Chapter 31

"That's it? Are you fucking serious, Maddox?!" I blurt, feeling my blood begin to boil as he smirks back at me.

I'm going to strangle him. I'm literally going to wrap my fucking hands around that thick, tattooed neck, and crush his fucking airways, mere seconds into saying "I do."

"Umm," Delilah stammers, clearly uncomfortable with the way my stare is practically throwing daggers his way.

I can't believe that we waited all this time to have this moment between us to have it go down like this. To have Delilah literally just stand between us, asking if we take each other's hand in marriage and then some spiel about the state of New York giving her permission to pronounce us whatever. Blah, blah, blah. All this build up, for two minutes of robotic bullshit. This seriously can't be all that I mean to him. A rushed wedding with no guests other than my best friend and his mother.

His light eyes locked on mine, a grin spreads across his lips. "D, it's ok, her anger is mine to deal with now. Isn't it, wife?" He is beaming, and it takes everything in my power not to pummel him.

I narrow my gaze into a stern squint. "Don't pull that "my wife" shit with me, Maddox. Remember I'm just as capable of killing as you are. Do you really want to get on my bad side?"

He sighs, looking even more amused by the goddamned second. "Hating me has never stopped you from fucking me before. Nice try though," he retorts.

My legs stiffen as my knees lock in place as if I'm going to have a damn hissy fit.

He steps forward, placing his outstretched finger to my lips. "Ssh. Save that anger for when we consummate the marriage, little hellcat."

His finger remains on my lips. "I'll take it from here," he announces to Delilah and Glinda, though his gaze remains on me.

"Very good, I'll see you both later," Glinda says, sounding relieved to be excused from where her crazy son is playing yet another game.

"Yeah, me too," Delilah chimes in, sounding relieved.

They both mumble amongst themselves as they leave us alone.

Without saying a word, Maddox lowers his finger from my lips, dragging it down my chin, and gliding it to my neck until it stops at my sternum.

"Do you trust me?" he says, monotone and not at all trustworthy.

My tongue swipes at my lips. "No."

"Good." His finger that rests at my sternum crawls down my abdomen, crossing my hips to where it then slithers its way to my hand, as he guides me to the huge hole in the ground.

With his tall stature blocking the way, it's difficult to see past him. However, from what I can see, it looks like there is a sea offlickering lights ahead.

"Watch your step," he says, pausing our connected stride to where we now stand in front of a tall wooden ladder thatleads to a deep hole in the ground.

"What is this?"

"Follow me," he says, leading the way to the ladder. Pivoting, he lowers himself into the ground.

Eager to see what the hell he has up his sleeve now, I follow him.

As I move down the ladder, I feel his large hand against my bottom as he helps guide me to the flattened ground.

"Maddox, was this your plan all along? To marry me and then bury me alive?" I say like I'm joking, but with us, anything is possible.

Placing the remote back in his pocket, he pats the small leather compartment that rests on his thigh harness. His large fingers struggle to navigate inside the confined space as he wriggles them around for a few seconds before slipping them out with two rings now in his possession.

"I didn't wait all this time. Play all our games. Stalk you. Kill for you, to have our moment for other eyes to see. I wanted this moment to be just us and what better place to seal our love for each other than with just you and I in the ground that someday we will be buried in…together."

I should have known.

"This is the most fucked up wedding I've ever attended." I purposely pause, watching the arrogance in his face fall to dust. His pierced brow falls into a sullen bout of disappointment. I move closer to him until my hand rests on his cheek. Shifting to my tip toes, I bring my lips close enough to his that my breath teases his skin, but not close enough for a kiss. "Thank you," I breathe. "I've always hated how weddings are these big productions, when all that it should be about are the people crazy enough to want to share their lives together."

His split tongue breaks the barrier of his lips, slithering its way into my mouth. Teasingly, I press my teeth onto his tongue, causing him to moan andpull me closer.

"We are bat shit crazy, so why wouldn't we add this to the list," he says playfully.

Bringing the rings into focus he reaches for the smallest of all the pocketknives he usually keeps on him. Though in all our time together, I've never seen him use this one.

"My dad gifted this to me, on the last birthday I had with him alive. I never felt that anything was worthy of using it. But now, to have your blood drawn with my favorite knife, I couldn't think of any better way to seal our bond to each other."

I move my palm upward, flattening it so he can make his cut.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to say my vows," his voice cracks and if I didn't know better, I'd think he's nervous.

"Aw, you have vows prepared?"

"It's our wedding, Blair, why wouldn't I?" he asks, dumbfounded.

He presses the button of the pocketknife, and just as the sharpened steel springs forward, he looks to me, lowering the blade to my palm. The crisp October air stings against the small cut. It's not deep, but it"s enough to draw blood to fill the ring. He continues with careful precision as he recites his vows.

