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A passionate night passed into morning, and when I woke up, he was still beside me, his arms my blanket. His smell smothered me and made me think of mighty pines after an afternoon rain. My sleep had been irregular and disrupted while he was gone, but once he was back, I slept like a log.
I woke up before he did, so I watched him sleep. I knew the moment he was awake because his emotions stirred from their slumber and grew in intensity. His arms suddenly squeezed me, and his lips brushed my forehead as he planted a quick kiss.
“Morning, sweetheart.” He said it against my ear, his deep voice a quiet rumble.
“Morning…”
He pulled me close and planted a kiss on my shoulder.
I didn’t want to disrupt the peaceful morning with serious talk, but I wondered how the conversation with his father had gone. “How’d it go?”
He sat up against the headboard, a sleepy look still in his eyes, and he stared off at nothing in particular. “He’s coming to the wedding.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“I think the past is behind us now.” There was a lightness to his body as he said it, like his emotions had molded into soft clouds that drifted across the sky. The last time I’d witnessed a conversation between him and his father, he had been bursting with jagged shards and rage.
“I’m so happy to hear that.” I didn’t ask for more details, because however the conversation happened, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was my future husband had repaired the irreparable relationship with his father. “Perhaps he and I can get to know each other…on better terms.”
A small grin moved over his lips. “He’s still an asshole, so I don’t expect you to like him.”
“I’d still like to try.”
“Fang will never like him, but that’s understandable.”
“Yes,” I said. “So…tomorrow?”
“I’m ready if you are.”
The man I’d once hated would be my husband. Life was a strange journey, but this was a path I’d never expected to take. “I’m ready. I asked your brothers to give me away.”
Several seconds passed as he looked at me, taking a moment to absorb the heartfelt words I’d just said. “They said yes?”
I nodded.
“They’ve embraced you as their own—and I didn’t have to ask.”
“They’re sweet guys.”
“Let’s not get carried away.”
“While you were gone, they played cards with me, had dinner with me, made sure I never felt lonely. And it didn’t feel awkward either, like they weren’t just there to please you. I told you I wanted a family…and I got one.”
A warmth should have filled his body at that moment, but I felt a twinge of sadness. It happened in an instant, a shooting star across the sky, disappearing so quickly it was unclear if it ever happened in the first place. “My brothers are your brothers, sweetheart.”
14
KINGSNAKE
The night before the wedding, we chose to sleep apart.
I wasn’t a man of tradition, but I’d rather save all my eagerness for the following evening, when I could rip her dress to tatters and leave them on the bedroom floor. I never wore a crown, my scratched armor my symbol of leadership, but I pictured her in a gold crown with red rubies, and that made the wait that much more unbearable.
I sat on the couch in my study, the fire burning in the hearth behind me, the bottles scattered across the table. Whenever I retreated into this room, it was usually with a heavy heart, a mind bowed by war or social obligation. But tonight, I was only there to wait until tomorrow, to the moment I would marry the woman I should have married in the first place.
Cobra sat across from me, in casual pants and a shirt, lounging on the couch with a glass in his hand. His head was tilted back on the circular armrest. The soft padding cushioned the back of his head as he continued to drink. “The eve of a wedding should be spent in great debauchery…”
