Page 2 of Married to the Devil

Of course we will be consummating the marriage tonight. I nod. “All right,” I say more to myself than to him. I wipe my hands on my dress and wish that I still held the bouquet of flowers I’d walked down the aisle with if only to have something to occupy my hands.

The memory of the small blue blooms irritates me enough to cease my fidgeting.

Stoneheart prowls toward me, each step a confident rolling motion, and I swallow. The connection that sparked the first time we met still exists. It strums like a string, pulling me forward a step.

I have a confession.

I’m attracted to my husband. I’ve been attracted to him since he showed up at my shop and offered me this exact agreement years ago. His face is too strong to be considered beautiful, but the lines of it and the sharp angles of his form still have my fingers itching to explore.

But I turned him down then.

My body had responded to his unforgiving presence as he’d laid out the terms, and a naïve part of me had wished that he’d just ask me out rather than use me to plot his power journey. But I wouldn’t have been able to accept that invitation either. Not while knowing the real reason for his interest in me was in what he’d gain with our joining, the sanctioned war it would start.

I wanted my revenge, but I’m not so selfish that I could justify the blood that plan required.

And now we’re here. Married.

It’s awkward…but he probably doesn’t even remember offering to marry me, never thought of it after he calmly nodded and left. I’d expected anger, but there was none. It was only business.

I didn’t expect to think of him over the years. To imagine what it would have been like to accept the offer from this gargoyle with the power to make my breath catch. The interaction infected me.

I’d compare every date to Stoneheart whether I wanted to or not. Every man I’d cradle between my thighs for a night, I secretly wondered how different the act would be with him. Even wished I hadn’t been quite as quick to reject his offer.

But the morning after would bloom and all the same reasons I didn’t accept were illuminated by the light of day.

Still, I kept my ears open to the politics. I’d watched him gain more standing and power until he became a force similar to Kalos. Until the Council wouldn’t allow him to grow by taking over neighbors anymore.

I almost expected him to make the offer again…

As he stops a step away from me, nerves flutter in my stomach, and the discomfort tightening my lungs isn’t fear, it’s awareness. My skin tingles and itches under the tight wedding dress that was nothing like I would have guessed I’d want to wear, but instantly needed once I saw it.

Stoneheart raises his hand between us, the backs of his claws skimming over the pretty lace encasing my body before lightly resting on the skin over my collarbone. His eyes follow the motion, and I’m transfixed by the cool expression on his face.

“I must place my mating bite on you tonight,” he says almost as an afterthought.

“What?” The word comes out loud in alarm.

“Did you think a wedding would be enough?” he asks, meeting my gaze in challenge.

A bite is serious business. I don’t know the specifics of them since it’s rare for witches to go through the process of being soul bonded, but shifters and others forge mate bonds through bites.

“Isn’t a bond risky?” I ask. If a bonded person dies, more often than not, their mate follows them.

My mind screams at me to take a step back, but I’m trapped by his light gray eyes. A part of me craves the dominance Stoneheart effortlessly exudes, aches to give him anything he requests.

He frowns. “Gargoyles don’t bond through bites. The claiming mark is…superficial.”

“Oh.” I don’t know much about gargoyles, even being as obsessed as I am with this one.

I’m still stuck on the fact he wants to bite me. We’ll be doing more intimate acts than that tonight, but something about that, the way his pale gray gaze burned into me when he said it, makes me hesitate.

“We did sign the contract in blood,” I say, but the moment lets me think instead of panic.

I’ve already come to the conclusion that he’s right by the time he makes a sound of dismissal at my words. The Council will press any advantage they have. Right now, we’re legal mates by marriage. It’s an arrangement that is fine for witches, but shifters would be hard-pressed to recognize it.

More so than the Council, the people in the Leonid territory won’t recognize Stoneheart as my mate without a bite to show for it.

I clear my throat and nod. “You’re right. You have to bite me.”

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