“Good instincts. I kind of like the idea though. The way you looked at the mouth of the river, you looked how I do when I see the souls.”
Jane had been awake and almost as good as new when Joshua and Tasha had picked her up. They’d found her surrounded by books, and they’d told her what had happened on the way back. She’d hugged Salem tight enough to squish Fitz, who protested with a small hiss.
We found out Fenris had been reinstated as the leader of his clan when I had invited him and his mate to dinner the night before last. She was as beautiful as she was fierce and I found I liked her too. Fenris had told her of my wish to learn how to blend and she told me she’d teach me the art of stillness. I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded cool, so I’d agreed.
Briella’s disbelief when Salem and I had shown up at her door yesterday morning and delivered the news of her exile was priceless. She’d slapped me and Salem had taken it from there. He gifted the lands and the title to Joshua, who had gone into shock for about a second before he got excited. When I had complained I wouldn’t see him as much, Salem had linked the two estates together with a special door. A good thing, since Joshua informed me Tasha would be moving into the estate with him.
Today, I was waiting for Salem to return. I was sitting just outside the garden with Fitz on my wrist and a book in my lap, where I’d been since he’d gone. I’d made it through a few chapters of the book, but I’d re-read more than I’d actually taken in.
“Nyx?” Salem’s voice rumbled from behind me, and I shot to my feet.
“How did it go?”
“The Oracles have been spoken to. They’re powerful, but their power depends on mine. They’ve released you from their service and have promised not to seek out retribution on anyone for the slight.”
“I don’t even want to know what you threatened them with.”
“I didn’t threaten. I was very charming.”
“I’ll get the real story from Joshua.”
He smiled, something he’d done a lot more of in the last week. “You don’t believe I can be charming?”
“I know you can be charming. I also know you can be terrifying and it would have taken the latter to get your meeting to go as smoothly as it obviously did.”
“Think what you want. Joshua is already home, so you’ll have to wait to sate your curiosity. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes. I still don’t know why you didn’t just take me with you. It would have been easier than making two trips.”
I did know. If the Oracles had put up a fight, Salem had wanted me safe and out of their reach.
He shot me a look, and then held his hand out to me. I took it, he kissed it and then we headed towards the gates.
Callie and Iris had a full mental come apart when Salem removed his mind screws. The fact I’d been gone for so long coupled with learning I’d help kill two demons, fallen in love and was now moving to the Underworld resulted in yelling, tears, more yelling and then fawning—mostly on Iris’ part—when I’d deemed it safe enough for Salem to come meet them.
We’d decided to visit on each of their birthdays and every Christmas. Since Salem’s time spell was still in place, there was no way we’d miss it. Salem also extended an invitation to both of them to visit any time they felt like it. Something he’d already cleared with the Oracles.
I left him to explain more while I went to pack my things and Callie and Iris started bombarding him with questions about his world. Our world.
When I walked out with my four bags, I was surprised to see both Callie and Iris were crying again.
“We’re going to miss you, Nyx.” Iris said, throwing her arms around me.
“You’ll always be our sister.” Callie added, joining the hug. “We love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Salem already took down the dates of our next few breaks. We’re spending them with you.”
Of course, he’d thought to already. He had because it meant something to me.
“He’s kind of perfect.” I said, not taking my eyes off of him.
“Perfect and sexy. I hate you a little bit.” Iris added, low enough that only Callie and I were supposed to hear, and Salem looked away, but I saw the twitch of his lips which told me he’d heard her too.
“So damn sexy.” I confirmed, and Iris burst into giggles.
Salem insisted on carrying three of the four bags, which left me with just the backpack as we walked off of campus.
“Thank you for coming with me, Salem.”
“You couldn’t go alone.” He pointed out, and I nodded.
Joshua had offered to give me his position, but I’d turned it down. My life wasn’t here anymore and the position meant more to Joshua than it would me.
Besides, there was no way I could handle Salem as a boss and a lover, it was asking for trouble.
“You would have come with me regardless.”
“I’d do anything for you.” He agreed.
“Likewise.”
“Guests will be arriving in a little over an hour.” Callie called, as she knocked again on our door. She’d been doing that every half hour for the last two hours.
Salem nipped at my shoulder as I called out, “We’ll be ready!”
“Salem, do you have everything squared away?” She asked, her tone suggesting we weren’t taking this as seriously as she was.
“We’re good, Calliope.”
I heard her snort, and shook my head as I heard her call for Jane further down the hall.
“You two are too headstrong to be in a hundred-foot radius of each other.” I teased.
“I approved the invitations before they went out. I’m very aware what time dinner starts, but right now I’m more concerned with what is in front of me.”
I put my finger over his mouth and sighed, “She’s right. We really should get ready. Unless you want me to walk down there wrapped in a sheet.”
