Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

Cahal considered it for a moment, but the angel had already informed him that he could not help him find a mate. Instead, he figured he could request the angel’s assistance for someone else. He’d pay it forward in the hope the universe would one day find him worthy as well.

Twenty-Four

Penny had made good on her promise to run to the altar with Emery the moment the battle ended. Well, not that exact moment—Darius had insisted we make more of an occasion of it—but it was no more than two months later that I waited beside Darius at the front of a massive, unreal, gorgeous church in Rome. Columns rose along the main floor, decorated with paintings and accented with stone statues and embellishments. The ceiling arched high overhead, the skylights glowing with light that shed on the floor far below—provided by my magic, of course. Rustic wooden pews filled the aisle in front of us, lined with fragrant baby-blue flowers and festooned with white satin ribbon.

It had been two months since the battle to reorganize the worlds—which was what people had taken to calling it. Not too much had happened, other than a lot of to-do lists. I still hadn’t headed down to the Underworld. Although I knew I’d have to stop dragging my feet eventually, it was a big step, and it felt like I should let Penny take her big step with Emery before I took one of my own.

Courage in the face of monster life changes—it was a fleeting thing.

“We should probably take our places,” Darius murmured to me, his fingers entwined with mine. He squeezed them and stepped away, closer to Emery, who waited nervously by the altar in a white tux with a blue bow tie and vest to match the flowers. His pants slightly squeezed his powerful legs and stopped a smidge short of his shiny black shoes.

He and Penny hadn’t had a lot of time to get everything perfect. Ms. Bristol had very deep suspicions it was because there was a baby on the way.

She would be wrong, of course, but no one wanted to correct her.

The real reason was because Penny felt bad for Emery, who had no family to invite. No friends he didn’t share with her. No aunts or uncles or cousins he’d kept in touch with. If the wedding had been organized in the usual way, with plenty of time and extensive preparations, his side of the church would be filled with strangers or no one at all, and that was something Penny would not allow.

Not to mention she still had so much on her plate with the Mages’ Guild that she didn’t care about having a big wedding. Or much of any wedding, really. She just wanted the man. And the break the honeymoon would provide.

So Darius had arranged for their ceremony to take place here, in one of the finest churches Rome had to offer. He’d chosen the flowers and the satin, Emery’s tux, and all the transportation. The dinner afterward would be held at his private estate in the countryside, featuring a menu he’d chosen and a wine selection that included all of Penny’s favorites. Penny might not like planning elegant affairs, and Emery was mostly terrible at even the concept, but Darius had been happy to pick up the slack.

I took my place beside Veronica, the other bridesmaid. Like me, she was dressed in a blue dress to match all the other blue, something Darius assured us was both proper and elegant, holding a bouquet of cream, blue, and yellow flowers. She looked excited as she glanced down the large aisle, waiting for the bride.

Darius was Emery’s best man. Even so, I didn’t think Emery totally trusted him, a deep-seated issue that would likely never fully pass. Luckily, relationships were complex, and it was possible to both like and respect a person and think they were capable of stabbing you in the back if the situation required it.

Roger sat in the first pew on Emery’s side, and Ms. Bristol sat in the opposite pew in the pride of placement owed to the mother of the bride, a large, flowered hat thing adorning her freshly styled hair. Marie sat beside her, the picture of elegance in a demure light yellow gown, the cut beautiful and the color all kinds of hideous. Behind them sat Callie and Dizzy, though judging by their frequent glances at Roger, the only one on Emery’s side, I wondered if they’d pull a runner and change sides. It was clear they didn’t want Emery to feel bad.

He wouldn’t have noticed. A bomb could go off and he wouldn’t have noticed, because at that point, the string quartet changed their tune to the wedding march. The door at the end of the aisle slowly opened. Nothing happened for a beat, and then Penny stepped forward with her hand on Cahal’s arm.