by Nola Sarina
“I know,” he said. “But you’re right. We need to get out of the house, so get dressed and I’ll be back in an hour.”
I frowned. “Can’t I go with you?”
“You will, later.” He grabbed the keys to the Sissy and stooped to kiss me before he left, his scent ringing of toothpaste and Old Spice.
I finished my coffee and had a shower, and as I was pulling on a pair of dark jeans beneath my black, lace-layered shirt, the Sissy rumbled back into the long driveway of the cabin.
I met him at the door, and he wore a sneaky grin. He took my hand and pulled me to the car, tucking me into the seat without a word.
Fifteen minutes into the drive, I got sick of fidgeting and wondering where we were going. I opened my mouth to say something snarky about keeping secrets, when the sign for Gooseberry Falls State Park materialized before us. I shot him a surprised look.
“You did say you like waterfalls, right?” he asked.
I nodded and rolled down the window as we slowed, taking in the scents of humidity.
The park was so empty, it didn’t take me long to figure out Asher had paid someone off so we could have the place to ourselves. We took off on the trails, hand-in-hand, and the fresh, vibrant greenery around trickling falls—some taller than me, and some only knee-high—excited my mood. His hand was warm and strong in mine, and he settled us at a picnic table near a roaring series of falls tumbling into one another in a constant barrage of white that broke on the rocks and left a mist in the air. Birds flitted overhead, accustomed to visitors in the park. I sat on the tabletop and drew a deep breath with my eyes closed, romanced by this gesture, the mist tickling my sinuses like morning dew.
“I’m so glad I’m not at work right now,” I said. I could really get used to this kind of thing . . . Asher’s exclusivity, his finesse, the way he made every moment just that extra special by flexing his wallet muscle. Just because he wanted to, just because he could.
I opened my eyes and Asher wasn’t where I expected him to be, sitting beside me. He was before me on one knee, and I shook my head, confused. I trailed my gaze along the line of his arm, and I settled on a box in his hand with a glittering ring inside it, sapphires and diamonds in the shape of a flower, the petals blue, and transparent, shimmering clear stones around them.
My edit button fell into a waterfall and tumbled down through the rapids as I stared, slack-jawed, at the jewels and the immaculate man holding them. “Oh my fucking God, that must have cost a fortune.”
“Aria Hyacinthe,” Asher said, his eyes glowing with humor and sincerity, “will you marry me? Velcro yourself to me in every way possible?”
Emotion rose in my throat, but I let out a giggle instead of crying. His eyes widened with surprise, and then I launched myself at him and tackled him to the wet ground, ruining his shirt as I kissed him. He laughed against my lips.
“Of course I will, Asher,” I said, breathless. “Of course I will.”
Chapter 26 – Asher
Gypsy wasn’t about to waste a moment of time once I told her of our engagement. She arranged everything within a day, and set a date two weeks out. I rented the entire property of Grand Superior Lodge—the hotel and all the classy log cabins—for guests. Mom and Dad’s old friends RSVP’d with eagerness, and Gypsy made some calls to the other guests.
My sister pitched half a fit when I asked her to take Aria to pick out a dress. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help, but the intimacy of selecting the gown made her uncomfortable, she explained after she threw a hurricane of curses at me. I told her she just needed to nod, smile, and swipe my credit card for whatever Aria wanted, and she agreed to go. They returned home in a sneaky humor and wouldn’t show me what they purchased, even when I begged Aria in private.
“Gypsy would be disappointed,” she explained. “We picked everything with you in mind.”
I shook my head with protest. “The wedding day is supposed to be about you, not about me.”
“No, it’s about life, lived together. And the day is for you, Asher, the incubus I love. You deserve this.”
I didn’t have words to express the gratitude that surged through my soul at her words, and the pride that my sister cared about me enough to bite down her objections, though she often couldn’t show it the way she might have wanted to. So I said nothing, only took Aria into my arms and tossed her onto the bed, where I worshipped her perfect body for hours with mine.
