5
NORA
“Well, doll, you look amazing! I knew that dress would suit you.” Kat beamed at her and Nora smiled back gratefully. The wedding coordinator had been able to pull everything together in just a few days, including finding a dress that really was beautiful. It was white lace with a sweetheart neckline that draped over her curves, emphasizing them without making Nora feel fat, which was nice.
As Xarex had promised, the whole wedding was going to be completely traditional. Well , except for the fact that it took place aboard the Kindred Mother Ship in the Sacred Grove dedicated to the Kindred Goddess . Also , everyone involved had to take off their shoes because they were standing on holy ground. Nora was extremely glad she’d made time to get a pre-wedding manicure and pedicure, though she hardly knew how she’d fit it in.
Getting a leave of absence for her paralegal job hadn’t been easy. Only the fact that Nora had been with the law firm for so long and that she’d explained this was about getting medical care for her daughter who would die otherwise had moved the office manager to grudgingly agree.
“But only for a month, mind you,” she’d snapped at Nora . “ After that, you lose your job permanently! So don’t get too cozy up on that Kindred ship.”
“Yes of course, I understand,” Nora had been forced to agree. She hoped that a month would be long enough to get Anna on a treatment plan. Otherwise , she was going to be looking for a new job pretty quickly.
Your new job is going to be keeping Commander Xarex happy, whispered an ominous little voice in her head. And keeping him happy means letting him do anything he wants to you.
She couldn’t help remembering the hot kisses they’d shared and how he’d looked at her in that intense, possessive way. He didn’t seem like an emotionless robot at all—he was more like a man who had been fantasizing about her and was about to get what he wanted.
But why should he think about her that way, Nora wondered. She wasn’t the kind of woman most men dreamed of. She wasn’t tall and willowy and though her face was pretty, she wasn’t gorgeous or model-perfect. However , she did look good in the wedding dress Kat had found her, she had to admit.
Just then, she heard the strains of the Wedding March coming from the string quartet that Kat had hired.
“Oh, there you go, doll! Are you ready?” Kat squeezed her arm excitedly.
“Yes, as…as ready as I can be,” Nora said, wishing her voice wouldn’t wobble so much. She couldn’t believe she was actually going to march down the aisle and marry her scary Dark Kindred boss. But then her mother and Anna poked their heads into the small dressing tent and she remembered why she was doing this.
“Are you ready to go, Nora ?” her mom asked anxiously. “ I think they’re starting.”
She was wearing a lovely champagne colored Mother of the Bride dress which Kat had found her. She’d gotten Anna a flower girl dress in the same color and had given her a basket filled with white rose petals to scatter as she walked down the aisle.
Anna’s big brown eyes, so much her mother’s, got wide as she stared at Nora .
“Oh, you look so pretty, Mommy !” she breathed.
Nora had to fight back tears. It hadn’t been that long ago that Anna had asked if she could call her “ Mommy ” instead of “ Auntie ” which had been her previous title before her sister died.
“You can call me anything you want to,” she’d assured Anna . “ You’re my little girl now and I’ll love you no matter what.”
Anna had decided she liked “ Mommy ” best and Nora felt her heart swell every time she heard it. Her heart was also hurting today though, because she could see the lightweight oxygen pack which Anna wore under one arm and the clear tubing connecting it to the nasal canula on her small, pretty face.
Just a few weeks ago, she hadn’t needed oxygen all the time. But now that the Pulmonary Crystalosis was getting so advanced, Anna had to have help breathing both day and night.
This is why I’m getting married—this is why I’m willing to let Commander Xarex do anything he wants to me, she thought as she cupped Anna’s cheek in one hand. And as soon as this is all over, I’m taking her straight to the Med Center .
“You look pretty too, sweetie,” she told Anna . “ Now are you ready to walk ahead of me and do your job with the flower petals? I’m really counting on you, you know.”
Anna lifted her chin.
“I’m ready!” she declared. “ I’m going to be the best flower girl ever!”
“I know you will be.” Nora bent down and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “ Now let’s go—the music says it’s time.”
