“By the authority vested in me,” the priest said, trembling like a man asking pardon, “I now declare you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
My breath froze in my lungs. I could still smell the metallic odour in the nostrils of the blood of Lucas as his life bled away, how his eyes had emptied as I screamed. And yet here I was, wrapped in a white lace and Italian silk, veiled and a sacrificial lamb.
The grin of Dante sliced me like a knife and his lips smashed my lips. Hard. cold. possessive. There was no caress, no pledge of affection, there was a mockery of all that a wedding kiss ought to be. Only ownership. Only conquest.
A disgusted sensation ran through me like a forest fire. I tightened my teeth in his lower lip without even thinking of it.
I could taste the iron, it was