Morning broke over the beach off the back of my cabin, all pinks and blues in the sky as the sunlight warmed the glittering water. I ate a few dozen eggs and we drove north to the lodge. I settled Aria into her bridal cabin at the Grand Superior Lodge and said some polite hellos as guests admired the log cabins, adorned with cascading arrangements in every shade of blue and white flowers. Gypsy really outdid herself, and I found it a little bit funny that the first extravagant wedding in the family was mine, not hers.
I sobered a bit at the realization that because of me, Gypsy had never found an opportunity to pursue her own happiness. Marriage, for her, must seem so far out of reach. At least now she didn’t need to take care of my bullshit anymore. Maybe now she’d have time to find a match for herself, if I could keep my protectiveness enough at bay to not scare off the person she chose.
I double-checked that security staff was adequate for the size of the event just before the guests of honor arrived in a limousine. I greeted the two men with a vigorous handshake and the woman with a cordial kiss on the hand. Gypsy and I led them to Aria’s bridal cabin. I let us through the door, and winked at Aria perched up on the kitchen table, painting her toenails. She glanced up and grinned at me, and then her grin faded as she took in the sight of the people who followed me into the cabin.
I crossed the open space of the ornate, log cabin to her side. I steadied her as she stared at the man behind Gypsy. My sister introduced him smoothly: Dorian Nikolaos, just arrived from Greece. Aria’s father.
He was enormous, bigger than me, and the black starbursts of his pupils confirmed what Gypsy suspected: he was an incubus. The only other incubus we’d found despite years of research. I suppressed a wave of territorial protectiveness that swept over me in such close proximity to another of my kind. I knew, firsthand, the danger an incubus presented to all the ordinary people out there, waiting to celebrate my marriage. Butting antlers with Aria’s father wouldn’t make this meeting easier, so I kept my expression serene as my bride nervously wrung her fingers in her lap.
She slid off the table and wavered on her feet, so I wrapped my arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, “I’m here if you need me.”
She stepped forward, wide-eyed, and Dorian took her hand, admiring his daughter. “Let me introduce Draven Nikolaos, my eldest son,” he gestured to the man behind himself, also an incubus with a low-tied brown ponytail, “and Charlotte Hyacinthe, my other daughter.”
Charlotte gave a curtsey, long lashes—just like Aria’s—batting over black-laced blue eyes. The unexpected magnitude of meeting not only one succubus, but a whole family of our kind, weighted my mood, and though I didn’t mean to, I tightened my grip on Aria.
“She’s two years younger than you are, Aria,” Gypsy explained, her voice quiet, as though she was afraid of spooking Aria with the news. “Draven is older, your half-brother. You only share a father, genetically speaking.”
“And only a mother with Charlotte,” Dorian said. “Your mother sent her to me very young, because she knew I would provide her a stable home. I have two other half-siblings of yours: twin boys, turning eighteen this year.”
“That’s three of them,” Aria whispered as I stroked her back. She didn’t ask the question that hung in the air between us all: what happened to the rest of her siblings?
Dorian clapped once, startling me. “I hear you Chains throw quite the party!”
Gypsy gestured to the door. “I’ll show you to your seats, and we can let the happy couple get ready.”
Dorian smiled with g
enuine affection at Aria, who smiled back. Charlotte blew a kiss, her long, brown curls dancing about her shoulders, and skipped after her father as he left. Draven stood there for a moment longer, glaring at me.
I straightened and glared back, tension rolling between us like thunder.
Without breaking his gaze from mine, Draven extended his elbow out to the side. “Ms. Chain?”
Gypsy glanced at him, confused.
Draven turned a charming smile on my sister. “May I have the pleasure of your company through the ceremony? In case I need translation.” His English was perfect, only enhanced by a strong Greek accent, and I stepped forward at the suggestion.
My sister was spelled by the intensity of his gaze as she accepted his arm, a mesmerized smile forming on her lips.