"Nothing in this world scares me more than you. I'm afraid of what you are capable of, what you bring out in me and I'm also afraid of living without you. Nothing confuses me more or makes me angrier than you can. Sure, I could have had a pleasant life if it wasn't for you, but I would have been bored, unfilled, and more of a monster then I already am. With you, my darkness has a home and I'm glad that in my shadows, you are able to be who you truly are, sinfully perfect." He seals his unexpected words with a kiss at my lips and for the first time, in all the years I've known him, I experience a tenderness I've never felt in his presence. It makes me feel honored. People like Maddox, people like us, we don't often show people the real us. It's too vulnerable, it feels like a loss of power but the fact that he can be the monster I crave while baring his heart to me, it's more than words can describe.

He closes the top of the vial, sealing my blood into his ring. This is so romantic. I'm no stranger to the whole blood ritual thing. We've been doing this for years, every anniversary, though it's usually in a locket, like the one he attached to my harness, but never on a ring.

Opening his palm, he readies his hand for me to cut into so I can repeat the same process for my ring.

I feel bad. Here I was, pissed at him for this rushed wedding, but I didn't even think of vows. Though as I lower the tip of the blade to his hand, I begin to recite his favorite line from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Admittedly, I don't understand the appeal. What about that specific quote makes him love it so much, but that's love. It's loving someone that you may not fully understand, but having enough room in your heart, no matter how cold or small it may be, to indulge their demons and humor their passions. It's what he has always done for me.

"And he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—a woman."

As I finish reciting the quote, I tip his large palm to the side. "Thank you," I breathe, watching the blood drip into the small vial attached to my ring.

"For what?"

"For loving my brokenness," I say, and it feels freeing because that's what he's always done. Sure, it started with sinister intentions on both our accounts, but what transpired between us, as unconventional as it is, is really what love should be. Accepting the other for who they are and indulging each other"s desires, no matter how depraved.

He brings his uncut hand to my chin, tipping it up so my eyes lock on his.

"You're not broken. You're just wired differently and I'm fucking glad you are because there's no one I rather raise hell with. You hear me?"

I lean into his hold on my face, my eyes fighting back tears.

"Good, because there's no one I'd rather burn with." I grin as he releases his hold on me, moving his hands to where my vial needs to be sealed. "But I hope you know that this doesn't mean you're off the hook," I add as he helps close the latch on my ring.

"What do you mean, little hellcat?"

"Just because I'm your wife doesn't mean our fun ends," I tease.

"Don't you worry. You're mine to stalk, to fuck, to punish, in life and in death. Always. However, right now all I want to do is dance with my wife to our song in our future grave plot."

Swoon.

Reaching for his phone, he swipes to his music app and my heart skips a beat hearing the instrumentals of our song vibrate against the speaker of his phone.

Sleep Tokens "Blood Sport" fills the air around us as he pulls me into him. My chest pressed against his, my hands driftaround his neck.

"I love this song," I say.

"I would hope so, it's our song, silly hellcat."

"Ha, of course, the blood part, yeah, yeah," I laugh but the expression on his face is stoic.

"No, because it is us. Everything we are and everything we pretend to be. It's bloody. Messy. Impossible to contain. Loving you is war. But it's the only battle that I'd come out a winner even if I lost. Because loving you, even if it ends in blood, is more than I deserve and everything I could have ever wanted. When everyone sees a monster, you see an equal. I know I'm broken. Fuck, I'm shattered, but with you, all my fucked up pieces feel whole, because they're whole enough for you and that's all I fucking need. So yeah, loving you is a blood sport and that's something I'm fucking honored to experience with you."

"Maddox, I didn't know you felt that way," I blurt, still stunned by his words, by all of this. I'm not used to seeing him with his horns retracted, so raw and honest. Seeing him like this, knowing that at any moment my Devil's flame can ignite and yet, he willingly tapers his flame, allowing me to see a side of him that no one else sees. It's everything.

"If you don't know by now that I fucking love you, Blair Crane, you're crazier than I thought." He laughs, reaching for my hand and bringing it to his lips. "Now, I don't know about you, but I've been craving those damn cookies I had Glinda bake."

"Ha, no wedding cake huh?" I tease.

"Baby you hate cake. What kind of stalker would I be if I didn't know that. I had Glinda bake enough of those damn Pillsbury Halloween cookies you like so much so I could stack them high enough to look like a cake. Figured it would only be fitting since you were trying to eat the ones your mom baked for my mom when they were burying Byron all those years ago," he chuckles. "Disposing of bodies takes a lot out of a person. It's important to have a snack and hydrate in between," he adds with sarcasm.

"Hold up, how did you know I wanted those cookies that night?"

He shakes his head, pulling me in closer to him. "I love how that's what is the most concerning to you in that whole sentence. Remember little hellcat, there isn't a phone, a camera, a device, I can't hack into. Then or now," he says with pride. "You can never hide from me. I'm your curse."

"Just like you're my cover. 'Til death, Boogeyman."

"That's right. 'Til death, Final Girl."

And they lived happily ever after.

Yeah fucking right…