by RJ Blain
Crap. I had said that. Me and my big mouth got me in so much trouble. “Did I really say that?”
“You did. Be responsible, Bailey Gardener. You said it, so you have to marry me. Here. Now. It would make me really happy.”
My mind went blank. Quinn really wanted to marry me? He must have hit his head in the courthouse when the angel had smited my parents and done the scary angel halo thing. I didn’t believe it, not for an instant, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him out on it. “Do I get a real wedding later?”
Stupid mouth. Was there such a thing as a fake wedding? Well, there were bogus marriage certificates used to keep amorous gorgons away. Maybe a fake wedding was a little like one of those. Would I still get to sleep with Quinn if we had a fake wedding?
“Do you want one?”
Good question. Did I want a real wedding? I tried to imagine myself walking down an aisle in a white dress, and my brain promptly fizzled and went blank. To cover my complete inability to handle feminine issues, including the possibility of having a real wedding, I blurted, “I might!”
“If you want a real wedding, we’ll have a real wedding.”
Since that hadn’t been the answer I expected, I floundered again. “Here? Now? Us? Are you serious?”
“Here. Now. I need you to be mine. I never want to let a single gorgon even look at you again without being able to beat the living shit out of him and make him regret he ever saw you.”
Okay. Wow. Clearly Quinn needed to be educated on the reality of the situation. “But me? Why me? Look at me. I wasn’t pretty before a bomb went off in my face. I’m no model. Until earlier today, I scraped pennies to get by, and I didn’t exactly do a stellar job of it, either. You could have any woman in the world. All you’d have to do is smile at her, waggle your finger, and ask. You’re that sexy.”
“There’s only one woman I want, Bailey. You. When I’m an asshole, you tell me so. I’d say you’re afraid of nothing, but my grandfather scared you so much you ran and hid under my blanket. You’re brave, and that scares the shit out of me. When I watched that damned building burn, I was devastated. I had sent you in there, and I thought I’d never see you again. But then there you were, a sodden, shivering mess trapped in the rubble and so miserable, but you were alive. I wanted to take you home, lock you up, and never let you out again so I could keep you safe.”
“That’s crazy.” It was, too.
He made it sound like he actually loved me.
“You do that to me. You drive me crazy, and I love every minute of it. If I had known a woman like you existed, I never would have settled for someone like Audrey in the first place.”
There were so many things wrong with our situation I barely knew where to start addressing them. I went with the easiest one first. “But I’m a bitch, Quinn. I’ve never exactly been nice to you.”
“You’re joking, right? Have you looked at me? An egotistical asshole like me needs a bitch like you. You’re blunt. You’re honest. You’re prickly as hell. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not weak. I don’t scare you one bit. When I fuck up, you let me know. You don’t back down. You don’t let me step on you. Hell, maybe if we stay together long enough, we’ll just be two people with tough jobs trying to make the world a better place.”
“Quinn, the romance section called. They’re looking for their lost stud again.”
He laughed. “Just shut up, stop complaining, and marry me.”
I had been right all along. I was in way too deep. “Well, then. Since you asked so nicely, how could I possibly refuse?”
An angel and an incubus in the same courtroom seemed like the start of a bad joke to me. Once I added the vampire judge, two cops serving as witnesses, and a crowd of mismatched supernatural, I ended up with a wedding.
My wedding.
A gorgon with coral snakes for hair sat in the front row talking with Quinn’s father. The gorgon’s lack of sunglasses or a veil covering his head puzzled me. Why wasn’t anyone a statue yet? The mysterious absence of petrified victims kept me staring at him longer than was socially acceptable. Quinn caught me gawking and chuckled, nudging me with his elbow.
I ignored him. If he wanted me to be polite, he needed to do something about the centaur in the center row; she was playing with the gorgon’s coral snakes, cooing at them and kissing each one in turn. I was pretty sure she had named them and was determined to whisper sweet nothings to them all.