My sister—my normal, non-succubus sister—on the arm of an incubus. Aria grabbed my wrist to restrain me as they turned to the door, and I barely managed to stop myself from blasting forth to beat Draven to death for even suggesting he might try something with Gypsy. But violence at a wedding was low, even for me. I clenched my fists so tight my fingernails cut into my palm.
How dare he?
“Asher, go to Dorian,” Aria rushed when they were gone, taking my face between her hands as I seethed with fury, vibrating so hard the wine glasses on the counter rattled together. “Tell him to get Draven under control. Gypsy . . .” she trailed off, shaking her head. “An incubus has this magnetism women can’t resist. I felt it with you. Every woman feels it with you: just look at how they chase you. Get her away from that brother of mine.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. I tore away from Aria and shoved through the door, breaking the trim on the doorframe. Cameras flashed in my face as I yanked the door shut behind me. Great, the paparazzi had arrived.
I followed the Nikolaos party to the bar set up behind one of the cabins, just outside the ceremony area. My sister laughed at something Draven murmured to her, and I clenched my jaw to restrain an irritated remark. I grabbed Gypsy by the elbow and yanked her away from Draven, who took a step toward me, surprised. I put myself between them and felt the fire of an incubus enraged flashing through my eyes as I stared him down. Draven stroked the stubble of his chin as I glared at him, and then Gypsy slapped me on the shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing, Asher?”
A camera flashed. At least the tabloids are getting a great story. I could already see the headline: Asher Chain fights with sister at his own wedding.
I pulled my sister out of view of the cameras, behind the bar. “Gypsy, he’s an incubus. An incubus. Don’t let him fool you.” My voice was desperate with panic.
Gypsy rolled her eyes, annoyed, and then something clicked and she sucked in a breath. She’d been enchanted by his natural charm, and forgot all about the danger. Even with all my victims she handled, an ordinary woman could not refuse the seduction of an incubus. My sister shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Some problem?” Dorian Nikolaos’s deep voice came from behind me.
I spun and grabbed him by the lapels of his suit coat. “Get your man under control, Nikolaos,” I snapped. “This is not your fucking grazing ground, you hear me? No one at this event is available for your needs. Not the guests, not the staff, and not my sister. No one.”
Gypsy shied behind me as Dorian held up his palms, and I released his coat. He brushed himself off and leaned over to Draven, whispering something I couldn’t hear. Draven’s expression registered surprise, and then he straightened and nodded curtly at my sister.
“Ms. Chain,” he said. “Please excuse.” He left us there, and slid into the limousine by which he arrived. Gypsy shivered.
“Apologies,” Dorian said. He and Charlotte proceeded to the bartender, and I took my sister by the shoulders.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” she said without missing a beat. “I’m fine. I just . . .” She trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish.
Gypsy may have spent her entire life side by side an incubus, but that incubus was her brother, and I didn’t have the same effect on her as others did. Draven shook her certainty of her own strength around people like us, and I was relieved this happened when I could do something about it, when I could help.
“It’s three-thirty. You have half an hour to get dressed and down the aisle.” My sister turned on her heel and strode away to berate an usher for some crooked rows of chairs.
I walked, numb at what just happened, back to my cabin to dress.
If an incubus approached Gypsy when I wasn’t around, would she detect his seduction before she let her guard down? Or would he win her over before she registered the danger? I had no way of knowing, so I vowed to make it crystal clear to her how powerful an effect another incubus might have.
Shit! I left Aria so abruptly. I cinched up my tie, threw on the clip and swept out of the cabin toward hers.
Chapter 27 - Aria
I stared at the shoes on the floor of my private dressing cabin. The dark atmosphere cast by the log walls and stone floor made the shoes gleam even brighter white, but it wasn’t the color that concerned me. I stuck to running shoes most of the time, afraid I’d break an ankle in heels. Would I be able to walk in them?
I glanced up in the mirror, my face flushed bright in the reflection. Fuck, I didn’t know how to use enough makeup to cover up my frustration. I leaned closer. I still looked like me, despite my new succubus eyes. The black lace over my irises gave my gaze layers and depth, and though the girl staring back at me wasn’t quite familiar, I liked her a hell of a lot. She looked more intense than the old me, and the succubus’s powers radiated confidence through my body. I stood straighter, and every emotion I felt was more potent than before. I was stronger, deeper, and more in tune with myself than ever before.
