Page 4 of Bride

I snort out a soft laugh, and that’s a mistake. Because my future husband hears it, and finally turns to me.

My stomach drops.

My step falters.

The murmurs quiet.

In the photo I was shown, the groom’s eyes looked an ordinary, unsurprising blue. But as they meet mine, I realize two things. The first is that I was wrong, and his gaze is actually an odd pale green that borders on white. The second is that Father was right: this man is very,verydangerous.

His eyes roam over my face, and I immediately suspect that he must not have been given photos. Or maybe he just wasn’t curious enough about his bride to check them out? Either way, he’s not pleased with me, and that’s obvious. Too bad I’ve cut my teeth on disappointing people, and I’m not about to start caring now. It’s on him if he doesn’t like what he’s seeing.

I square my shoulders. A small distance separates us, and I let my eyes pin his as I close it, which is how I see it all happen in real time.

Pupils, widening.

Brow, furrowing.

Nostrils, flaring.

He watches me like I’m something made of maggots and takes one deep breath, slow. Then another, sharp, the moment I’mdelivered to the altar. His expression widens into something that looks, for an instant, indecipherably shaken, and I knew it, Iknewthat Weres didn’t like Vampyres, but this feels beyond that. It feels like pure, hard, personal contempt.

Tough shit, buddy, I think, lifting my chin. I step forward, again, until we are standing in front of each other, this side of too close.

Two strangers who only just met. About to get married.

The music wanes. The guests sit. My heart’s a sluggish drum, even slower than usual, because of the way the groom looms over me. Leaning forward to study me like I’m an abstract painting. I watch his chest heave hungrily, as if to...inhaleme. Then he pulls back, licks his lips, and stares.

He stares and stares andstares.

The silence stretches. The officiant clears his throat. The courtyard breaks into bouts of puzzled mumbles that slowly rise to a sticky, familiar friction. I notice that the best man has unsheathed his claws. Behind me, Vania, the head of my father’s guards, is showing her fangs. And the Humans, of course, are reaching for their guns.

All through that, my future husband still stares.

So I step closer and murmur, “I don’t care how little you like this, but if you want to avoid a second Aster—”

His hand comes up lightning fast to close around my upper arm, and the warmth of his skin is a shock to my system, even through the fabric of my sleeve. His pupils contract into something different, somethinganimal. I instinctively try to wriggle free of his grasp, and... it’s a mistake.

My heel catches on a cobblestone and I lose my balance. The groom stops my fall with an arm snaked around my waist, and a combination of gravity and his sheer determination wedges mebetween him and the altar, his front pressing against mine. He cages me, pins me, and stares down at me like he forgot where he is and I’m something to be consumed.

Like I’mprey.

“This is highly— Oh,my,” the officiant gasps when the groom growls in his direction. Behind me I hear the Tongue and English—panic, screams, chaos, the best man and my father snarling, people yelling threats, someone sobbing.Another Aster in the making, I think. And I really should do something, Iwilldo something to stop it, but.

The groom’s scent hits my nostrils.

Everything recedes.

Good blood, my hindbrain hisses, nonsensical.He’d make for such good blood.

He inhales several times in rapid succession, filling his lungs, pulling me in. His hand moves up from my arm to the dip of my throat, pressing into one of my markings. A guttural sound rises from someplace low in his chest, making my knees weak. Then he opens his mouth and I know that he’s going to tear me to pieces, he’s going to maul me, he’s going todevourme—

“You,” he says, voice deep, almost too low to hear. “How the fuck do you smell like this?”

Less than ten minutes later he slips a ring around my finger, and we swear to love each other till the day wedie.

CHAPTER 1

It’s been storming for three days straight when he finally returns from a meeting with the leader of the Big Bend huddle. Two of his seconds are already inside his home, waiting for him with wary expressions.

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