“Man, we’re doing great.” More flipping. “Yeah, they go on and on here. Wrath?”
For some insane reason, he started to smile. “Yeah?”
“Do you take this incredible woman who’s just saved your ass as your wife? Will you love and comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live— crap, I was supposed to do you before him, Beth. How about you answer?”
“No,” Wrath cut in with a big grin. “I’ll go first. Yeah, I do.”
There was a sniffle from the crowd. At which point, Rhage’s voice hissed, “What. This is beautiful, ’kay? Fuck all y’all.”
“Now, Beth, do you take this hotheaded PITA as your husband? Will you love and comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and health, and forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” his Beth said. “Absolutely.”
“Niiiice.” Lassiter flipped some more pages. “Okay, rings? We got rings here, people?”
“Put my ring on her thumb,” Wrath said, taking off the massive black diamond his father had worn. “Here.”
“And he can use mine,” Beth chimed in. “It’s his mother’s.”
“Aww, that’s some sweetness right here.” Lassiter took Wrath’s ring. “Okay, let’s rock this out. I hereby bless these rings. Beth, take yours back and place it on any finger you can fit it on. Or, like, the upper knuckle—there ya go.
“Okay, repeat after me. Oh, shi—I mean, crap. I was supposed to do this with Wrath first, I guess.”
“No,” Beth said with another laugh. “Actually this is perfect.”
“Perfect,” Wrath agreed.
It was all just so … right. It was natural and real—and the lack of formality so worked, especially in light of the aristocracy’s ridiculous value system.
Hell, Lassiter was a living, breathing antidote to all that.
“Okay, so, Beth, follow me. ‘I, Beth, a totally awesome chick…’”
Beth barked out a giggle. “I, Beth…”
“Where’s the ‘awesome chick’ part? What? Come on, I have a license from the Internet. I know what I’m doing.”
Wrath nodded at his leelan. “He’s right. You are, in fact, awesome. I think we need to hear it.”
“Can I get an amen!” Lassiter shouted.
“Ammmmmmmmmen!” echoed throughout the mansion.
“Fine, fine, fine,” she said. “I, Beth, a totally awesome chick…”
“‘…take this meathead, Wrath…’”
“…take this meathead, Wrath…”
“‘…as my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward…’”
“…as my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward…”
“‘…for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer…’”
And suddenly it wasn’t a joke. The further she went, the more serious Lassiter got, and the shakier Wrath’s shellan became, as if the words she were speaking were ones of great value and meaning.
This was tradition for her, he realized.
She continued in a rough way, “…in sickness and in health…”
“‘…to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.’”
“…to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.”
Lassiter turned another page. “‘I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’”
Suddenly, Wrath gritted his molars to keep his own emotions in check as she repeated the words, and slid the ruby on his pinkie.
“And now, my lord,” Lassiter said smoothly. “Recite after me…”
Beth had never been one of those girls who’d imagined her wedding. Acted it out with Barbies. Bought Bride magazine as soon as she hit her twenties.
She was pretty sure that if she had been, though, none of the hypotheticals would have resembled this in the slightest: surrounded by vampires, possibly pregnant, with a fallen angel in an Elvis costume mangling the ceremony from the Book of Common Prayer.
And yet as she stared up at her soon-to-be husband, she couldn’t have pictured anything she would have liked more. Then again, when you were facing the right person? None of the things they talked about on television, no Vera Wang dress, no champagne waterfall, no DJ or place setting or party favor mattered.
“‘I, Wrath, take you, Beth,’” Lassiter started.
“I got this,” her husband said in his booming voice. “I, Wrath, take you, Beth, as my beloved wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part. This is my solemn vow.”
Cue a serious case of the misties.
As Beth sniffled and smiled at the same time, Wrath placed the gigantic King’s ring on the top of her thumb. With grave sincerity, he said, “I give you this ring as a symbol of my vow, and with all that I am, and all that I have, I honor you in the name of your Father, and your Son, and your Holy Spirit.”
There was a round of applause, spontaneous and loud. And Lassiter had to shout to be heard over it, “By the power vested in me thanks to Google, I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the bride!”
The clapping got louder as Wrath put his arms around her and bent her backward so far, the only thing keeping her from the ground was his strength.
It was a move he did on a regular basis, an unconscious way of asserting and proving his physical ability to take care of her.
“Take my sunglasses off,” he whispered as the curtain of his hair fell all around, giving them privacy. “I want you to see my eyes even if they can’t see you.”
Beth’s hands were shaking as she reached up to his face. Sliding the wraparounds from his temples, his extraordinary stare was revealed, and she thought of the first time she had seen it: in the underground guest suite at her father’s house.
They were exactly as they had been. Brilliant pale green, they glowed from within to the point where she had to blink, and not just from the tears in her vision.
“Beautiful,” she breathed.
“Useless,” he countered with a smile—as if he were remembering the same exchange.