Page 56 of Queen of the Crimson Throne (Queen of Blood and Stardust #2)

56

LUKA

I had to admit, we did a pretty good job putting together a wedding on such short notice for three people who knew nothing about weddings.

We had cleared out the center of the garden, moved away the tables and benches to allow room for our small ceremony.

The moon and stars decorated the sky, a mirror of the bulbs of light we had strung throughout the garden.

Declan and I stood waiting in the garden—Nico had gone to find Caterina and Endora. I thought Lennox might want them here.

I shifted back and forth from foot to foot, waiting for Lennox to arrive. Part of me thought she might change her mind, decide tomorrow was what she wanted—and not this choice I was giving her tonight.

The choice to choose me.

To choose us.

I had been mulling over what to do all week, coming up with one last attempt at giving Lennox the life she had dreamed of. The opportunity to choose love for herself. I still didn’t know if that’s what she was doing in choosing to say yes to tonight, but the look in her eyes—and the way she let me kiss her afterward— maybe the space apart these past few days had been good for both of us.

The sounds of voices filtered through the garden, but my chest deflated when the people rounding the corner were Caterina, Endora, and Nico, not Lennox.

Caterina approached me, a wide smile brightening her face. She braced her hands on my shoulders, placing a kiss on each of my cheeks. “This was such a sweet thing for you to do for my niece. I like the two of you together.” She winked before letting me go and moving to the side where Nico and Declan stood.

Finally, Kara and Luciana appeared from around the hedge, my eyes scanned behind them for Lennox.

My breath stilled at the sight of her.

I had thought she was beautiful the first time I saw her walking down those stairs, but tonight—she was a shining star in the dark sky, and she was coming right toward me.

She smiled softly when her eyes met mine, creating a smile of my own to spread on my lips.

Goddess I loved her.

“Hi.” Her voice sounded almost shy.

“Hi.” I took her hands in mine, intertwining our fingers. “You look—” I searched for the right words, coming up empty for something that could fully encapsulate how beautiful she looked. “I’ve never seen anyone so magnificent.”

A blush rose to her cheeks. “You look pretty good yourself.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I didn’t even want to ask. I wanted this—for us, I wanted this one moment. But if she changed her mind, I’d give her that out. I’d give her that choice.

She looked at our intertwined hands. “I’m sure.”

“Let’s do this, Sweetheart.”

Our friends made a circle around us as our hands remained intertwined.

“We never discussed this, but is it okay if we incorporate a tradition from the Mystic Court?” Lennox asked.

“Of course.” Our ceremony tomorrow would be a combination of the ceremony from each of our courts, but tonight we could make it whatever we wanted. Each court had its own traditions, but the core of the ceremony was the same, the pair vowed to one another and to the Goddess their commitment to one another.

In the Blood Court, it was typical for the couple to exchange blood—something Lennox and I would be partaking in tomorrow.

“Luce is going to light a candle and conduct a spell that will thin the veil around us—allowing the people we have lost into the ceremony.”

Her eyes searched mine. “My parents and Nol—your parents. They can be here if they want.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger on her face.

The idea of having our families here, even if we couldn’t see them— “Thank you.”

We stared at one another—neither of us saying anything.

“When you’re ready,” I hadn’t even noticed Luciana completing the spell, but I could sense her magic in the air around us.

“Can I go first?” She asked.

I intertwined our hands again.

“Luka—you’re the best person I’ve ever met. Whenever I find something I don’t like about you, you show me a redeeming quality about that trait. You infuriate me. You push me in every aspect of my life. Not to try and get me to be a better person, but to embrace the person I am. You shine a light on the parts of me I think are unlovable and you love them anyway. I tried so hard to keep you out of my life—to keep space between us. To keep myself from falling in love with you, but nothing worked because you refused to leave me. Despite my constant asking and pushing you away—you never left me. Thank you for never giving up on me. I needed that—I needed you.”