I suspected her genes had somehow contributed to Quinn’s existence, as I struggled to accept someone so beautiful existed in the world and shared the same air I breathed. She also had Quinn’s dark hair and rich brown eyes. A rational explanation surfaced, and I turned to Quinn, tugging on his sleeve. “Quinn?”
“Yes?”
“I think your grandfather smited me. I’m actually in the hospital dying. Again. I need to stop doing that.”
“Yes, you do. You’re not hallucinating. You’re watching my grandparents harass my father. It’s their biggest joy in life.”
Okay, I could handle an incubus and angel getting together with a human and somehow producing Quinn’s mother. I tried to imagine how a gorgon and a centaur produced a human. I couldn’t.
I returned to safer waters. “I’d like to point out that no one has been petrified yet. This concerns me.”
“Hey, Grandfather. Bailey is having trouble coming to terms with the fact you haven’t petrified anyone yet. I think it might be screwing around with her perception of reality. Don’t you keep a ready stock of stoner bait around?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. Too often, those bored, high, or on some sort of drug sought out a gorgon to experience petrification. Some liked it so much they became gorgon groupies, nicknamed stoner bait by the law enforcement officers tasked with keeping such incidents to a minimum.
Why was Quinn encouraging the gorgon with lethally venomous serpents on his head to petrify someone?
“You should have brought her to visit us earlier, then. I’m sure you’ll figure out some way to handle the problem you created with your neglect.”
Quinn sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Because your father raised you almost right. Not quite, but almost.”
Tugging on Quinn’s sleeve to recapture his attention, I whispered, “A gorgon and a centaur having a child together really equals a human?”
“Yes, surprisingly. Hey, old man. What are we waiting for, anyway?”
My future grandfather-in-law, the gorgon, chuckled. “Your aunts. Not even the judge is willing to risk their wrath. Your great-grandparents wanted to come, too, but they’re busy skinning my brother for daring to whelp a menace to society. If you’re lucky, they’ll show up a bit later.”
“You have a big family, Quinn.”
He smiled at me and leaned over to kiss my forehead. “You’ll get used to it. I did. They had to tie me down and subject me to the whole lot of them until I went into psychological shock and accepted them, but you’ll get used to it. I might have a dirty secret. It’s really bad, and I’m really, really sorry. I hope you’ll still marry me once I tell you.”
Uh oh. “Oh boy. All right. Just say it. It can’t get any weirder than this.”
“You beat the shit out of my first cousin once removed, and he offered you six million dollars to become his harem queen, which is another way of saying his wife. I’m pretty sure this means I get to beat him up, Grandfather.” Quinn sighed. “I’m going to get my ass kicked by my great uncle over this, and he doesn’t fight fair.”
“I was wrong. It got weirder.” Running away wouldn’t help. Somehow, I had found the freakiest but sexiest man alive. Marrying him fit my crazy life well. So his great uncle might be a gorgon king, and his first cousin once removed was a perverted prince who’d gotten influenced by an incubus during gorgon mating season. I could handle the situation like an adult.
I wouldn’t laugh. Oh, how I wanted to laugh. I wanted to laugh so hard I cried. Then I would retur
n to Perky’s SUV and curl up with Quinn’s blanket while sucking my thumb.
Sometimes, the only way to deal with adult reality was to indulge in a good thumb sucking while wrapped in a nice blanket.
“I would have told you sooner, but I was too busy fantasizing about murdering my cousin. Then I remembered my woman beat the shit out of my cousin, and everything seemed okay at that point.”
“My grandson is easily distracted,” the gorgon informed me. “You’ll get used to it one day, I’m certain.”
I drew in a deep, cleansing breath. “All right. Your grandfather whelped a gorgon king. What does that make you?”
“Technically, I suppose I’m a gorgon prince since Dad’s from my grandfather’s first whelping. We’re just humans, though, much to his disappointment.”
