Page 7 of Trick Of Light

“Do you?” I pressed him.

“No,” he husked.

“Do you have faith in me?”

“Yes. Always.”

“Then?” I rumbled out, waiting.

His grunt told me I had him.

Joe and Marcus had been married last August, a month after Marcus returned to us. It had been a lavish affair, here in Jael’s home.

Malic and Dylan were supposed to get married in April. Of all the horrors I could think of, that would be at the top of my list. Jesus, I’d rather have a root canal than have a wedding. I had no idea what was going to happen with that now, in the face of the new discovery, but I suspected it would go on come hell or high water. Things like birdseed in heart containers and candles with glitter in them had been ordered, after all.

Leith and Simon had medium-sized plans for the fall, somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving, that involved Half Moon Bay and standing on a cliff while they spoke their vows. Apparently, Simon had an enormous extended family as well. I had offered to help shuttle people to and from the airport and the hotel. It sounded horrific, and all I was doing was picking up and dropping off.

Ryan and Julian were getting married on December first of this year, and engraved invitations in envelopes so sturdy they could have doubled as a fashionable clutch had gone out last month. When we got ours, Raphael took everything out of it—the map, the RSVP card, the actual invitation envelope that went in, the tissue paper, the invitation itself, the card with the name of the hotel and the name the reservations would be under since Ryan had reserved a block of rooms—and stared at it all spread out on the table.

“There’s glitter on this,” Raphael commented, rubbing the surface as gold snowflakes fell like real ones onto our cherrywood table.

“Get a garbage bag.”

“You know,” Raphael said, testing the weight of the envelope that had been sent inside the heavy-duty cardboard outer one, “I bet you I could wing this at somebody, and with the right momentum, take an eye out.”

“An eye?” I was incredulous. “For fuck’s sake, Raph, you could kill someone with that.”

He shrugged like yes, possibly.

It was horrifying. And yes, to each their own. I had no problem with whatever kind of ceremony anybody wanted, but for me, the smaller the better. Thankfully, Raphael was of the same mind.

We, Raphael and I, didn’t want a fuss.

The two of us had gone to the justice of the peace and gotten married, and it was over and done in fifteen minutes. Forgeries had been made—my partner, Cielo Jones, knew who to contact. A fake social security card, a fake birth certificate, and now Raphael had credentials like a driver’s license and a passport that other kyries had neither a need for nor an interest in. There wouldn’t have been a reason for all that, but Raphael wanted to be the first one called in case of a normal human emergency and be able, here, in my world, to act. We didn’t tell anyone but Cielo, who was our witness. Since in our day-to-day Raphael used a sword, as did I, plus he worked construction, while I, being in security, had to punch people on occasion, we’d opted for heavy solid silver bracelets in lieu of rings. They were oval, conformed comfortably to our wrists, and even with soap or grease or whatever else, could not be removed. Raphael had them forged on another plane—apparently the kyrie I loved knew about this dimension where rings, bracelets, earrings, and chains could be made in pairs, and once put on, they were permanent. When we got home from city hall, we’d sat in our living room and exchanged them. I put mine on and watched it shrink before my eyes, fitting my wrist. It was strange, but when I walked, it fell easily over the bone in my left wrist, yet if I tried to take it off, or if anyone else did, suddenly I could feel it pressed tight against my skin. Raphael’s was the same.

I said they were enchanted.

Raphael preferred the word cursed.

Either way, my hand would need to be amputated to extract the token of my mate’s undying devotion. No one I knew, and none of the warders in my clutch, had given the bangle a second look, which was exactly what we wanted. Eventually we’d tell them, but it wasn’t necessary at the moment.

“Listen,” I grumbled at him, back in the present. “I love you, and I plan to keep you, but the fact of the matter is that you’re going to outlive me and—”

“No,” he growled, grabbing my bicep and dragging me around the side of the house, still on the deck but not where anyone could see us. “I will age right along with you. When you’re old and wrinkled, I will be too. I just won’t lose my sight or my hearing or—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” I conceded as he knocked me back gently into the wall.

“I will remain here on this plane as long as you, Jackson, and not a moment longer.”

I threw up my hands in defeat because really, arguing with him accomplished squat.

“It’s romantic, yes?”

“It’s psychotic,” I assured him.

He arched one of those gorgeous brows of his and gave me a lethal, sexy grin that basically turned my brain to mush. “It’s devotion,” he murmured, leaning in and taking my mouth in a mauling kiss.

Jesus.