Page 160 of Lovely Venom

Connor lifts it first. “I vow to protect you with this blade and my body. I vow to love you in fire and ice. I vow to follow you, Raina, to the end of the world and beyond to the next life.”

He slices the tip of one finger and lets the blood drip onto the hilt.

Although his evil smirk suggests he’d like to do something else with this knife to make me his.

I lift the dagger next, my fingers closing over the warm, jeweled handle. “I vow that you are my chosen one. I vow to stand at your side, no matter the challenge. I vow to love you as a wife and a warrior. As your equal.”

I press the blade to my hand and nick off a shallow cut. Holding it over the blade’s handle, I let my blood join his.

When the crimson streams collide, Valdrin lifts the dagger, wraps it in silk, and holds it between us. “Askyre, I declare them married.”

But a priest and the City of New York will make it official next week in front of Connor’s mother, who showered me with an ungodly amount of traditional Irish jewelry as aweddingpresent. NorahandSabine did not attend this volatile ritual at Connor’s request. Just as a precaution.

Connor grabs me by the waist and kisses me like he can’t be away from my mouth any longer. The entire room explodes in cheers and thunderous claps, but it’s white noise in the background. All I hear is Connor’s breathing, and all I feel is his heartbeat.

All I ever want ishim.

We pull back, breathless.

He grins. “How does it feel to be royalty?”

I whisper, “I’m still wearing knives under this.”

“That’smy girl.”

EPILOGUE

Connor - December

Dirk had a spot open at his tattoo parlor and called me personally to come back so he could update my snake tat.

“Bring the eyes,” he’d said gruffly.

Raina’s eyes.

Not a photo. Not a reference. Her eyes right there in the room. He wants to get the green right. Not the color of envy, but the wild, molten hue of jungle and gold and fury that I see in my wife’s eyes every day, every night, and especially when I make her come.

So here we are.

Except, we’re in the back room at the moment behind a black curtain, and my belt’s already undone.

“You have five minutes,” she murmurs, legs wrapping around my waist.

“Five minutes?” I grin against her throat. “You wound me.”

“I have to meet Father at the consulate in an hour.” Her fingers thread through my hair as she rolls her hips, already slick and hot through the thin barrier of her lace panties. “And no bite marks on my neck. I’m wearing that off-the-shoulder dress to Sunday dinner.”

I’m dying to taste her cunt, but she pulls me higher, lips parted in anticipation.

The bell above the shop door chimes, and it shouldn’t mean anything, but hearing an accent like mine stills me for a heartbeat.

Raina tenses around me. “Is that?”

I glance through the slit in the curtain. “It sure is.”

Standing in front of Dirk’s glass counter, my cousin Rhys towers over a redhead.

“Rhys, my father isn’t going to like all those tattoos,” the woman nags him.