“Good luck, doll. You look gorgeous!” Kat kissed her on the cheek and then Nora took her mother’s arm.
“You look beautiful,” her mother murmured as they left the tent. “ But honey, it’s not too late. Are you sure you want to do this? I saw that boss of yours out there and he looks so big and frightening!”
“There’s no other way to get help for Anna ,” Nora reminded her in a whisper. “ I’ll do anything to save her, you know that.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Her mother squeezed her arm. “ I’m so proud of you. I just want you to be safe.”
Nora thought of all the bondage porn she’d seen on her boss’s computer and tried to repress a shiver. She hadn’t told her mother the details of what she was going to have to do in order to get Anna seen at the Kindred Mother Ship’s Med Center . She preferred to keep that to herself. But there was no doubt she was definitely going to be paying.
Then her eyes drifted to the black oxygen pack slung under Anna’s arm again and she straightened her spine. Anything she had to do was worth it to save her daughter.
They walked down the aisle to the strains of the Wedding March and she couldn’t help looking up in awe at Commander Xarex , who was standing at the end with the priestess who was going to perform the ceremony. He was wearing a black tux that molded to his muscular body perfectly and his chiseled features were handsome and imposing. Other than his skin and eye coloring, he would have looked like a male model posing for a wedding photo shoot, she thought. It still amazed her that someone who looked like him wanted someone who looked like her.
Anna was also staring at the huge Kindred with wide eyes. When she got to the end of the aisle she just stood there, looking up at him. Nora’s mother had to take her by the hand and lead her to the section they were sitting in because she seemed so transfixed by Xarex .
“Grandma,” she whispered loudly as they got seated. “ Why is Mommy marrying a giant?”
Of course, everyone heard her because the string quartet had just stopped playing and there was a muted ripple of laughter from the wedding guests. Some were friends from Nora’s law firm and others were coworkers from the HKR building. There were also a few faces she didn’t recognize at all, which she assumed must be friends of Xarex .
She took her place across from him and the ceremony began.
It went in a blur. The priestess, who had odd, green-within-green eyes and green streaks in her long blonde hair, spoke about the value of marriage and how the Goddess brought men and women together in holy and sacred bonds that must never be broken. Then she got to the vows.
“Repeat after me,” she told Nora .
Nora repeated the words about honoring and cherishing her new husband with a twinge of guilt. She knew this marriage was only temporary and it felt like sacrilege to talk about loving and caring for her big Kindred boss until “death do us part” when it was probably going to last less than a month.
But then it was Xarex’s turn, he shook his head at the priestess.
“If it is permitted, I have written my own vows,” he told her.
The priestess looked as surprised as Nora felt, but nodded her head regally.
“As you wish, Warrior . Please , proceed.”
“Nora,” he murmured, looking down at her from his great height. “ I vow to stand by your side for as long as you need me to be there. I will protect you from any danger with my body and guard you with my life. Where you go, I will follow. What you need, I will provide. I vow always to put your pleasure first, before my own, and to do everything in my power to make you happy. Please guide me in the ways of feeling so that I can understand your emotions and act accordingly.”
He held her hands and looked into her eyes as he spoke and Nora found herself unexpectedly moved. Did he really mean everything he was saying? She’d never known him to be disingenuous before, so she assumed he did. Also , his face looked more open than she’d ever seen it.
He was serious yet hopeful—that was the best way she could describe his look. At any rate, he didn’t seem like a big scary emotionless robot at all. Well , he was still big and scary and he did still talk kind of like a robot but the feeling in his deep voice moved her.
“I… I’ll do my best to guide you in the, er, way of emotions,” she murmured, looking up at him. She couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t seem like a man who was just going through a ceremony so he could get sex in the end. He really almost seemed like he cared about her.
The ceremony ended with a kiss and it was the gentlest one they’d shared so far. Xarex leaned down from his great height and Nora stood on her tiptoes until their lips met. A tingle ran through her whole body and she felt almost dizzy for a moment as his warm, spicy, masculine scent filled her senses.
Then, amid the roars of approval and clapping from the wedding guests, she took his arm and floated down the aisle, feeling like she was in the middle of a very vivid dream.