“Remind me why I agreed to this dinner?”
I rolled out of bed and headed for the bathroom as I shrugged, “Beats me. The three of you ambushed me with the idea. I’m just supposed to show up and look pretty.”
“We could cancel.”
“Good luck with that. Iris will rip your eyes out. It took her two weeks to find my dress and another week to find hers. Now, the way I see it, since you made us late getting ready, we could make up time by showering together, or I can hurry and you—”
I don’t remember ever seeing Salem move so quickly. He was out of bed and had me in his arms before I could finish my sentence.
Sharing a room with Salem had proved problematic on my time management skills.
The day we’d returned home after telling Iris and Callie everything, he’d informed me all my things had been moved into his room.
“What makes you think I want to move in with you?” I had asked, going out of my way to be difficult, even though I’d liked the idea.
“Nyx, I’m not sneaking into your room every night or vice versa.”
“Why can’t we move into my room?”
“If that’s what you prefer, I guess we can.”
I’d grinned and launched myself at him, my arms going around his neck and his catching me around the waist. I kissed him, just a quick peck before I pulled back to look at him.
“I was teasing, Salem. Then you had to go and ruin it by agreeing with me.”
“I’d move into the forest if it’s what you wanted.”
“No, I’m good. I might like Fenris and Lanaya, but hearing what they do when they hunt is not high up on my list of wants. Actually, it doesn’t make the list. It’s more on the list of things I never want to witness.”
He’d laughed, and hooked one hand under my thigh, hitching my leg over his hip. “Nyx?”
“Hmm?”
“You can climb off of me and we can unpack, or you can stay here and we are going to end up unpacking much later.”
I made a show of thinking about it and then I’d wrapped my ot
her leg around him and pulled myself tighter against him.
“Good choice.”
That had been months ago.
Callie and Iris had been here on some weekends and all the holidays. We’d visited for their birthdays and Christmas like we’d planned and had made a special trip to see Ms. Ivy. She’d cried when I told her what Salem had done for me, and then cried harder when I told her I’d found love and a home outside of a world of taking souls.
Callie and Iris had been here for a week of spring break. Their last before they graduated college. They’d been here for five days so far, and tonight was a super fancy dinner party Iris had all but demanded we have and Salem had agreed.
I’d seen more staff coming and going today than I’d seen the entire time I’d lived here and Charon had walked us through preparations this morning at breakfast, reminding us all he expected punctuality as would the guests.
And now, thanks to Salem distracting me into bed and me distracting him in the shower, we were late.
“Charon is going to kill us.” I said, hurrying to pin up my hair. My makeup was done, my onyx jewelry was on and my dress was lying across the bed.
“He’ll understand.” Salem said from the closet.
I really didn’t think he would. It wasn’t as if it was a surprise and he’d given Salem and me a rather pointed look when he’d talked about being on time.
“Nyx?” Salem called.
“Yeah?”
“Why aren’t you wearing this tonight?” He asked, walking out holding the red dress Iris had purchased what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“It’s red. I stay away from red because of my hair.”
“I love your hair.”
I rolled my eyes and had just perfected the twist I’d been working to achieve for the last ten minutes when he appeared behind me in the mirror and kissed my cheek. I secured my hair with a black clip and he smiled.
“Wear this instead.”
I let out an overexaggerated sigh, and said, “Fine.”
He straightened and I turned to take in the full effect of Salem in a tux. He was breathtaking. So much so I legitimately think I stopped breathing for a second as I took him in.
“Careful, Nyx. Keep looking at me like that and we will be more than fashionably late.”
“We wasted too much time already. You can wait until your guests go home.” I said, grabbing the dress and heading into the closet where I could see myself in the floor to ceiling mirror.
“Wasted? Not at all.”
I pulled on the red dress, grateful my jewelry was black and I’d kept my makeup neutral. I had to take off my bra—the deep vee in both the front and the back didn’t allow for one—and as I looked at myself in the mirror, I thanked Iris for knowing me like she did. If the girls had been even an inch bigger, the dress would have been too revealing, but she’d bought it with me in mind and as usual, it was perfect.
The flowy skirts were just a little too long, meaning I’d be wearing heels, and the slit up one side wasn’t noticeable until I walked and it revealed nearly all of one leg. Still it was beautiful.
I grabbed a pair of strappy heels that wrapped around my feet and up my ankles in a way that resembled vines and once they were on, I walked back out into our bedroom.
“Well?” I said, holding out my arms and doing a quick turn.
Salem looked over from the bed where he was laying and then he sat up.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested the dress.”
“See? I told you red wasn’t my color. I can take this off and throw the black one on.”
He stood, looking me over slowly as he said, “Red is most definitely your color. I’m just worried if I take you downstairs like that, somebody might try something and I’d be very upset if I had to kill a guest during a party.”
