Chapter 4 Wedding day

“Now, please hold your hand out to your future husband, palm up—a gesture that is both beckoning and giving,” my mother said, her voice cutting clearly through the courtyard of the stronghold.

Three days. That was all we had.

Three days to turn a fragile, impossible arrangement into something the entire supernatural city would believe.

Now it was happening.

Over a hundred witches and vampires stood in a tight circle around us, their attention sharp enough to burn.

Kael stood in front of me.

The vampire king didn’t look like someone being forced into a political marriage. He looked like someone who had already decided the outcome long before anyone else understood the rules of the game.

He extended his hand.

I hesitated for half a breath.

Then I placed my hand in his.

A strange silence fell over the space as my mother lifted a braided cord of white, gold, and silver threads. She wrapped it carefully around our joined hands, binding us symbolically—and magically.

“Kael, King of the Vampires of Seattle,” she said formally, “do you accept Aria, daughter of the witches of Seattle, to join your life with hers? Do you swear to protect her and stand beside her until death parts you?”

Kael’s gaze didn’t leave mine.

“I do,” he said.

No hesitation. not even a slight hesitation in his gaze.

Just certainty.

My throat tightened, though I refused to show it.

My mother turned to me next.

“And do you, Aria, accept Kael’s offer to bind your life to his? Do you swear to protect him and stand beside him until death do you part?”

Every eye in the courtyard pressed into me.

Every lie we were building sat on this moment.

“I do,” I said.

My voice didn’t shake.

Kael’s expression shifted—barely. Something unreadable passed through his eyes before it vanished again.

“Then,” my mother said, “you may seal the bond.”

My stomach dropped.

I hadn’t planned on the kiss.

I should have.

Kael stepped closer before I could think too much about it. His hand lifted gently to my face, not forcing, not demanding—just there.

Then he kissed me.

It felt calm, like a normal thing between two couples.

And somehow, worse—real enough to feel like a line had been crossed that couldn’t be uncrossed.

It ended quickly.

But nothing inside me settled after it.

The kiss was over before my mind could fully register it had begun.

Kael pulled back first, controlled as ever, his expression unreadable again—like nothing in the world had just shifted beneath my feet.

But something had.

Something I didn’t have the language for yet.

A hush followed the ceremony’s end, then immediately broke into controlled applause. Not warm. Not celebratory.

Every person here was watching a political move, not a wedding.

“Congratulations,” someone said smoothly from the crowd.

Then another voice.

And another.

The sound built into something hollow.

Kael didn’t release my hand.

That detail, for reasons I didn’t understand, unsettled me more than anything else.

My mother stepped back, satisfied in that clinical way she had when a dangerous plan survived execution.

“It is done,” she announced.

Like she had just signed a treaty, not tied two people together in front of an entire supernatural court.

A woman in deep red leather stepped forward from the vampire section. Confident. Sharp-eyed.

“So this is her,” she said, looking me over like I was a theory she hadn’t decided to reject yet.

Kael didn’t introduce me.

He didn’t need to.

“Sadie,” he said instead, tone neutral. “Thank you for coming.”

Sadie’s gaze flicked between us.

“Three days ago you had no partner,” she said. “Now you’re married.”

“It happened quickly,” Kael replied.

A pause.

Then her eyes landed on me.

“You’re either very brave,” she said slowly, “or very replaceable.”

I smiled automatically.

A mistake.

“I’d like to think I’m charming,” I replied.

That earned me a laugh from her—short, surprised, real.

Kael glanced at me then.

Just once.

Like he was recalculating something.

Sadie lifted her glass. “Well. I’ll say this much. You picked an interesting one, Kael.”

“I didn’t pick him,” I said before I could stop myself.

Silence.

Even Sadie paused.

Kael finally spoke again, calm as ever.

“She accepted me.”

The way he said it wasn’t romantic.

But it shifted something in the air anyway.

Sadie tilted her head. “We’ll see how long that narrative holds.”

Then she turned and disappeared back into the crowd.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Only then did I become aware of the weight of attention again.

Whispers. Eyes. Distance disguised as politeness.

Witches stood slightly apart from vampires. Vampires stood slightly apart from witches. And in the middle of it all—

Me.

The bridge. Or the target.

I shifted my hand slightly in Kael’s.

He noticed immediately.

“You’re shaking,” he said quietly.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“No,” he said simply. “You’re not.”

That should have annoyed me.

Instead, it grounded me in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.

Music started.

Someone had decided the ceremony needed to become a celebration.

A slow, enchanted melody filled the courtyard, the kind that made even uneasy people sway slightly without meaning to.

“Of course there’s dancing,” I muttered.

Kael glanced at the crowd. “It is expected.”

“I was hoping for survival. Not dancing.”

A faint curve touched his mouth.

Not quite a smile.

Almost.

“You’re regretting it already?” he asked.

I looked at him.

At the vampire king I had just legally bound myself to.

At the man who felt like a question I hadn’t agreed to answer yet.

“I’m regretting the parts where I didn’t think this through,” I said honestly.

“That would be most of it,” he replied.

I huffed a laugh despite myself.

Then realized something worse.

The crowd believed this.

Not fully—but enough.

Enough that hesitation had started to fade into curiosity.

Enough that war, for now, had been delayed by illusion.

Kael leaned slightly closer, voice low enough that only I could hear.

“Stay close,” he said.

“That part is part of the act too?”

“No,” he replied. “That part is for safety.”

My throat tightened slightly.

“I don’t need protection,” I said automatically.

His eyes flicked to mine.

“You do,” he said. “You just haven’t learned what from yet.”

That landed heavier than it should have.

Before I could respond, someone called his name again. Another vampire. Another obligation.

The performance continued.

But Kael didn’t let go of my hand.

And for the first time since this entire nightmare began—

I started to wonder if the worst part of this arrangement wasn’t the danger…

…but the fact that it was already beginning to feel real.