Page 59 of The Rusalka and Mr. Right

Like, I get the point of me being here and reading these words with an audience has something to do with magical creatures but... I don’t know, my mind gives one of those long, jagged screeches like a retro record player’s needle on vinyl. Magical creatures my medical mind can kind of get, like those who have different colors of skins or bodily appendages—I can think of some DNA gone haywire or something.

But words? Just saying words? I don’t know. That should still be normal, even in this crazy funhouse town I’ve fallen into.

“And powers ever be unbroken.” Gray-haired Madge glares me down, her words whipping me out of my two-second mental sprint, and daring me to run—or lie.

Nope, old witch. I’m staying. Let your words do your thing.I take Marina’s face in the palm of my hand, momentarily diverting her gaze from the book.

“Love you,” she mouths.

“Love you, baby,” I mouth back, freak out fleeing.

“Powers guard these two lovers—” Jakob Minegold dabs his eyes and smiles at Marina as she nuzzles her cheek deeper into my palm.

“And their vows truly spoken.” Tessa, the meek little pregnant thing, is suddenly a glowing white goddess, looking like she swallowed lighting, all white irises and hair flying back from her head as she claps her hands together and a circle of ultraviolet blue snaps and sparkles to life around Marina and I, trapping us in the eye of a magical storm.

Damn. I hope we don’t have to pay for the carpeting. That’s the totally wrong thought I suddenly have—but it goes away when Marina’s eyes open and look into mine.

“If you say this—there is nothing you can do to separate us. Ever. Not now, not in the afterlife. Please—” Her voice holds one last breathless warning.

Maybe she needs water.

Maybe I need to kiss the air back into her lungs.

My voice has never been so rock solid and sure, low and firm, like I’m telling God and the devil and everyone in between that Marina is mine.

The words seem to stand out on the old faded pages, black and scrawling, flowing right from my lips. “In life and death, to you I bind myself, heart and soul. Ever tethered and never to part, I name thee keeper of soul and heart.”

Say it back, baby. I dare you.

Marina gasp-chokes, like someone just unplugged her airway, and her words are said with wide, incredulous eyes, her fingers sliding across my shoulders as she leaves the book in my hands. “In life and death, to you I bind myself, heart and soul. Ever tethered and never to part, I name thee keeper of soul and heart.”

I think this is where the minister would say kiss the bride, but this isn’t a wedding (exactly), and my entire instructions for the night were “Stand here” and “Read this.” Doesn’t matter. I know what to do.

Blue flames flare up around us as our mouths crash together. I can feel Marina’s long tongue twisting and stroking around mine, sending shockwaves down my spine and awakening a piece of me that ought to be dormant until we’re alone.

Flames. Monster bride. Floating, glowing lady in the circle. Vampire weeping into a hanky.

Should be scared, but I’m not. Just thankful. Relieved.

Nothing’s gonna take my girl away now.

Chapter Sixteen

There is champagne and hugging, toasting and some awkward silences. Not from Kev, but from the others. The magic users in the room are happy that I’m “protected,” but no one is truly optimistic that this is over. The threat of Koshchei means the Night Watch will get involved. I should be there for that discussion, for those plans.

But my mind is firmly on another subject.

My love. My protector. The knight to my queen, now the king of my heart... My shore.

I need water—and for the first time since I’ve stopped killing, I want to take a man into my river and pull him to the bottom—only this time he’ll rise, gasping for air with my body wrapped around his.

“Tomorrow night—Night Watch meeting,” Minegold stops me in the middle of my hundredth kiss, ushering us toward the door. “Here or the library’s all-purpose room.”

“I’ll be there,” I promise, stopping to hug Calder and Janet goodbye.

“I’ll come, too,” Kev volunteers, shaking Calder’s hand and looking relieved when my water-dwelling bestie doesn’t wrap him in tentacles.

I want him to stay gone, to stay out of danger and anything remotely involved in it—but that would mean he’d leave me, too. He can’t now.

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