Page 33 of The Wraith & Her Killer

He’s alive.Here.

“How?” I whisper, looking at the beautifully scarred man before me. He looks exactly the same, save for a few new cuts along the left side of his face.

“Oh, my little wraith.”He tuts, but his deep, smoky voice alone threatens to cause the dam to break. His hands—warm and very much alive—cup my face as he tugs until we’re standing toe to toe, chest to chest. “You should know by now that there is no force on this plane of existence or any other that could keep me from you.”

Before my brain can even form a response, another familiar voice pipes up.

“Not even a fucking bullet to the chest.” I look around Adris’ shoulder, and my lips part in shock to find Rune and Calix standing next to a very terrified looking priest. Calix, like Adris, has a few healing cuts on his face, but looks otherwise uninjured. Rune is wearing not only an expensive looking suit, but on top of his head rests… an eight-point newsboy hat.

His eyes lift to mine, and it’s then that I notice the bright pink burn scars on the right side of his face. Scars I hadn’t noticed earlier, becausehewas the one who delivered my bouquet to me. Rune simply winks and wraps an arm around Calix’s waist, placing a delicate kiss to the scar on the side of Cal’s neck.

I look back to Adris, still unbelieving that this is real. That all three of them somehow miraculously survived.

With trembling fingers, I lift my hand and place it just over the place on his chest where his heart should be, and let the tears free-fall when I feel the beautiful, chaoticthump, thump, thump.

In true Adris fashion, he leans down and licks a stray tear from my cheek. My entire body shivers beneath his touch. That familiar slow, maddening grin takes over his entire face when he leans back and looks down at what is most certainly my expression of disbelief.

An awkward sputtering cough sounds from behind us, and Adris turns his head to the priest who looks like he’s about to either piss himself or pass away. Which is fair, considering we’re in the presence of the three ghosts whom he helped to bury three weeks ago.

“Shall we, Father?” Adris asks, and while Iknowhe’s addressing the priest, my mind gets flashbacks of when he was addressing Boris on Santino’s estate.

“Father?”I echo before I can stop the word from leaving my mouth.

Adris’ eyes find mine again and he barks a laugh. “Oh, no, baby. He’s taken care of.” He says, nodding toward the seating that created the center aisle. It’s then that I notice two bodies propped up in chairs on either side. He pulls back one of the sheer curtains and the sight before me pulls a shriek from my lungs. Both of our fathers look as if they’re sitting and observing this miraculous rising from the dead, but then I notice the arrows protruding from each of their chests.

Adris’ cheek presses against mine from over my shoulder when he bends down to speak. “Though I seem to remember that mine hadtwoeyes the last time I saw him. You don’t happen to know what happened to the other one, do you,Wraith?”

“I took it,” I whisper back, remembering that day when I’d rallied to fight for myself one last time. “I was sick of his fucking manhandling.”

“That’s my girl,” Adris croons before he growls—actuallygrowls—in my ear, but I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up.

“Adris, he hasnoeyes now.”

It’s truly macabre. My eyes drift over to my father, who’s been set up next to my very dead stepmother in the same position as Boris.

So that’s where she went.

His hands are folded in his lap and his neck is rigid, looking like he’s patiently waiting for his own daughter’s wedding to start. Well, he would if he had any eyes either. I fight the urge to gag when bile rises up in my throat. I notice that there are those fucking signature candy hearts stuffed between their lids, propping them open so that their hollow sockets can bear witness to whatever the fuck is happening here.

Both of their mouths hang wide open in a permanent scream, as if that’s exactly how time froze them when they each took their final breaths.

“What the fuck,” I whisper, wondering very briefly why I’m not more horrified at the way my own father was brutally murdered by the man behind me.

“They chose to be blind to your pain in life. They can live without their eyes in death.” Adris states simply as he places a tender kiss to the top of my head. “Call it an early wedding present.”

I spin around to face him so fast that I trip on my heels, but he’s quick to catch me and pull me into him, keeping me steady. “Wedding present?” I ask, my brows drawn together, completely bewildered by his words. My heart begins to pound within my chest.

“We’re here, we’re dressed up.” He gestures to Rune, Calix, and the priest. “And we’ve got witnesses and a holy man, so why not?”

“You want to marry me?” My eyes search his, wondering where the hell his sanity has gone, but then I realize the joke’s on me because he’s never been sane. “You don’t even know anything about me, Adris. You could spend a week with me and decide that I’m not what you actually want. That maybe you spent a decade chasing the literal ghost of who I used to be.” I suck in a breath, fighting the emotion currently clogging my throat. “I’m so utterly broken, and I don’t think that the damage done is something that could ever be fixed.”

Adris sighs, but it doesn’t sound agitated.His gaze never breaks from mine when he holds his hand out. Rune reaches into his coat pocket and drops something into his palm.

Picking up my left hand, he speaks.

“Marriage between two people is just another one of those ancient societal norms that are a public way of proverbially pissing on what’s yours to mark your territory. But you’re just as crazy as I am if you think that I’m not about to tie you to me in every fucking way that I possibly can,Wraith.”

He gingerly slides a ring onto my finger, and I’m stunned when I lower my eyes to glance at it. I have no idea where the hell he got the ring from, but it’s a breathtaking marquis diamond set in yellow gold, surrounded by a crown of smaller, round diamonds. What leaves me speechless, though, is the solitaire blood diamond that rests at the bottom point of the main diamond. Because it’s been cut into the shape of a heart.

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