out punishment. The streets were my parents, because incidentally my uncle had only ever been interested in shoving me into them.
Although I had never gone into any branch of the military, I was a soldier of a different kind, one created by wrath and fury, danger and sin. Desiree had never given up the quest of proving that I was capable of more than loving her and the streets.
The expression she cast on me lingered as we made our way out the door. It was a cross between hope and fear, and it was too late to ask her about it. She sprang the second door open, and we were met with crushing silence, followed by the wedding march being keyed by an overpaid piano player.
My fingers tightened around Desiree’s hand, crushing it. She walked in place beside me, acting as my best-woman and the person I had picked to get me down the aisle. The aisle was a floral pathway that divided the huge room in half.
Surrounded by an ocean of sunlight and a rainbow of different shades of blue and white flowers, each side of the space was packed with excited onlookers who had snapped around quickly in their seats, unwilling to miss a thing. Instead of benches, elegantly decorated tables made up each side of the room.
“It’s okay,” Desiree whispered. “You’ll do fine. When haven’t you?”
Her words of encouragement landed on my heart and allowed me to concentrate on the most beautiful scenery I’d had the pleasure of seeing in years. The mountains called my attention through the glass walls. The sun’s rays pierced the bluest clouds, shining down streams of light that appeared to be blasted straight from heaven.
Soft murmurs dwindled into a stilled silence that called my attention from the view and momentarily stifled my movements. The guest eyed me with a lingering intensity as gasps lifted their shoulders high and parted their lips like they were holding their breath.
The breath I was holding rushed out when I noticed the emergence of approving smiles and the sparks of excitement in their expressions at my appearance. Phones and cameras were lifted and aimed, the clicks blending into the melody of the wedding song being played.
Despite the crowd’s excitement, my legs became weighted like two inflexible led pipes. A big neon sign flashed in my head, reminding that with each step I took, I was walking towards an uncertain future.
Waving silk banners hung from the glass ceiling as crystal figurines accented with my favorite color, sky blue, sat in strategic places among the crowd. This was the wedding of my dreams. Too bad I didn’t know my groom well enough to even care about him, or any of the people filling the space with their excited, but sketchy energy.
I’d had a reoccurring wedding dream through the years, my mind always summoning a similar fantasy wedding day. I would always see my groom waiting, visible from the neck down, but his face had always been a mystery. I accepted the dream as a sign that there wasn’t anyone out there for me.
My Mr. Right had likely already been shot and killed or had never been born because his mother had had an abortion, some crazy mess my brain would conjure up as a reason for my groom being faceless.
The revolving door of faceless men I had dated throughout the years, and dropped, hadn’t given me an ounce of hope on putting a face on the mystery husband of my dreams.
However, there was finally a face on my groom this day, but it was the last face I would have pictured. I had imagined a dread-wearing, insanely handsome brother waiting on me. Instead, I was inching closer to a man I never envisioned touching me, much less marrying me.
Based on the few encounters between Arjen and me, I didn’t believe he would be opposed to not consummating our wedding. He gave me the impression that he wanted what I wanted, which was to strengthen the empires we ran.
Thick knots of dread kept dragging me down, the closer I got to the altar. None of my runaway ideas could explain the tight pull of reluctance as Desiree all but dragged me along, keeping her body close to mine.
“We’re almost there.” Desiree’s whisper found my ear.
The area where my groom waited was the portion of the building that extended out and edged over the cliff, so it appeared that Desiree and I were about to walk off the side of the