“Have you changed your mind already?” she asked curiously. "Because you’re the one all set on marriage. I’m perfectly content living a life of sin.”
“Truly?” I asked, suddenly feeling a whole lot more awake as I pushed myself upright.
“I told you, no bullshit. You want to do this, or you don’t. I’m not doing the whole massive crowd and virgin white thing either. You can take me as I am or not at all.”
“You know how I like to take you,” I said roughly and she offered me a smirk in return.
“Let’s go then. I already texted Geraldine and the others so no doubt she’s freaking the fuck out and making some insane preparations with zero timescale. I don’t want to give her long enough to make it fancy.”
“Heaven forbid,” I teased.
“War council starts in half an hour,” she tossed back and I arched a brow.
“You’re serious,” I stated.
“Are you going to become a Vega or what?” she asked irritably and I could tell this whole thing was pushing her out of her comfort zone, but there she was, looking good enough to eat and waiting for me to marry her.
“You’ll be an Acrux,” I corrected and she gave me a wicked smile.
“Oh no. I know how it works here. The couple takes the name of the most powerful Fae in the relationship. And that would be me in this scenario.”
My lips parted in surprise as she said that and I realised she was right. My whole life there had never been a prospect of there being a mate for me who could be the more powerful party, so I had always assumed any wife of mine would take my name. But her claim was true. Then again, she still hadn’t taken me on and won, so I was unlikely to bow to her power any time soon.
“You’ll have to put me on my ass before I’ll admit that’s true, baby,” I replied.
Roxy glanced at the golden clock which sat on the nightstand and sighed. “No time. We can figure out the name thing after we kill your father then. His severed head can sit and watch me kick your ass so he gets a front row seat to the moment when his precious Heir is forced to bow at long last and the final shred of hope for his empire dies. It’ll be romantic.”
“Fuck I love it when you talk like a psychopath,” I said.
“I do it a whole lot more since I met you,” she replied.
A frantic pounding at the door drew our attention and she sighed.
“That’ll be the bullshit. Hurry the fuck up before this whole thing gets too weddingy.”
“Stars forbid,” I agreed sarcastically and she flipped me off before heading to the door where Geraldine’s shrieks of excitement pierced the air so loudly that I feared for my eardrums.
I caught sight of Darcy and Sofia there too and raised my hand in greeting half a second before Roxy was tugged outside and the door was slammed in my face while Geraldine commanded me to scrub my eyes of the sight of her queen.
That girl was honestly fucking insane but I could admit that she was growing on me a little.
Xavier, the Heirs and Orion arrived within another few minutes as I was buttoning my shirt and I couldn’t help the shit eating grin that pulled at my lips as they all leapt on me, howling congratulations and slapping me on the back. Seth had shorn his hair down on the side that Orion had burned, with braids winding across it and through the other side of his hair too. Darcy said he looked like a Viking warrior, whatever the fuck that meant, and despite us mocking him for it, I was pretty sure we all quietly thought it looked damn good on him.
I headed up out of The Burrows, finding my mom and Hamish in the farmhouse which hid it from view with Gabriel and his family and she rushed at me as she saw me, wrapping me in her arms and telling me this was the proudest day of her life.
I crushed her in my embrace, trying not to feel the resentment I harboured over the years that had been stolen from us by my father in favour of just holding tight to the time we’d been gifted now.
“I’m so proud of you,” Mom breathed, clutching the front of my shirt and looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “Your father worked so hard to make you into a mirror image of the man he was but despite all of the odds set against you, you fought off the weight of his influence and grew into your own man. A man who could win back your heart from the clutches of the stars themselves. A man who is worthy of the love of that girl out there.”
I pulled her into my arms as those words touched a chord deep inside me and plucked on it with a resounding note that echoed right down to my bones. Because those words embodied everything about what I had been trying to prove I could become over this last year and hearing them from the lips of the woman whose love I had been denied for so long meant the world to me. We should have been gifted more time to enjoy together, but if I could believe those words then at least I could pass out of this world knowing that I’d done enough to prove what kind of man I could have been to everyone around me and they could remember me as a man who was worth remembering.