“You are ridiculous.”
“I am honest.”
“Shut up, Salem. Come on.”
I held out my hand but instead of linking our fingers, he tucked my hand into his arm and we walked out to greet our guests.
Dinner was awkward.
After seeing me to my seat, I learned Salem’s seat was at the other end of the table. Tasha sat close, though not right next to me and Iris was even further than her. There were at least forty people here I didn’t know. I didn’t know what was polite to talk about and what wasn’t. What I could ask and what was just too nosy. Most of dinner I didn’t speak unless spoken to but it wasn’t until desert that someone asked the question I’d been praying to avoid.
“So, Nyx,” a woman named Claudia piped up. She was seated on my left and hadn’t gone thirty seconds without speaking. “How did you and our king meet?”
I smiled, hid my discomfort by sipping my water and then decided to do what I always did. I told the truth.
“He kidnapped me and held me hostage until I agreed to help him with a problem he was having.”
It was only after I finished I realized the entire table was looking at me.
I guess they’d all wanted to know the answer to her question and now the dining room was eerily silent.
My eyes moved past the large group of strangers and the small group of friends to the man seated all the way at the other end of the table and much to my relief, he was smiling.
“And I’d do it again.” Salem said, drawing the attention back to him as he stood and started towards me. “Ladies and gentleman, I was going to wait until after dessert, but now is as good a time as any.”
When he reached me, he held out his hand for me to take it and I did. My chair scraped the floor as I stood up just as Salem slipped a ring onto my finger.
“I’m getting married.”
I couldn’t say if there were gasps, congratulations, outbursts or hoorays. I couldn’t tell you if there was glaring, shocked or happy faces. I couldn’t remember a single reaction aside from my own. I was frozen to the spot.
Salem hadn’t asked me. He was telling me.
He wasn’t giving me any sort of option to refuse and why would he? I’d already agreed to spend the rest of my life with him. He had my whole heart. He was my heart.
Still, I couldn’t resist teasing him.
“Oh, really? Who’s the lucky girl?”
He smiled and bent me over with the fierceness of his kiss right there in the dining hall in front of a handful of friends and dozens of strangers.
He pulled the both of us upright and I was just about to scold him for ambushing me when something in the hallway crashed to the floor. We heard a curse, the sound of footsteps running on the marble floors and then the front door open and slam shut.
“Excuse me,” Charon started to say, “I’ll just go see what—”
The sound of more footsteps and shouting cut off Charon’s words and Salem, with me on his heels, rushed towards the doors just in time to see what I assumed were guards, dressed like they’d walked out of ancient Egypt running through out foyer.
One of them stopped as soon as they saw Salem and bowed, “Apologies, Hades. But the Princess of Duat has escaped through your realm. We gave chase and didn’t have time to send word.”
Salem looked ready to murder the man, and I stepped between them.
“It’s all right, is there anything we can do to help?”
“Allow us to give chase, please.”
“What has she done?”
“She broke her bonds.” He said, in a tone that suggested murder rather than whatever breaking bonds was.
“I can find her faster than your guards running amok in my territory.”
“We would not ask this of you.”
“No, but I am offering just the same.”
The man gave a slight bow, and Salem turned back to me. “Nyx, I’ll—”
“If you even try to leave me behind, you’ll be sleeping at Tasha and Joshua’s tonight.”
He grinned, kissed my cheek and said, “Go change. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
A door appeared and I ran over to
it, then I stopped and turned back to look at him, “Even though you didn’t ask, I will marry you.”
“I’m glad. I already got permission from Callie and Iris and fulfilled my promise to propose with them here.”
I shot him a smile, went and got changed into something I could move in, and then we abandoned what had turned into an engagement party to help the people who had crashed it.
Acknowledgements
Mom and Dad, thank you for raising me with my imagination intact (if not my sanity, but I mostly blame your grandchildren for that) and reminding me to always keep my sense of wonder. Becca, thank you for taking the time read that, edit that and take that out. That was amazing. Sarah, Jeanne and Aimee, thank you for making sure that the thoughts racing through my head made sense on paper and for always being my cheerleaders who weren’t afraid to critique. All of my boys, thank you for always being yourselves and for reminding me every day how incredible your personalities are. Stay forever both dreamers and doers. And Jesse, thank you for indulging my whims, encouraging me to carve out time to write no matter what our schedules looked like, and for marrying someone who never wants to grow up. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.
About The Author
Elizabeth Cole
Elizabeth grew up living in the world of the supernatural. Naturally, she wanted to be an immortal who battled evil and saved the world with the help of devious dragons and all-powerful warlocks. Unfortunately, she was never able to find a job in that market, so she started writing stories to fill the time. Now she embarks on new adventures with the warlock she married and their thunder of dragons, but she keeps writing in all of her spare time.
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