Page 145 of Dominance

“Adriano made his choice. Or maybe he never had one. I can’t blame him for that, for wanting to bring me down. However, I must stop him from destroying everything I’ve worked for. We must stop him.”

A high-pitched keening hum whirs in my ears.

My body doesn’t want to respond, even as Dom leads me out of the room. Down the hallway.

At the base of the stairs, I stumble, lightheaded. But Dom is right there, catching my arm. Steadying me.

Slipping something cold into my hand, followed by my bouquet, tucking the tiny barrel of the gun into the ribbon of the arrangement and folding my fingers over it. He leads me up the stairs, to the sanctuary door of the church.

My eyes drift up to his. To those awful, hollow eyes, catching in a beam of sunlight clipping through one of the stained-glass windows.

Eyes that always seemed so dark to me.

But what I find instead is something even worse, something I never noticed before.

Amber.

Just like mine.

Music announces the procession, the doors opening to reveal the staggering crowd gathered in the pews, the dazzling array of flowers, white tooling draped from the banisters, the arm rests. Every surface is resplendent with petals and glimmering white, all blushed with the tint of stained-glass light.

So bright.

Unlike the shadow spreading through my body, choking me.

Dom’s grip tightens on my arm, pinching me and carrying me along toward the dais, where blurred faces wait for me. My sentence.

The smiles lining the aisles mock me, warping into sneers.

Until I see her face, Anna’s, waiting for me, joyful tears in her eyes.

Locking onto that glowing gaze, I wrangle my terror into a stranglehold as my father stops us at the bottom of the steps, turns me toward him. His lips burn my cheek as he kisses me, whispering words I can’t hear into my ear.

One step. Two.

And I cross to my place, keeping my eyes from rising to see his face, the beautiful man across from me.

“Please be seated…” the officiant announces, the only bit of his spiel that finds purchase through the screaming rush of blood in my ears. Each breath echoes in my skull, like I’m underwater, just under the surface.

“Gloria,” Adri says my name and I jerk my head up, looking at him, the concerned look on his face.

“Yes?”

He glances to the priest and back to me.

“Do you, Miss Vipera?”

My throat constricts, my body locking up. But his hands are there, taking mine. So warm. So safe.

“I…I do.” It tumbles out as I meet Adri’s gaze, a swell of joy battling the barely masked dread filling my lungs. His fingers slide the ring onto mine, a shackle, a penance. Yet it sets me free.

“Do you, Adriano, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To love until death do you part?”

“And beyond. I do,” he asserts, offering his finger to me.

Anna passes me the ring; I slip it onto his hand.

While my other hand shifts, one finger slipping around the trigger inside my bouquet.

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