Page 163 of Forsaking All Others

‘My final hours of being vulnerable and mortal.’

I imagine this is what life is going to be like once I’m married, too. I’m not worried about that. I’ve never been one scared of my own company. But I’m nervous tonight. So many things can go wrong. If I’m honest, a little distraction, even the chatter of the hairdresser, would have been welcome for a time. But, once I’d been helped into my gown — a huge confection with multiple hoops, layers of antique lace, and a train long enough to cover the entire carpeted aisle of the cathedral as I walk its length — the hair and make-up women had attended me, and then everyone seemed to leave all at once.

“I expect I’ll be called soon, though,” I murmur to the window, “the wedding starts at midnight, and it’s half past eleven now.”

I jump, startled, as the door bursts open.

Standing immediately, my eyes widen when I see it’s not someone come to escort me to my wedding. It’s my husband-to-be. And his expression is terrifying.

“What is it?” I squeak, immediately suspecting what he’s about to say, but hoping against all hope that I’m wrong.

“You’re fucking FONDI?” He shouts, striding towards me and gripping my shoulders, his eyes boring into mine.

I wince at the pain his fingers are causing as they dig into my skin, but don’t try to pull away as I meet his intense gaze. Since the night he’d bitten me he’d never been anything but gentle. This is a Jag I haven’t seen before.

“Yes.”

Snarling, he pushes me away from him and spins to stride to the other side of the room, slamming both hands against the wall. He stays that way, palms against the wall, back to me, and I wait, holding my breath for what might come.

“Jag…”

“Stay there, say nothing,” he snarls. “I need to… I fucking can’t…I need to calm down.”

I wait an interminable time, watching his shoulders go from tense, his breathing sharp and fast, to his posture slowly relaxing, breaths coming more steadily, before I try again.

“Jag.”

He doesn’t turn as he speaks, just leans his head against the wallpaper, his tone wearily defeated.

It’s worse than when he was angry.

“I can’t marry someone who lies to me. You’re a lot of things, Cat. But a liar is not something I pegged you for. I thought we had, at the very least, the truth between us.”

Lifting the skirts of my giant wedding dress, I rush across to him, leaning my head close to the wall to try to get him to look at me.

“Jag, I didn’t lie. I never lied to you.”

“Your last name,” he mutters. “Your last name, Cat.”

“You never asked for my name,” I cry, my words coming fast as I try to get my truth out before it’s too late. “Yes, my last name was forged to get onto The Games, but I never lied to you. I told you I had powerful enemies. I told you the truth about what happened to me. Everything I told you was the truth.”

“Half-truths,” he snarls, turning to face me, his eyes alight with anger once more. “Half-truths, Cat.”

I shake my head.

“What I told you was factual. I just didn’t tell you everything.” I hang my head, knowing I’m about to get a reckoning for this, one I’d hoped might not come until after we were married.

“The truth is,” he says quietly, “that you’ve put me in an impossible situation. I can’t marry you, and yet I must.”

“Jag…”

“You know the lore and the LAW,” he says, his voice ice. “Our bloodlines can never cross. You’re Forbidden. No member of the thirteen families can ever mingle their blood with ours, nor will they ever be consumed by us. It’s been that way for centuries, millennia. Ever since the covenant was signed.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I know.”

“You’ve brought death and destruction to my family. When the queens find out about this I could lose everything, not the least of which is my life.”

“It won’t come to that,” I murmur. “There’s always a way around these things.”