Sharing Delilah Book 3
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Alex Fox
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Forbidden Ceremony
TATIANA
The Fae had outdone themselves—flowers and beautiful, breathtaking nature had overrun the castle.
It made me wish I hadn’t put on slippers so I could sink my feet into the soft moss that had replaced the red carpet over the stones. I didn’t want to get anyone sick, though.
My dress was like nothing I had ever worn; the train seemed to flow over the ground like water, not dragging me back at all. If anything, I felt bare.
I didn’t think I would be excited, but as I walked, my heart pounded. Heading down the stairs to reach the foyer attached to the gardens, I paused.
A shadow in the mirror.
When I became immortal, I took the life of an immortal without realizing it. War and famine roamed the earth hand in hand, ships sunk, and pirates raided... The god known for war, who most humans were and are still aware of, is Ares.
But it was the god with a cold heart I feared—the god who couldn’t reach me, try as he might.
I was about to marry my fated one in a court of Fae—a wish come true. This was still a shadow on us so long as this curse remained.
I was a curse on us... Even now, I knew some of our guests might end up sick. Looking down at my hands, I stopped on the stairs. Bare hands.
He couldn’t live alone, but I couldn’t live with all the people his station demanded of him. Was he making other people sick being in contact with me?
Tatiana?
Sorry—just worried.
How can I help?
I pondered that for a moment, a smile playing on my lips before I sent him the images of our lovemaking. My toes curling. The moment his—
Tatiana! he growled into my mind, full of promise.
He was my beloved, and the witches had a written contract. Even if I wanted to (which I didn’t), I had to fulfill the contract and marry him. Everything would be fine. Right?
As I walked through the open glass doors into the garden, I felt my stomach drop. It was the most magical scene I had ever seen—and it took me right back to my childhood.
A vampire waiting at the altar, the high witch standing to watch the proceedings, and elder oaken Fae standing and waiting with a bowl of water.
Fireflies lit the gardens that had become a fairytale grove.
Flowers bloomed everywhere, and guests were in the trees that had somehow grown so large that there were even logs on the ground covered in moss.
Water trickled faintly in the distance, but I couldn’t be sure that the Fae had left the fountain alone and not done something else with it.
Fae of all kinds attended, some standing or sitting. There was a row of six witches, all crossing their arms and looking angry.
Then there was one figure in all black sitting where I couldn’t see her face, her hair long sweeping down to pool at her bare feet.
She wasn’t someone I recognized, and her eyes were pure white.
This couldn’t be good.
She wasn’t Fae, though, and all the powerful seers had died out long ago. Hadn’t they? Clearly, this person had proved me wrong, but the fact she was here was troubling.
This woman sat separately from the witches, and my husband-to-be seemed to be staring at her with some confusion.
Music unlike any human music began to play. It was lively and full of joy and life; I could feel the grass under my feet encouraging me to go. Go to him.
A small laugh passed from my lips; their magic was intoxicating. I could see that the other witches were uncomfortable; they had little experience with Fae magic.
Likely if they had, though, it was bad. Their magic wasn’t meant for us, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t wield it or respect it. Or enjoy it on our first wedding day.
I had been alone so long, and as my eyes met his, I felt a sense of calm as I stepped up to the altar, my bare hands slipping into his.
“Welcome, Tatiana—last princess of the witches,” the old Fae croaked.
“Just…Tatiana, please,” I half-whispered and mumbled. The title of princess? I didn’t want it today. I didn’t want to be known as the Poison Princess marrying a vampire.
I wanted to remember this day as when I married my fated one.
The old Fae nodded before lifting her hands.
“Today we bind these two as one; once the exchange of blood has solidified this pact, she will become one with the night—and one with the ley line. Together they shall lay the—”
Ley line? You’re bonded to a ley line? I asked him, panicked, my face staying passive but my hands trembled in his.
Not only would the High Priestess Iona be infuriated I’d be gifted with such power, but I physically couldn’t bond with another.
The power inside me was from a ley line I had stolen. If I merged with it—
Had that been the Fae’s intention? Who knows what that might bring…
But how could they have known? Only those in power in the coven knew the truth, that had been part of the exchange in order to house her. That and their fear of her powers but—
Yes, it’s part of my family’s heritage, Nicodemus said, confused, as if this was a well-known fact. So that’s what made his family so powerful…
“Persephone and Hades, Osiris and Nyx, Aita and Mania, you shall bring peace and balance where there was only pain and longing. Let your challenges become your strength in this union.”
Nicodemus placed our joined hands in the bowl, the magic soaking and infusing into us and entering our bodies until the bowl was bone dry. This wasn’t good. This was very, very bad.
We can’t complete the ceremony or our bonding yet. Not as beloveds and not for this either.
What? Nicodemus sounded hurt and confused, though he kept a smiling face and pulled my hands from the bowl with his to turn and face the crowd.
Everyone was cheering, but then his eyes wandered once more. The pale blind woman watched silently as everyone else clapped or danced or threw something.
Who is she? I probed curiously.
I don’t know, but she smells like Raven… We’ll handle that later. Why are you suddenly not wanting to do this? I thought that was the point of becoming my beloved and—
He was rambling. I had hurt him. I could feel it through our bond. It wasn’t my intention. Gods, I wanted to cry and beg, tell him everything, but there was so much and too many guests.
I can’t because… I depleted a ley line, its power is inside me, I whispered through the bond.
He flinched, physically flinched, and dropped my hands. I hadn’t ever outright told him what I had done for the spell, even though I had tried to tell him how terrible it was.
The gravity of what I had done hit him.
There were very few laws in nature, old laws that back then were in place to protect everyone.
One of those was to draw from a ley line, but never until it died, and never try to take the power for yourself. Scary stories about being ripped apart or worse…
I broke that law.
You’re right—we can’t, he thought to me in a whisper—before all his mental guards came up, like steel, smooth cold walls to keep me out, as if he hadn’t been there in the first place.
I was alone again.
