the steps, but Squatch and Dementor both grabbed me under the armpit and knee, and lifted me to the stage as if we’d practiced it, but we hadn’t. Clearly, they’d done the move before.
Frost pulled me the last two feet, so I was standing beside him, facing him and those crystal clear, deep blue eyes, the audience out to my left and his right, the silent band to our other sides.
“I let you go once, and I’m a lucky man, because fate brought you back into my life. I need you in my life, Cheyenne Grace.”
The guitar player in the band walked towards us and handed a large, flat box to Frost. He turned to me and held it between us. “Open the box, kitty cat.”
I looked at him a second and took in how serious he looked. Not only serious, but a little bit afraid. What the fuck? I opened the box, saw PROPERTY OF FROST, and suddenly understood.
He was offering me a prop vest. He wanted to proclaim to the world that he owned me, and he wasn’t sure I’d want to wear it.
Thankfully, I knew what I was supposed to say, so I didn’t make him wait to hear it.
“Will you please put it on me?”
My voice broke halfway through, so it was mostly me mouthing the last four words, but that seemed to be okay, because he held the vest up and let the box fall to our feet. He kicked it back towards the band as it landed, out of our way. I turned, slid my arm into one hole, then the other, and the next thing I knew, I was smushed against his chest and couldn’t breathe. The room erupted in cheers, applause, and whistles. I pushed away from Frost, got a breath, and then jumped up so my legs went around his waist and my head landed on his shoulder. His arms went back around me, and he breathed into my neck.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And then I was standing, without him touching me, and he was on one knee before me, holding a ring in a ring box up, towards me. The room was suddenly silent again, and Frost said, “I need you to be more than just my property, kitty cat. I need you to be my wife, too.”
My first instinct was to negotiate with him. Where would we live? How were we going to figure out who paid for what? He’d been way too heavy-handed about buying groceries and paying my electric bill before I had a chance to.
But we had an audience, and I knew in my heart that we’d figure all that out. I didn’t have to hold my answer back as leverage to get what I wanted. Gil had taught me not to let a lover gain an advantage over me, but Frost had shown me through patience and love that I could trust him to put our relationship first, and not to use power and leverage to make things go his way.
I put my left hand down and told him, “Yes. Yes! Now put the ring on me, so the first time I see it close up is when it’s on my finger.”
He slid it onto my finger, and I lifted it towards my face to get my first good look at it. The lighting was horrible, but that was okay. The ring looked silver, but it didn’t burn. I was fairly certain it wasn’t stainless. My silver earrings and necklace were actually stainless steel, and the belt was made of cheaper metals, probably. As with most shapeshifters, silver burned me, so this wasn’t made of silver.
And then I saw and recognized the stone. Jadeite, in the exact same shade as my human eyes. He’d given me the third most expensive gemstone in the world, and that meant the metal was probably platinum.
I lifted my gaze to his. The blue was both deeper and brighter than I’d ever seen them before. Electric blue.
“I can’t believe you did this,” I told him.
He stood and moved in close, looking down, his forehead to mine, so we were both looking at the ring on my finger. “What? Showed you how important you are? How much you mean to me?”
I looked back down to my ring, and the stage lights over me went white, so I could see it better, and I realized the small diamonds around it were blue diamonds the color of Frost’s eyes. He’d put both