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We spent the rest of the month among the ghosts, making love almost every moment we weren’t sleeping, sun-bathing, or eating fish I caught and we cooked.
Only once Romulus said it was safe at the castle did I tell her it was time to go home.
She smiled up at me. “This has been like a wonderful honeymoon.”
I frowned in curiosity. “What is this word?”
I became even more curious when her cheeks turned red, and she averted her face from me. Which only made me demand more stridently, “Now you must tell me.”
“Well,” she said, “that’s what people call the vacation that couples take after their wedding.” Then her face fell a little. “But then, I guess we never exactly had a wedding…”
She absently rubbed her stomach.
“You are my consort,” I stated.
Her eyes flashed my way. “Well that’s not the most romantic title, is it? Is that what I’m supposed to tell my son or daughter? That I’m his father’s consort?”
I frown at her. “What else would you be?”
She got to her feet and stalked away from me along the over-grown mossy ledge.
I leapt to my feet to follow her. “I have displeased you but I don’t know why. Explain. This is a human custom you desire?”
She spun back to me. “Well I didn’t bring that big, stupid wedding dress along for shits and giggles!”
Her outburst startled me, but her words rang old bells in my mind. Wedding… yes, I had heard this word before. “Wedding… is the human custom of binding?” I asked it tentatively since her eyes still spit fire.
But at my words, she softened slightly. “Yes.”
I took a step closer. “And this binding ceremony. You would like this, with me?”
“Well we’re about to be parents!” She threw her hands up in the air. “So it might be nice.”
I swooped in on my consort and encased her in my arms, my wings wrapping around to cocoon her also.
“Beloved,” I whispered, “I would be bound to you in every way possible. By both human and heavenly custom, and those of every other plane if I but knew them.”
“Really?” she squeaked.
My sweet little fool. Did she doubt my love and obsession?
“You have but to tell me the details, and so it shall be done.”
And now here we are, a week later at home. I stand waiting at the front of the dining hall with my brothers at my side as my bride approaches. Rose petals line her path to me.
A marriage is not a contract, or a deal, she explained. It is a ceremony where each partner makes promises—vows—of fealty to one another.
I was not sure I saw much difference until I began to prepare my promises. But then I did.
It seems to take forever for my most beautiful bride, moving slowly in time to the music, face hidden by a gauzy white veil, to finally reach me.
And when she finally does, the beast in me wants to rip aside her veil, and then tear away all the other many layers of white fluff hiding away the delectable prize of her body.
But I suppose anticipation is meant to be part of the ceremony. As is the later unwrapping of my bride.
Thing moves to stand in front of us. Perhaps some might find it morbid to have Death officiate their binding ceremony, but I certainly am not going to depend on Romulus, considering his wildcard twin. And I know more than most that we monsters hold within us both our gift and its opposite pendulum swing.
I am Pestilence, but I am also Healing. It is only because I had the father I did that I was forced to dwell only on the dark side of my gift and never able to find balance.
My brother, with whom I have reconciled, is not to be feared. And I want the energy of his blessing for a long, long life to this marriage.
It is still a shock to see the once ravenous beast of a brother so put together, standing upright and sane. In a suit no less, with tidy sleeves for each of his arms. Hannah sewed one for each of us, that we might match her in elegance if not beauty for this ceremony.
Remus grins on maniacally from the sidelines, but not even his smirking face can bother me today. And he and his twin did watch over my beloved during her time away from me, never allowing her out of their sight—not that she was aware of their constant vigil.
So, I find myself in the strange position of being grateful to each of my brothers and surprised by their kindness at this late stage in life. I suppose it is testament to the fact that we, who have known only violence, can truly change, though even six months ago I would have sworn such a thing impossible.