Quinn’s grandmother kicked out a hind hoof and thumped the bench behind her. “You are a prince, young man. I have the papers to prove it. You are my son’s child. You are a gorgon prince, and don’t you forget it. The only reason those in New York City don’t know to grovel at your feet is because your mother asked me really, really nicely. Your father is just as much of a king as my bratty brother-in-law.” The centaur grabbed a handful of coral snakes and tugged. “Can we get a refund on him, dear? Really, allowing one of his whelp to humiliate himself in public like that. I really should let our little Sam beat the shit out of him.”
My husband-to-be sighed, and I began to understand why he was so patient. “Mom, please tell me my great-grandparents aren’t coming, too.”
My future mother-in-law checked her phone. “They should be here in five minutes.”
Quinn stiffened beside me, and his eyes widened. “Your Honor, can we start? I need to be out of here with my wife within four minutes and thirty seconds.”
Maybe things would seem a little more normal if I sat with the gorgon. Since he couldn’t petrify me, maybe I could get one of his snakes to bite me. I sat, clasped my hands in front of me, and pretended I belonged among the menagerie. “If I have to clean up after you tonight, I will turn into a unicorn and fry your ass.”
Okay, I hadn’t meant to say that, but for once, I agreed with my big, stupid mouth.
“I love how she’s so serious about this.” Quinn’s angelic grandfather laughed. “She’s so charming, little one. Wherever did you find her?”
“You don’t find the Calamity Queen. She finds you.”
I could always trust Quinn to be a smart ass. I sighed. “A coffee shop. I made him the best cup of coffee he has ever had in his life, and when he annoyed me, I spiked it with pixie dust so he could remove the stick he had shoved up his ass. Then he asked me to prove his ex-wife was a cheating whore, which I did. Then I got my full certification with the CDC, and the universe repaid me by smiting my ass and making him my contact within the NYPD.”
Quinn snorted. “She wants to kill Suzy.”
“Violently. I’ll like it.”
“Of course you will. You’re pure evil.”
“Why do you want to marry me again?”
The incubus snickered. “Lifetime supply of the best sex he’ll ever have.”
It didn’t surprise me at all when Quinn smiled his smug smile and shrugged. “I can’t argue with that.”
What had I gotten myself into?
Quinn’s great-grandparents weren’t human, either, and I grew numb to the insanity required for Quinn to have been born. “Let me guess. Your great-grandmother is a sphinx. Your great-grandfather is… a… okay, I give up. What is he?”
While humanoid in the sense the man had two legs and two arms, he had a dog’s head with an elegant, long snout, jet black with a crest of thick golden fur.
“His name’s Anubis. And yes, before you ask, when you mix Anubis and the Sphinx—not a sphinx, the Sphinx, you get a human—my grandmother on my mother’s side, to be exact. If we’re really unlucky, Grandmother will show up, too. Considering she’s been dead for at least fifty years, things get awkward when she comes to visit.”
Anubis shot a glare at Quinn and sat beside his mother. “Not today, you insolent puppy. She’s busy bullying some ingrates. I’m really intrigued I got invited this time, my darling dear. I was having fun watching my daughter bully the ingrates, but I didn’t want to miss this.”
Quinn’s mother chuckled. “His bellyaching caught his grandfathers’ attention. Turns out she only died a little when his cousins showed off their halos. She’s a tough one. I like her. She’s not at all like that other woman.”
An opportunity to nail Quinn so hard his family would talk about it for years didn’t present itself every day. “That other woman wants me to have her babies.”
With a low, whimpered groan, Quinn sank onto the bench beside me, leaned over, and buried his face in his hands. “You had to go there.”
“It’s not my fault your ex-wife was stalking your house looking for me so I could have her babies. It’s definitely not my fault you irresponsibly married the psycho.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” Quinn’s angelic grandfather murmured.
