Wicked Matrimony (Legends and Lovers)

Simon shakes his head. “I’m not sure. He just told me to search you out, and if you were the one, to bring you back home.”

“If I was the one? So, the whole story about your uncle being in trouble, that was all fake?”

Simon smirks. “Yeah. I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Why not?”

He chuckles softly. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Try me. I just saw a man fly from his balcony to the ground.”

Simon stares at me like I’ve grown two heads. “Fly?”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Simon. Your uncle did some weird flying thing. He didn’t fly like Superman, but he levitated or something similar. Whatever one does when they aren’t on the ground.”

“That’s his power,” he says. I wait for him to say he’s kidding, but he doesn’t.

“Does everyone have a power?” This is too far out of my element. I can’t understand any of this. Superpowers and people who want to control those powers? It’s straight out of a movie. “No.”

“You don’t have some crazy power, do you? Can you read my mind?”

This makes Simon laugh. “No, I can’t read your mind. Sometimes I wish I could.”

“Why?”

He sucks in a deep breath and then blows it out slowly before answering. “I’d kind of like to know what you think about marrying my uncle.”

“Oh.” I haven’t really thought much about it past the fact that I’m not doing it. “I don’t know,” I say to him.

Because honestly I don’t. It’s all so surreal. Like I’m watching someone else’s life play out instead of my own.

He studies his shoe and says, “I wanted to be the one to marry you.”

I feel bad for Simon, and I wish at this moment I liked him as much as he likes me. “Why don’t you stand up to him?” I don’t know how I feel about marrying Simon. Would he want to have sex? Would he expect me to be a proper wife?

At least with Draven I know he won’t be laying a finger on me, and it calms my nerves a bit.

“I wish I could go home, finish my paper, and just be done with this whole mess. How long am I expected to remain his wife? They can’t expect me to stay married to him forever, can they?”

Simon appears angry when I mention being Draven’s wife, and I wonder how badly this is hurting him. “No, just until your powers develop and we neutralize the threat.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that it will only be for a couple of months. A year tops.”

I pop up from my seat. “A year? I can’t stay here for a year. What about my classes?”

“I’m so sorry, Allison. We’re still before the withdrawal deadline, so you can get your money back and it won’t hurt your transcripts.”

“But…” My words fall away as my mind races over all my classes. All the time I’ve put into my studies. How taking this semester off will put me behind. “I’ll need to talk to the dean. I can study abroad. I will not give up my schooling.”

“You’ll be busy developing your powers,” a man’s voice says from behind me.

I spin around, staring at Draven, standing near a hedge. “Hiding in the bushes and eavesdropping on other people’s private conversations isn’t really your style.”

“You don’t know me very well at all.”

“I know.” That’s exactly the point, and I want to drive that point home because it’s just preposterous that we’re to be married.