What happened with Gypsy? Why would Draven—the man I was supposed to call a brother—try to yank her away from Asher like that? Maybe he was just an asshole. Maybe that’s what happened to incubi who never found a way out of killing: they viewed all women as available targets, since there was no point in singling anyone out as unique. We were the unique breed, and I had a whole family of them to deal with.
And only three of my siblings were with my father, Dorian Nikolaos. What happened to the other fourteen? Would I ever find them?
My phone vibrated and I shook myself out of brooding. I fumbled through the various garment bags on the bed until I found the sleek, white iPhone Asher bought me last week. I sighed with relief as his name flashed on the screen, and I opened a text.
Outside, back door. Don’t want to ruin the dress surprise. Gyp’s okay. You okay?
He didn’t want to ruin the dress surprise?
I flew to the door and pulled it open, and sure enough, Asher’s gorgeous face met me. I returned his smile and stepped back to admire him. His black suit was barely pinstriped with narrow blue lines, the perfect color match to the satin shirt beneath and fitted to his body like the sexiest glove. A silver tie finished off the look, and I drank in the sight of my man, my fiancé, though I could hardly believe it was true, as he checked me out from head to toe, too.
“I like it,” he said with a wink. I glanced down. Of course he liked it: I was still in my white lace lingerie. I hadn’t managed to tackle the dress yet, or anything but my underwear and bra for that matter.
Asher stepped in and closed the door, and then ran a hand over his short hair. “Gypsy’s okay. I think Draven left.” He held out a hand, and I took it, letting him wrap me in his strong, solid arms.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded, rubbing my bare sides. “I’m just finally seeing what I am from the outside, you know? It’s more than a little uncomfortable.”
I licked my lips and played with the lapels of his suit. “You’re not them, Asher. You found a way out. Hold onto that, okay?”
“I’d prefer to hold onto you,” he said.
I smirked. “Okay. But you’ll have to let
go so I can get dressed.”
He did, much quicker than I wanted him to. I turned back to the bed and leaned on my palms, my thoughts scattered. What did I need to do next?
“Sweetie? What’s wrong?”
I hesitated, but decided honesty was the best way to start a marriage. “My brother just made off with your sister. My sister is really my sister, a baby I held when I was not much older than a baby, myself.”
He stepped to the bed and reached around me, picking up the garter beside the garment bag that held my dress. I turned, and he knelt before me, lifted my calf in his warm, strong hand and slid the garter up to my thigh. He kissed my thigh as he settled the pale blue lace against my skin, and gazed up at me, his expression intense. “I promise I’ll take it off you, later.”
I laughed, tension draining out of me at his always sexy attitude. Yes, he would take it off me. Or rip it off me. Hmm... I shook my head to focus as erotic thoughts stole my concentration.
Asher smirked at my obvious distraction. “Do you have something old?”
I leaned back to glance at the bed and grabbed the little black, velvet box Gypsy gave me. I opened it up and revealed a slender, sapphire-tipped pin. “Gypsy said it was an heirloom of some kind. She said to keep it, but I don’t know if I should.”
Asher inspected it for a moment. “It’s lovely. Keep it. I’m sure there’s plenty more where that came from. For your hair?”
I nodded. “And the dress, the garter, the shoes . . . they’re all new. I have blue . . .” I raised my eyebrows at the garter Asher’s thumb was still sliding seductively across, “but since everything is new, other than the pin, I don’t have anything borrowed.”
He pursed his lips, and then reached up to his tie and unclipped it. He pulled the knot undone and slid the tie off his neck, flipping open the top two buttons. I bit my lip, arousal igniting just above his hand on my thigh as I stared at the skin of his chest, craving a taste of him. He ran his finger over the inscription on the pin—“A. Chain”—and smiled at me.
