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??For All to Witness

Dorian

She was already mine.

By blood, by bond, by something ancient that didn't care for rings or ceremony. But that wasn’t enough.

I wanted the world to know. Wanted every demon, witch, and whispering god to hear her name and remember that she chose me, and I chose her.

So I told her.

“I want you in every way this world and the next allows,” I said, my hand trailing the curve of her throat, where my magic thrummed like a vow. “You're already mine. But I want them to hear it. Your voice. Your name. On your show. In front of every creature stupid enough to still have hope.”

Her smile was slow and sinful. “Broadcast our wedding on Dead Wrong ?”

“Damn right,” I said. “Let them hear it. Let them know exactly what we are.”

Because this wasn’t just love. This was a declaration. A threat. A promise soaked in shadow and sealed in blood.

We’re not just bonded.

We’re united.

And if you come for one of us… You’ll face the fury of both.

They say weddings were for the living.

Ours was not.

Ours was for the creatures watching in silence, for the monsters licking their wounds behind gilded gates, for the ones too arrogant to fear us… yet. It was for them.

The grounds of my estate had been turned into something otherworldly. Midnight blossoms curled open beneath a cursed sky. Candles floated in defiance of gravity.

The air was thick with power… Ours. Vows written in blood danced in invisible script across the sky, pulsing with old magic.

Then she stepped into the circle.

Ember.

My wife. My war. My ruin and salvation.

She wore black. Of course she did. A gown like a second skin, obsidian silk stitched in infernal thread, the hem igniting into orange flames that licked at the grass but never burned her. A living warning to any who still thought her breakable.

Her veil was embroidered with old symbols in silver thread, protection charms, curses, spells of binding and unbinding.

She walked barefoot, because she wasn’t pretending to be holy. She was sacred in the way storms were. Untamed. Untouched. Mine.

Thalia waited for her at the altar, crowned in thorns, and Noxen, silent, grim, gave her away. No blood father to speak for her, so a blood mage did it instead. Poetic.

And then there was Mirek, my best man. Stoic. Watching my six like always. Cassian's absence was a weight none of us named, but we all felt it. The one who wore his skin, Saze, had no place among the living.

I stood in a black tux stitched with thread that shimmered like shadow made flesh. My shirt? Flame orange silk, custom forged and blessed by a seamstress who feared me too much to ask questions. No tie. Just a collarbone kissed with Ember’s teeth earlier that morning.

The wedding was being streamed live. Dead Wrong aired the whole thing, audio, video, raw and real. Every feed, every corner of the underworld was watching. From abandoned temples to vampire courtrooms, demons, cursed men, and broken kings all held their breath.

“You’re listening to Dead Wrong ,” Ember whispered into the microphone, eyes on me. “And today… I’m marrying the Keeper himself. The man who makes monsters behave.”

I couldn’t wait. I crossed the circle, cupped her jaw, and kissed her before the priest even spoke. I tasted fire. I tasted forever.

Our vows were carved into bone and set alight between us. I swore mine in the language of the old gods. She swore hers in the rhythm of my name.

No doves. No rice. No prayers.

Just war drums and a full moon.

“I now pronounce you bound,” Mirek said, voice like a blade dragged across stone.

Ember turned toward the camera, veil pulled back, lips stained with my kiss. “To those listening from towers and tombs, don’t mistake this union for love alone. It’s power. It’s promise. We’re done hiding.”

I kissed her like I was sealing a hex. Because I was.

And when the broadcast cut, I knew, every beast that had ever whispered her name in vain just learned a painful truth:

She wasn’t alone anymore. She’s mine. And together?

We were coming.

Honeymoon, The Midnight Hour

She was my wife .

Fully.

Eternally.

Bound not by rings or rituals, but by something older, something carved into our bones and etched in blood beneath our skin.

Ember still wore her wedding dress.

Black silk kissed her curves like it had been poured onto her by the underworld itself. The orange flames licking the hem danced as she moved, like they sensed what was coming.

And gods, so did I.

I closed the doors behind us with a thought. Every candle in the room flared high, shadows lengthening, dancing. Hungry. The walls groaned, like the mansion knew what we were about to do and braced for the storm.

Her veil slipped off in a shimmer of silver magic.

I stalked toward her. My shirt hung open, the flaming orange silk brushing against my ribs, still damp with the sweat of ceremony and power.

