Until Darkness Ascends

CHAPTER FIVE

"I fucking hate weddings. They were painful before The Vanishing, but now they're the worst form of torture."

"If I remember correctly, you were quite giddy to go to weddings, Malachi."

"Nay, Crixus, it was not the wedding that excited me."

The archangels laughed as they sheathed their weapons under their finest wear. This wasn't simply a wedding; it was one of royalty. There was hope that this female would produce heirs, female heirs.

To travel to Voltulora, the archangels had to leave Olympia and travel to the Middle Kingdom lands. Standing on the sandy shore of a barren beach, Altair stared daggers at the waters. Being honest, there was much more that frustrated him than searching for this female. It annoyed him that she hadn't tried to communicate with him again. He wanted to hear her voice.

How pathetic. He was pinning after a female who wasn't even his truemate.

"We should get there just in time for the ceremony. And once it's finished, we get the fuck out."

"Aye," Malachi agreed.

Archangels couldn't hold their breath as long as Voltulorians, and they certainly couldn't hold it long enough for nuptials. But every archangel had a mastery of an element. Crixus commanded Earth. Malachi mastered Air. Altair was the only archangel that could wield all four. When archangels needed to go to the Kingdom of Voltulora, they wielded a cone of air around them, so they could breathe easily. The cone replenished oxygen by taking from water and remained invisible to everyone but an archangel.

"Are we ready?" Altair muttered.

"Aye."

With a wave of his hands, the seas parted in front of them, allowing them to walk down the decline of sand under what would usually be the ocean. The further they went, the more Altair parted, until they came to the borders of the underwater Kingdom. Malachi created his own oxygenated cone and that of Crixus while Altair formed his.

They came to the doors of the palace, having felt ridiculed by the ringing of wedding bells. The guards allowed them into the main hall and escorted them to the ceremony, where it seemed every high male of every Kingdom had been sitting. There were representatives of the Lycanthropes, the Vampyres, even humans. It was clear this was the event of the year. And for the King, probably the peak of his rule. King Cailborne wanted every male to know that he was marrying one of the last females, and if she could, his heirs would be birthed.

If the archangel hadn't seen such terrible events, he would be sickened by the blatant display of prowess from the wedding instead of marrying for love.

"Well, isn't this a sausage party," Malachi muttered.

Altair turned to him. "What," he sighed, "what is wrong with you?"

#

In her head, she always imagined her wedding day as something...thrilling. Loving. Wanted. And as she grew older, she realized that that dream of hers was unlikely. But she always held onto hope. Hope of being free. Hope of deciding her fate.

But as she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt her resolve waiver in a way it never had before. She would have to spend the rest of her life married to King Cailborne, fearing that he will punish her every time she disobeyed. Hating the fact that he controlled when she ate when she slept when she went out of the palace...

She felt tears burn. She swallowed the knot in her throat. She didn't look like a bride. She didn't look it because she didn't want to be. She wished to be a maiden forever.