I leave without bowing, untamed smoke curling at my heels as I vanish. Burn my fucking kingdom to the ground? Over my dead body.
When I return to Zeriavoss,I find Aran waiting outside my chamber door, arms crossed.
“I heard,” he says simply.
“Of course you did.” I shove past him, but he follows like the annoying shadow he is.
He hesitates, then, with the fucking gall of someone who had nothing to lose, he mumbles, “You could offer a marriage of convenience.”
I stop dead in my tracks, looking at him for any sign of a joke. He just stares back at me with a deadpan expression. I bark a sharp, humourless laugh. “Who the fuck would agree to that? Everybody in this damn kingdom wants that throne. I could not trust anybody with a marriage of fucking convenience, Aran.”
He shrugs. “You only need the ceremony to do as the Uppers wish. Then she stays on Earth, and you rule Hell. No mess, and no real connection.”
“And who, exactly, would I be proposing this to?” I ask, venom dripping from every single word.
He smiles. “Daisy.”
I stand there for a moment, waiting for him to laugh, for him to say he’s joking. There was not a single chance this fool was truly suggesting what I thought he was. That I marry a mortal. He’s lost his godsdamned mind.
“Even if that was a possibility, she hates me,” I mutter.
“She’s alive because of you,” he counters. “And whether you admit it or not, she’s tied to you.”
The second he mutters the words, I feel the tether tug. I’m still not entirely sure what the tether is, nor do I know how the hell he knows about it. She is not my soul mate, that’s impossible. It’s only possible between mortal and mortal, immortal and immortal. Maybe I accidentally did something when I returned her soul, maybe some of it stayed latched onto me somehow. She was clearly dying for someone to fill the void in her life, so maybe her soul was clinging to me out of sheer desperation.
I sneer. “I told her she’s pathetic.”
Aran winces, whistling low. “Ouch. Okay. Maybe it will be harder than I initially thought to convince her, but?—”
I shake my head, fury rolling through me as I cut him off, “She’d say no. I am not wasting my time, Aran, not on her.”
“She might say no,” he counters. “But what’s the alternative? Find a demoness who’ll stab you in your sleep? A celestial spy who will sell you out?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “At least with Daisy, you know she’s too stubborn to betray you, and too weak to kill you.” He shrugs.
I don’t answer because I hate that it actually made sense.
“I cannot believeI’m doing this,” I grumble, holding the little box in my hand. “You think this will make her say yes?”
Aran nods, chuckling at the box. “If I know Daisy, and I believe I do after our short time together, that will absolutely make her say yes.”
I growl, irritated at the fact that I let him actually talk me into this. I have never had to ask for anything in my godsdamnned life. If I wanted it, I took it. Yet I’m about to ask a fucking mortal girl to be my bride, with the added risk of her telling me to go fuck myself. I have never wanted to strangle the Divine Six more than I do right now. Their stupid fucking laws about stupid fucking marriage and their stupid fucking threats. I clench my fists, cracking my neck before slowly exhaling.
“You’d better pray to any God that will deign to listen that she says yes, Aran,” I mumble before vanishing out of Zeriavoss.
I appearin her room silently, sitting on the edge of her bed like a shadow among the little twinkling holiday lights that arewrapped around her headboard. I can hear her TV playing in her living room. I shift uncomfortably, impatience getting the better of me. Before I can storm into the living room, I hear her shut off the TV, the silence seeming deafening now. I take a deep breath, preparing myself to be an absolute fool. She enters the room a few minutes later, wearing ridiculous Christmas-themed pyjamas that have little candy canes all over them, rubbing at her eyes as she pushes the door open. She doesn’t even look at me before her body registers that I’m here, like she, too, can feel the tug between us. Her eyes snap up to mine, and she freezes.
“Korithax?” She whispers, rubbing her eyes again, then blinking rapidly at me.
“Merry Christmas, little flower,” I say, lifting the present slightly, the corner of my mouth twitching up in an attempt to smile.
She stands staring at me like she isn’t sure whether or not she’s hallucinating. I rise, offering her the small box with another half-smile. Her eyes quickly glance at it, but she doesn’t take it.
“Why are you here?” She asks.
Straight to the point. Good. I exhale slowly, “I’m here to propose something.” She frowns, not deigning to offer me a response, so I continue, “Marriage. A marriage of convenience.”
Silence. Gods, why was my heart hammering in my chest? I fucking hated this. She stares at me for a few more seconds, and then she laughs. A sharp, bitter laugh that feels like a slap across the face.
“You’re insane,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re actually insane if you think I would ever say yes to that.”
