leak.

“What if we ran away?”I turned to face him.

“Disappear into the woods?”He raised an eyebrow.“Like you suggested that day by the creek?”

I smiled at the memory. “Yeah.”

“There’s a pretty thought.”

I swallowed down the uneasiness. Something didn’t sit right inside, a growing sense of dread nearly boiling my blood. I grabbed Lex’s hand tighter, letting the sensation flow through me into him.“You feel that?”

He nodded.“Is it Siobhan?”

I shook my head, glancing around as my mind struggled to catch up. “This may end up being the stupidest thing we’ve ever done, Lucifer.”

He pursed his lips, but he didn’t argue. For once in his life, he agreed with me, and it didn’t make me feel any better.

28

Ivy

THE WEDDING

It was a sham wedding.

I might as well be honest about that.

IhatedAlexei Fairfax. I always had. I always would. Yet, as I traced over the scars on my palm, a permanent reminder of what we’d done together all those years ago, there could be no doubt I loved him more deeply than I ought to. More deeply than this marriage would require.

Our lives were so entangled and chained together that we would never be free of one another. I had stopped trying long ago.

“Ivy?” Kit gave me a hesitant smile and took a few steps inside, her dark hair twisted up on the back of her head. “Wow, you look stunning. Absolutely stunning.”

“You look beautiful, too,” I told her, and she grabbed my hand, staring out over the beginnings of the party below. The Potomac glistened in the afternoon light, and boats littered the channel with paparazzi hoping to get a photo of the Washington-Fairfax wedding.

The event of the season. Of the year.

“Did he bolt?” I asked.

She laughed. “Not a chance. You know he won’t back down from you. He never has.”

“Tell him I’m planning to murder him in our marital bed.”

Kit hummed an amused noise. “I think he already suspects that.”

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