“I’m still lost over how this turned from getting a bogus marriage license so your cousin would go away to a family reunion with a wedding.”
Half the hands in the room went up. In perfect harmony, most of Quinn’s family announced, “It was my idea.”
Indignant protests rang out. It took ten seconds for a brawl to start, and I retreated to the witness stand so I wouldn’t be caught in a supernatural fray. Quinn followed, sighing and shaking his head.
Only the angel escaped the chaos. “Call me Sylvester, dear. It gets tiresome listening to you think of me as ‘the angel’ all the time. Ah, Your Honor. I do believe it is time we married the children so they can run away and be happy together.”
The vampire sighed. “My poor courtroom. All right, kids. You want the pretty, romantic version, or do you want to sign and bolt?”
“Bolt, please,” I begged. Quinn glared at me. “I’ll sign first!”
“You better, or I’ll chase you down and drag you back in here.”
The judge sighed. “Are you two even capable of being romantic? I finally get a wedding, and it’s a circus.”
“Your Honor, it’s a miracle there’s someone willing to marry me. I need him to sign the papers before he changes his mind. Hey, Sylvester? Is there a way to make sure he doesn’t get away?”
“Sex every day makes an incubus stay.”
In retrospect, it made a lot of sense. What didn’t make sense was how Audrey had been capable of cheating on him. “Audrey must have been defective. I don’t understand how it was possible for her to even think about wanting to cheat on him. He walks in the room, and all I can think about is not rubbing all over him and making an idiot out of myself.”
Silence.
Crap. My mouth had gone and done it again. I sighed.
My future grandfather-in-law patted my head and smoothed my hair. “He’s part angel, little one. Bad seeds bear no fruit, and that woman had turned rotten. You suit him. All roses start out as nothing but thorns, but given time, their flowers are the most beautiful of all. It is the nature of humans to err. It is also the nature of humans to persist. Of course, I am an angel. I can—and do—cheat a little. I foresee you driving each other crazy until the end of days. I look forward to it very much. You will bring me much entertainment over a long time. Go ahead and sign your paper, children. Seal your fate.”
“Angels are scary, Quinn.”
“I know.” He smiled at me. “Once we sign, we can bolt.”
“Give me a pen.”
Papers rustled, and the vampire slapped a sheet of paper on the broad sill separating us from him. “Once you sign, you’re married, blah, blah, blah. Till death do you part and some crap about the State of Virginia. Sign here.” The judge held out a pen.
“We should use that on a card, Quinn. ‘Blah, blah, blah, till death do we part and some other crap.’ It’s brilliant.” I snatched the pen. “Don’t we need s
ome witnesses watching us sign this damned thing?” I checked to make certain I was actually signing a marriage certificate before I scribbled my name on the appropriate line.
“I’m witnessing, and no one doubts an angel.” Sylvester stepped towards the brawl, reached out, and snagged the nearest body. He ended up with the gorgon. “I need you to sign this so the children can be married.”
Quinn took the pen and signed before making room for his grandfathers. Sylvester signed first. Instead of signing with the pen, the gorgon smeared his bloodied thumb over the page. It turned into a stone tablet.
“There. It is written in stone. Can’t be undone now. Deal with it.”
“He did that on purpose,” I blurted.
“It’s not a party without at least one petrification.” Sylvester, an angel and my new grandfather-in-law, shrugged. “I can’t argue. It is written in stone now. I guess I’ll give you your wedding present.”
He grabbed our left wrists. With an indignant, startled squawk, the vampire vanished.
Quinn sucked in a breath. “Shit. No, no, not the—”
Damned angels and their stupid Bailey-smiting halos.
I didn’t die, not even a little. All of heaven’s pretty stars danced and twinkled before my eyes, however. I sprawled over Quinn, who sighed his worn-out, patience-tested sigh. “You suck, Grandpa.”
Sylvester laughed and vanished in a column of golden light.
“Angels are jerks,” I slurred.