She looked at her hands. “I need you. I want you, Luka. You are intertwined into my being as much as my magic is. You have no idea how much it means to me that you have given me this choice. Allowed me to choose to marry you tonight. I’m done fighting against all of this. I’m tired of fighting against us—something that feels so natural. I choose you, Luka. I choose you tonight. I will choose you again tomorrow and every day after that. It’s you. It’s always been you and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

“You mean that? You’re choosing me?”

Her emerald eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “It does. It means I’m yours, Luka. You can have all of me, every mangled, darkened part of me.”

She raised up on her tiptoes and planted a soft kiss on my lips. “I choose you, Luka Rossi.”

“I choose you too.” I kissed her again, twin smiles breaking out on our faces.

“I love you, Lennox Adair, I’ve been falling in love with you since the first time you scowled at me.”

She shook her head and rested her forehead on my shoulder, failing to hide her smile.

“I’m serious.” She looked at me again. “My entire life everyone put me on a pedestal—they walked on eggshells and they tried to please me. And then there was you—stabbing me to make yourself feel better after we’d only just meet. You made me work for your love, your affection—I had to earn it, which has made it all the sweeter to know you have deemed me worthy enough to be cared for by you, Lennox Adair. Because as we know you do not give your love away easily. You are my everything, Lennox.” I pressed my lips to the palm of her hand. “I promise you will not regret choosing me tonight.”

I closed my hand around the dagger at my side, her eyes tracking my movement before she reached for her own.

“You ready?”

This was the ceremony we had planned for tomorrow, a combination of Blood Court and Star Court traditions .

I gave her my palm, wincing as she sliced her blade across it, before I repeated the action across hers. I pulled out the vile of stardust Luciana gave me earlier and shook the contents over our bleeding palms. The stardust shimmered as it fell before sticking to our bloodied palms.

I combined our bloodied hands, intertwining our fingers once again.

My palm tingled—the stardust already at work as our blood mingled together—tying us together for eternity.

“I, Luka Rossi, bind my life to yours, Lennox Adair,” I repeated the ancient words. “I vow to protect you, to push you, to stand by your side and love you for the rest of eternity,” I added. Lennox’s eyes glimmered at my additions to the vow.

“I, Lennox Adair, bind my life to yours, Luka Rossi. I vow to stand by your side, to care for you, and to protect you for the rest of eternity.”

The tingling in my palm intensified, the sensation moving from my palm and spreading up my arm, sending a shiver down my spine.

I met Lennox’s gaze again, her face telling me she was feeling the same sensations I was. I gripped her hand tighter as the magic continued to work through our bodies—working to bind us together.

Finally, the sensation subsided. We removed our hands, both looking at the twin marks marring our palms.

Not every married couple was blessed with a mark. It was all up to the Goddess and the Stars to bless a union with a marriage mark.

Lennox and I appeared to have been blessed. The skin where we had cut one another had healed, but was slightly raised—leaving scared skin behind in the form of a thick line of black ink shimmering in the moonlight. The cut extended up my palm before divulging into two lines that wrapped around my middle finger. At the bottom of the cut, the line extended down my wrist until it slowly faded into my vein .

A light wind whipped around us. Lennox and I both looked as Astria appeared beside us in a hardly corporal form. “Your mark is one of greatest significance. Your blood is now bound together as displayed by the ink over your cuts—so you shall never forget your commitment to one another.” She brushed her starry finger over Lennox’s palm, tracing the line as it snaked down her wrist. “It fades into your blood—a symbol of your blood now being one.”

She squeezed Lennox’s hand before releasing it. “I hereby bless your union, from now until eternity may your lives now be bound.”

And with that, she was gone.

“That’s it?” Lennox looked at me.“We’re married now?”

“There’s one last thing we’re forgetting.”

“What?” Her brows pinched together.

“We seal the marriage with a kiss.”

She smiled before my lips descended on hers. The kiss was soft at first before turning ravenous. I pulled back—only to be dazzled by the smile lighting up her face.

My wife’s face.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me back for another kiss. My arms wrapping around her waist before I lifted her off the ground and spun her.

Cheers and hollers broke out around us and Lennox laughed against my mouth as I swung her around.

Married .

Lennox and I were married.