Page 74 of Awakened Light

“Well, would you look at that.” Aiden grinned. “Annella’s actually smitten.”

“Fuck off,” she said and flipped us the bird. “I just think he’s stupid hot, really nice, an amazing kisser, and his blood tastes fabulous.”

“So, you’re saying you’re smitten.” Emilia laughed.

“A smitten kitten,” Mark teased.

“Why are we even talking about me?” Annella changed the subject. “The thing we should be talking about is that Thorne has been a whiny bitch, and he’s going to go fight for Catrain tomorrow.”

Mark and Emilia squealed and clapped their hands in unison.

“You are? Yay!” Emilia cheered. “What can we do to help?”

“Nothing,” I said, then slammed the last of my blood. “I just need to get home and get ready, because the minute the sun goes down tomorrow, I’m off.”

“That’s our boy.” Mark patted my shoulder. “You go get your girl.”

My girl.

Damn straight she was. And it was time I fought like the warrior I was to make her mine again.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Catrain

“HOLD STILL,” ALPIA said as she stuck another flower into the braid in my hair.

“I’m bored.” I drummed my nails on the wooden arm of the chair I’d been sitting in for the better part of the afternoon. Preparing for my wedding ceremony had been an entire day of traditions. Bathing in a special floral oil, having my body painted in traditional wedding designs, wearing the decorated leather dress passed down for generations, and now this ridiculous floral hairdo.

After returning to the island and enduring a week’s worth of wrath from my mother, this felt more like punishment than tradition. I’d already been locked up in my hut every minute I wasn’t at her side, but I’d take that any day over sitting here getting primped for my wedding. Solitude in my hut had been a welcome reprieve from the scowls and glares she impaled me with every chance she got. The silence was a retreat from the barrage of angry words her sharp tongue had spit at me. I’d heard it all.

I was a disappointment.

Ungrateful.

I’d broken tradition.

Luckily, she didn’t know that my little “adventure to the mainland” had been far more than that. I hadn’t just saved one of the vampires she hated so much, I’d fallen in love with one.

Or if she suspected, she didn’t say a word about it... probably too horrified to admit her heir had broken one last tradition and not saved herself for marriage, instead giving her most precious gift to the man that made my mother’s blood boil.

Day after day, I listened to her preach about how selfish I was and how I’d disappointed her and our ancestors. But her words fell on deaf ears because as she berated me for my “childish mistake,” all I could hear was the sound of Thorne’s laughter, the crash of the waves beside our villa in Hawaii, and his soft breathing as he’d hold he against him when we’d sleep. My body may have been back on our island, but my mind was still with the man I loved.

After days of strange looks from the tribe and the scoldings from my mother, things had finally started to return to normal... as normal as they could be with my wedding coming up.

My wedding that was tonight.

Alpia tugged my hair as she tightened the braid. “It’s your wedding night. You’re supposed to be enjoying all this pampering.”

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head, but she grabbed it and stopped the motion.

“Quit. Moving.”

“Are you done yet?”

“You’re worse than a child.” She stuck another flower into the braid wrapping around my head like a crown.

She wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t exactly been a willing participant all day, and not just because I hated all the fuss. Every step farther in the process was one step closer to the aisle where Uradech would be waiting.