Tucker who was dying without her.
Mary dropped into a crouch, shoved her balled fists up against her eyes and screamed through her teeth, but the brand on her throat lit and turned the sound into a pitiful whimper. Her scattered heartbeat echoed so loudly in her head, she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching her door. Didn’t know anyone was coming until Tilda stepped into the room with a white dress draped over her arm.
The tension between them was thicker than molasses.
At times, over the last few days, Mary swore she could see a dawning remorse on her mother’s face, but it quickly hardened to resolve. It was the latter that stopped Mary from commiserating with Tilda or trying to break through. To make her see that nothing was worth aligning with Hadrian. Not a reunion with Anton. Not being brought to the Faerie Realm.
Not her sight.
But Mary was angry, dammit. Angrier than she’d been in her entire life, and part of her just wanted to remain this way, locked up tight, alone in the misery.
Tilda drew up short when she got close enough to see Mary’s red face, but recovered with a brisk smile. “It’s time, daughter.”
Time for her wedding.
Honestly, she was surprised it had taken this long since Hadrian was eager for the alliance to be solidified. Now, she could only regard the beautiful white lace garment with a dispassionate stare. This was what it felt like to be truly powerless. Her exhaustion and heartache were dragging her down, down, to the depths of a murky swamp and nothing felt real there. Not the dress, not her mother, not the colors and objects around her. Sight was almost a curse at this point because she’d be watching her doom play out, instead of merely listening.
Facing the future without a purpose would be the nail in her coffin. That conviction was the only reason Mary rose to her feet and lifted her chin, allowing two maids to bustle into the room and strip off her T-shirt, her last remaining connection to Tucker.
She closed her eyes as the dress was draped, fitted and cinched around her. Once some sense had been made of Mary’s hair, she was led out of the room for the first time in four days. Tilda, Mary and the two maids walked down a long hallway that led to a staircase. As they descended, Mary’s eyes were drawn below to the hall where Hadrian waited.
He looked like a prince from a dark fairy tale, dressed in elegant black and standing in front of the stained-glass window, moonlight streaming in to rest on his shoulders.
She knew better. He was no prince.
A minister waited in front of a throne, golden and ornate, lined with blue velvet. Only one throne. No accompanying seat for a queen. On one side of the room, vampires congregated, looking wary and judgmental. On the other was a contingent of fae, wreathed in light, some of their faces straight from her past. They also appeared wary, mostly of her future husband.
“We won’t be here long,” Tilda whispered, rubbing her arm. “You’ll see. Once the alliance is sealed and the Assembly is summoned, they will return to find us risen from the ashes. They will see we were not weaklings to be abandoned. That we have been strategic and smart. We’ve survived. We will convince the Assembly to help Hadrian secure the vampire throne from the new king. To honor the alliance. Then we will be taken home by your father.”
Numb head to toe, Mary stopped at the bottom of the staircase and looked at Tilda. “I know what love feels like now. If my father left us because of my blindness, there is no honor in him. And he never loved us at all.”
Tilda was leading Mary to the altar where a monster waited to wed her, but she couldn’t stem the tide of sympathy for Tilda when she shook her head. “He had no choice. These last thirteen years, he has been making a home for us in paradise. It is hard for someone so young to understand.”
Mary was out of words.
A sea of vampires in red cloaks parted, allowing her to pass.
An odd tingle broke through her numbness when she’d almost reached Hadrian, but she disregarded it as fear and kept walking until she faced the leader of the dark uprising. It took her a moment of gathering courage to look up into his face. When she did, there was nothing but ambition and hate and greed. He’d surrounded himself by beings of the same respect. Beings who thought compassion was a weakness. Including her mother. And having experienced selfless love, Mary pitied them.
It was in that moment that she was able to forgive Tucker for leaving her.
Unlike her father, he’d truly done it out of love. Not ambition or a thirst for power.