A little bit of background on this one. It’s actually an excerpt from a book of mine I’m writing under my other name, Morena Stamm, and some of these characters just have a way of wrapping their hands around my heart and making me feel for them. I mean…He isn’t even a good guy!

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When she was only a few steps from the tree, her eyes finally made out the hulking figure beneath the canopy, almost touching the dark trunk. Several other people were gathered around, but her gaze stayed on her soon-to-be husband’s black cloak. And the shining pin above his heart.

She squinted, and when she was only a pace away from him, she realized what she was looking at. A golden dragon, his tail curling and wrapping around to rest under his head. Scales that looked to slither and move with each motion. His eyes, red rubies, burned into her soul.

She blinked several times, taking a step back. But he reached out, stopping her motion with his hands at her shoulder. Taya looked up into his shadowed eyes, the look he gave her unfathomable. His hands gently brushed down her arms before gently glasping her hands. 

A second man in similar dark garb stepped up behind them with a length of rope.

“We are gathered here today to witness to bodies, to souls, being bound together for the rest of eternity…”

His words left Taya shivering as she kept her eyes focused on his throat, the only smooth skin she could see on the hulking male before her. 

She could not hear his vows, the words hitting her like stones.

For the briefest flicker of a moment, she thought of running away. Of turning her back on this man, this future that had been chosen for her. But the looming unknown of what next pushed the first puff of air through her lips. In a whisper, she repeated, “And I bound to you, on this day, and every day.” She briefly glanced up through her eyelashes, up at the man she was now bound to for the rest of her mortal life. And potentially the next.

His gaze burned her like the sun and she quickly looked back down, instead focusing on the dragon pin on his cloak.

Leo tugged her close. She closed her eyes, her head falling back. She did not want to see his face near as he stole her first kiss. But rather than warm lips across hers, a cool touch whispered across her forehead. 

He had already turned to those still gathered when she opened her eyes. “Let us feast.” His deep voice reverberated in the dark night. 

She followed helplessly as he pulled her along.