Her eyes never left mine, not once. Not when my hand slid around her waist. Not when my other tangled in the back of her hair. Not when I whispered against her lips, “You’re mine now, Ember Vale. In every world. Every realm. Every lifetime.”

She shivered. Whispered, “Show me.”

I didn’t rush. I tore eternity into seconds and stretched every one. I wanted her to feel this for days. I unfastened the back of her dress, slowly, reverently, like peeling back the seal of something sacred and dangerous.

Her bare skin revealed itself inch by inch. Pale. Warm. Trembling.

“Do you feel that?” I asked, dragging my fangs over her throat without biting. “The whole house is listening. Every shadow. Every ward. Every spell. It knows I’m about to fuck my wife into the foundation.”

Her lips parted in a gasp. “Then stop talking and do it.”

I growled and lifted her, pressing her back against the far wall. The portraits above us tilted from the force.

My mouth found hers, ravenous, claiming, worshipping. Her legs wrapped around me and I tore the rest of her dress at the seams, letting the black silk fall like ash to the floor.

Her thighs bared. Her breasts pressed to my chest. Her body preparing. Willing. Mine.

“You don’t even know what you do to me,” I rasped, my voice shaking with control I no longer had. “I’d burn kingdoms for you. I’d slaughter gods.”

“Then take me like you would,” she whispered. “Like I’m your war.”

That was it. The last thread of control snapped.

I slammed into her with a force that cracked the plaster behind her. Our bodies met in brutal, beautiful rhythm, flesh and magic and breath all tangled together.

Her moans weren’t soft, they were wild, guttural, matching my every thrust with desperate, hungry rolls of her hips. She clung to me like she was being consumed, and gods, maybe she was.

I dipped my head and wrapped my mouth around her breast, sucking hard enough to leave bruises. Her back arched, a gasp tearing from her lips as I bit down, just enough to make her cry out again.

I moved to the other, dragging my tongue across her flushed skin, worshiping it with teeth and tongue until she writhed beneath me, begging for more.

My shadows poured across the floor and up the walls, forming jagged antlers that split the ceiling. Every time she whispered my name, they pulsed with power.

I slammed deeper, her legs tight around me, and her cries became spells of their own, each one sealing her to me in sound, sex, and fire.

The ground pulsed beneath us.

She screamed my name like it was holy. I bit down, not hard enough to mark, just enough to make her gasp and bleed magic.

Her nails scraped down my back, drawing blood. I licked the pain from her fingers.

The entire mansion shuddered as our climax hit. Windows fogged. Mirrors shattered. Every candle blew out at once. Only our magic lit the room, hers a silvery veil of light, mine a burning, crimson storm that flared from the floor up.

I took her to the bed after that, laid her out across the silks like an offering, divine, powerful, utterly mine.

I kissed my way down, worshiping her most sacred place with reverent hunger. My tongue slid over her pussy, tasting magic and heat, until she was trembling beneath my mouth, crying out my name like a spell only she knew how to cast.

She pulled me up with greedy hands and flipped me onto my back, her eyes glowing like embers stoked by chaos. And then she took me into her mouth, slow, torturous strokes that drew sounds from my throat I didn’t know I could make.

Each movement of her tongue was a promise and a punishment, and I gripped the sheets to keep from unraveling completely.

When I couldn’t take any more, I gathered her in my arms and plunged into her again, this time slower, deeper, savoring the way her body wrapped around mine like fate itself.

We moved together in perfect, primal rhythm, losing ourselves over and over until the world outside ceased to matter.

Until there was no veil. No watchers. No war.

Only us. Tangled in magic. Marked by madness. Bound by love.

Hours passed. Or days.

We lay tangled, my arm beneath her, my other hand brushing the sweat matted hair from her cheek.

“I love you.” I said first. Not because she needed to hear it, because I needed to say it. To brand her with truth. “I love you like madness loves silence. Like death loves the last breath.”

She blinked up at me, lips swollen, voice hoarse. “I love you too… Dorian Vale. Even when you’re a possessive bastard.”

“Especially then,” I grinned.

And when she fell asleep, naked and glowing beside me, I watched her like the monster I am, because nothing in heaven or hell would take her from me now.

Not fate. Not gods. Not death.

My Little Thief. My wife. My end and my beginning.