Page 74 of Wickedly Yours

“I do care for her. More than I’ve ever cared about anyone else.”

“That’s a start.” My brother slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Just focus on her—making sure she feels pleasure and not pain.” A fang popped out over his lip. “And I don’t just mean with your teeth.”

I groaned. Of course, I’d always known that it was sexual, but the desire had been practically blinding the last time I’d taken Luna to bed. I couldn’t wait any longer.

Which meant it had to betonight.

“Are you worried she won’t accept you?”

I ran a tongue over my canine teeth. “No. Before, maybe, but now…”

She’d been so eager the last few days. Asking me questions about demons, our culture, and traditions. Neither one of us mentioned Damien and Willow’s mating, but I knew she was aware of it. Would she be open to it? The bond would connect us even deeper, and while I knew I could never complete it without her consent, it was getting hard to wait any longer.

“Then what troubles you?”

That I won’t be able to keep her safe.I couldn’t voice the words, even though they were right there on the tip of my tongue.That she won’t want to stay.

I rubbed my hand over my smooth jaw.

How would she react when I brought up my need for an heir? A child that looked like the two of us. We hadn’t talked about a child between us, and yet…

I found it was all I wanted. Desperately.

To keep her by my side, no matter the cost.

I’d been waiting for her for a lifetime, but the moment she entered the hall, I knew I would have waited for the rest of my existence for her. For just a moment in her light.

Her moonlit colored curls tumbled around her shoulders, dressed in a gown of stark white, my crown resting on her brow.

There she is.I could see Luna’s mouth tilt up with just the hint of a smile as I stood at the front of the room. Damien stood by my side as my only groomsman—one tradition I’d borrowed from the human world for the evening.

Demon weddings weren’t the most elegant of affairs in nature, but this was our future queen. I wanted her to be respected and admired, for them to worship her like I would. There would be more onlookers outside, waiting to get a peek at my queen, but that would come later.

And just as I’d calculated, all eyes in the room were focused on the beautiful woman coming up the aisle. A long, tulle veil trailed behind her like a sea of stars spilling from her back.

My wife.

“Hey, handsome,” Luna whispered as she reached me, the bouquet in her hands featuring dozens of purple flowers, including some small sprigs of lavender and lilacs nestled among the white lilies and roses, as well as flowers that didn’t exist in the human realm. It felt representative of us—demon and human.

I’d had them all picked from the palace gardens specifically, thinking of the dried flowers that had previously hung on the wall of her apartment. The one I’d cleared out this week.

She wouldn’t be going back, after all, not after this.

“Beautiful,” I murmured, brushing a stray curl back behind her ear.

Luna beamed, her green eyes filled with such hope, and I hoped that spark would never fade. She turned slightly to hand her sister the bouquet before looking back at me.

“So… We’re doing this?” Her eyes strayed from mine for a moment to survey our audience. Except for the horns and tails and wings of the demons in the audience, I liked to imagine this place could have passed for a wedding hall on earth. It was what I’d asked for, after all.

“If you still want to,” I chuckled, though the sound felt more like a rasp as I took her hands into mine.

She nodded, and that was all the confirmation I needed. Signaling to the demon in charge to start the ceremony,the words flowed over us, the magic of the ceremony binding us together for eternity. Light flowed out of us, forming two overlapping circles on the floor beneath our feet—symbolizing connection, unity, and balance.

Our bond, in corporeal form, was visible for all to see.

It wasn’t a long, drawn-out affair—unlike some of the human weddings I’d made Willow describe to me. We repeated the ceremonial words when asked, the ancient demon tongue sounding clumsy on Luna’s tongue, but she didn’t falter. Though we demons spoke the languages of humans now, we still used our own language for ceremonies, like coronations and weddings, but also to celebrate birth and death.

“And now, the two will drink from the ceremonial cup,” our officiant announced to the room. There was no religion in the demon realm—unlike the humans, we didn’t pray to Gods—but there was training to carry out important rituals such as these. “An offering to the fates, for guiding them through this next stage of their lives.”

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