Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
And speaking of eyes—he had eyes like I had never seen before. A glowing bronze which seemed to shine from his dark features. They were even more brilliant than the golden tattoos. In fact, the only thing brighter was his long mane of white hair. It was thick and wavy and he had the top pulled back—the better to show his horns, perhaps.
I had the sudden urge to plunge my fingers into those moonlight waves…and then pulled myself up short. Where had such a thought come from? This was the male who had killed my brother—the one I was going to kill as soon as ever I could.
Only…how was I to manage it? It had seemed an easy thing when I lay in my bed at night, crying for Quill’s loss and plotting my revenge. But now that I saw my husband-to-be, I wondered if the thing could be done. He was so huge—his shoulders were fully twice as broad as my own and I judged that the top of my head would only come halfway up his muscular arm—I would not even reach his shoulder.
Then I realized that he had spoken to me again and I had missed whatever he had said in that deep, rumbling voice because I was too busy staring at him like an idiot.
“I…what?” I asked, forcing myself to speak.
“I said, are you ready for our marriage? The Joining of the two great Courts?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows at me, which I noted were black instead of white like his hair.
“Oh…oh, yes. Of course.” I nodded, feeling the fool. I had to regain my composure—where had all my courage gone to? I’d been brimming with it when I’d walked into the courtyard, but it had all fled when I saw the enormous Unseelie warrior who was to be my husband.
“Come, both of you, if you are willing to be Joined,” the Druid Priestess said, speaking for the first time in a sweet, low voice. “Come to the Arch of Joining that you may take your vows.”
I was already standing under the arch and I watched as Liath Blackthorn stepped forward to stand beside me. He seemed to loom over me in a threatening way which made my heart skitter nervously in my chest. I noticed for the first time that he wore a jeweled dagger at his side—the silver hilt set with moonstones. Who came armed to their own Joining?
Was he sorry he had asked for me, I wondered? Now that he saw me—saw that I was far too curvy to be considered in any way beautiful—did he wish he had not made this bargain with my father?
But he said nothing, only looked down at me silently with those burning bronze eyes of his, catching and holding my gaze as though he was waiting for me to speak. I, however, had nothing to say. I turned to look at the Druid Priestess, anxious to break the staring contest we had somehow fallen into.
“The ceremony is about to begin,” the Priestess murmured, speaking to both of us. “Do either of you have someone you wish to stand at your side as you pledge your troth?”
It was tradition for a maiden to have her closest female relation stand by her during the Joining ceremony—and for the groom to have a friend or relative stand by him as well. But Liath and I both shook our heads.
“I have no one I want with me,” I said, casting a quick look over my shoulder at my cousin Calista and my Aunt Lyrah. I would rather die than have either of them stand with me. I would have asked Tansy, perhaps—but I knew it would not have been allowed—she was a brùnaidh without a drop of High Fae blood in her veins.
“I had one I wished to stand with me, but he is dead,” Liath said shortly.
This surprised me and I looked up at him briefly but his burning bronze gaze was too intense and I quickly dropped my eyes.
“Very well,” the Priestess said, nodding. “Then we will proceed.”
No doubt you have read of the way a Fairy wedding ought to be. A ceremony which lasts for hours and a merry celebration which continues for days afterwards. But I wanted none of that.
At my request, the ceremony of Joining would be nothing but a simple hand-fasting ritual. I did not wish to draw out this moment in the least. And to my relief, Liath didn’t seem to want to either. Or at least, he made no remark or objection when the Druid Priestess pulled out a tasseled cord to bind the two of us together.
The cord was woven of two strands—one gold and one silver—to signify the Summer and the Winter Courts, I supposed. The Priestess held it up, as though asking for a silent blessing and the Court murmured as the sunlight made the gold and silver fibers glow.