The Vampires #1: Alaric and Faina

Chapter 21 (Faina): Protect Our Eternity

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

I adjusted Alaric's tie and ran my palms over the lapels of his suit jacket.

I'd missed this domestic act of love.

Nobody wore a suit like Alaric. His broad shoulders and chest were accentuated by the perfectly tailored suits he wore, and although the jackets looked good on him, I could also imagine sliding my hands up his dress shirt, working my way to his shoulders and under his jacket and slipping it off of him until it fell to the floor. Then grabbing the crisp knot of his tie and pulling those lips of his onto mine, I'd undo his tie while our lips were making all sorts of promises --

He slid a hand onto my lower back and then down to my ass. 

"I missed you, Faina."

His voice was husky, and his eyes were telling me everything. My vampire loved me, I had no doubt, but we still had some conversations ahead of us. Today, however, had just been for planning a small wedding.

"We can still have something elegant, Faina," my mother had decreed coolly. "Even though Alaric isn't giving you time to prepare."

"It is our second wedding," I reminded her unnecessarily.

"And your last, I hope," my father said, coming up behind my mother and wrapping his arms around her.

"It is," I promised.

"We'll have a late dinner. Prime rib, I believe, after the ceremony. No more than fifty people. A beautiful cake, some other incidentals, all very doable." My mother had already gone over this with my father's assistant, a paragon of efficiency who allowed my parents to believe that he could accomplish miracles. Basically because he could.

"I'm leaving it up to you," I said. My mother's taste was impeccable and I had no doubt that the minute she left the courtroom, she'd set the wheels in motion even before knowing that Alaric was giving me just over twenty-four hours. "And that's because I need to find a dress."

Aullana walked into the room, her eyes brightening at the mention of shopping. "I'll come!"

"We'll all go," my mother said with an eye to Aullana, whose taste was sometimes bolder than my mother preferred for formal occasions.

We all did go. The fourth dress I tried on was the perfect one. A beautiful blood red, the traditional bridal color of our people. The empire waist worked well with my expanded waistline and made me feel beautiful. Alaric would be in all black, another vampire tradition, as would all the guests. The bride was meant to be the focus of the day, set off against the sea of formal black clothing.

I chose to get ready not at my parents' home but at my home. Alaric and I would arrive at my parents' together in his limo. I was actually ready before Alaric because he had spent so much time watching my hair stylist and make up artists work on me, his eyes intent and hooded, holding promises of our bridal night. He'd helped me into my dress, drawing a finger up my spine, pulling the zipper after it, making me shiver in anticipation.

"So beautiful, my heart. You are the most beautiful woman in the world. The only one I live for. I was lost without you."

His lips teased my neck, bared to him by my updo. He turned me to him and looked into my eyes, his glowing red. 

"I love you, Faina. I want you to know that. And if you don't, if you have any uncertainty about the depths of my feelings for you, I'll show you for our eternity together."

I smiled what he called my Mona Lisa smile at him. "You need to get ready if we're going to be on time. Go."

I gave him five minutes, then went to check his suit and tie. We managed to arrive at my parents' home on time, walking into the small ballroom together to the light applause from the guests to honor us as the bridal couple. The Alarie would be officiating, his ever-present aide, Newton, at his side as the official witness to the marriage.

Alaric walked me up the path through the guests, my hand in the crook of his arm. I smiled at the guests, turning my head to either side, but Alaric looked straight ahead, his face like stone, as expected of the groom.

When we stopped in front of the Alarie, he started right in with the ancient words that would bind us together, and I let them wash over me in a way I hadn't the first time we were married. They seemed more meaningful this time because we knew what we had lost for a while. I listened to the Alarie's deep, calm voice while looking not at him but at Alaric. Only Alaric.

I love you.

I love you.

His eyes said the same thing back to me, his face still set but so loving because I knew each line on that gorgeous face so intimately.

"You are joined," the Alarie pronounced finally. "For now and into eternity."

The guests clapped as Alaric kissed me, and then we turned to face them. We walked back down the path through the guests, and we kept walking until we reached the large ballroom where we would welcome each guest and formally receive our gifts before we sat down to our dinner and the traditional cake. Following that, we would have dancing, and then Alaric and I would return to our home. He wanted to take me on an abbreviated honeymoon, accompanied, of course, by my medical team who would watch over the twins and me.

"I'll take you and our babies on a real honeymoon when they're a few months old," Alaric had promised as we danced our first waltz together. Vampires danced, but we danced in the old style, the waltz being most popular but also in the squares and lines from the early eighteen hundreds that involved intricate patterns of movement and ever-changing partners. 

"One that we can relax on without the worry about your health as you carry our twins."

"I'll look forward to that," I said, loving the feel of being in my husband's arms. Alaric was a strong dancer, graceful and sure, his movements always certain, making it easy to follow his lead.

Aullana spun past us, absolutely beaming, towering over her partner, and my mother and father waltzed by us on our other side.

"I would like to leave," Alaric said. "But there's one last thing I need to do first," he told me.

He stopped dancing in the center of the ballroom, and he raised his hand until everyone stopped dancing and turned to watch us. Another tradition was for the vampire to introduce his wife formally at some point during the first dance.

"It is my extreme pleasure to introduce you to my wife," his deep voice was loud enough to be heard by all of our guests, and there was such pride in his voice as he said the traditional words that no one present could miss it.

Then he dug deeper into our vampire past and brought back a tradition that was rarely included in vampire weddings nowadays. He went to his knees before me -- and I heard our guests gasp in surprise -- and he lifted the hem of my dress to his lips. Then he looked up at me, red eyes burning with emotion.

"I declare myself your servant, Faina. You are my very heart, and I will serve you all of my days. I am yours in every way."

I hadn't been expecting this declaration. At our first wedding, Alaric and I had discussed the tradition and had disdained it, thinking it outdated and best left in the past. So now, for our second wedding, after everything we'd gone through, Alaric had declared himself my servant.

As tradition required, I held my hand out to him, and he took it in his, kissed the back of it and pressed his forehead to it before getting to his feet and kissing my lips gently and reverently. For a man who'd always been extremely careful with me, he was now exquisitely solicitous. I knew it was part of his atonement to me and his actions humbled himself to me. His message was clear: he hadn't been careful enough before but that would never happen again.

Never again.

Alaric would guard our love even more rigorously than he had before. Maybe some would think it was because there was more at stake -- our babies -- but I knew differently.

It was all for me.

My vampire loved me and would make sure that he'd protect our eternity.

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA