WAR OF HEARTS ↠ KOL MIKAELSON [1]

THE ONE WHERE ARES & DAVINA GET MARRIED

San Francisco Rooftop — 2024
Bachelorette Party

If immortals had ever learned restraint, it wasn't tonight.

The city of San Francisco glittered below like spilled jewels, all golden bridges and streetcar flickers, too alive to sleep. And above it all—wrapped in velvet drapes and enchantments that shimmered like moonlight on glass—was the rooftop where Rhea Monroe had unleashed every ounce of her event-planning wrath in the name of love.

"This isn't a bachelorette party," Davina muttered as she stepped out of the elevator and onto the candle-lined terrace, heels clicking softly on the tiled floor.

"It's a coven-wide celebration of your terrifying emotional growth," Rhea declared, arms wide, utterly unapologetic.

The rooftop had been transformed. Velvet couches in indigo and black circled open fire pits. Moonstones glittered in hanging lanterns. A bartender—enchanted to be both mute and eternally cheerful—served shimmering cocktails with names like "Witch, Please," "Hex on the Beach," and a bright purple drink called "Love You to Death," which included edible glitter and a completely unnecessary flame shot.

Rhea had, of course, charmed the entire location to exist slightly out of time. No mortals. No onlookers. No interruptions.

Just them.

Davina, despite herself, was already halfway through a flute of spiked elderflower champagne, her cheeks flushed and smile loose. The air was warm with late-summer heat and magic.

"It's the champagne," she muttered again as she looked down into her glass. "It has to be."

Rhea, draped in a slinky black dress that sparkled like stardust and left absolutely nothing to the imagination, blinked innocently. "Oh. I may have—slightly—enchanted your drink."

Davina stared at her. "You did what?"

"I wanted you to actually enjoy tonight, not spend the evening calculating your blood-to-alcohol ratio like a neurotic hedgewitch." Rhea grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the open space cleared for dancing. "I promise it'll wear off by morning. Maybe."

From the side of the rooftop, Josh Rosza leaned against a column, sipping a blood-orange spritz, eyes twinkling.

He turned to the werewolf girl beside him—Kaya, who had once tried to rip his throat out in an alleyway in Paris and now sent him holiday cards—and grinned. "Is this what love looks like? Slightly cursed, loud, and in heels?"

Kaya snorted. "It's exactly what love looks like."

The night bloomed around them. Friends—some ancient, some barely a few decades old—drifted from group to group. A vampire from Venice who owed Kol his life clinked glasses with a Pacific Northwest coven priestess. A blood witch with a penchant for glamours read tarot on the far end of the balcony while three shapeshifters dared each other to try the "Moonburn Margarita."

And through it all, Davina laughed.

She danced with Rhea. With Kaya. With Josh—who, ever the dramatic twink, dipped her low and yelled "Let's hear it for the brides!" to a round of roaring applause. She danced with her eyes closed, with tears once or twice, with champagne in her hair and stars in her lungs.

Rhea raised her glass in the center of the floor, catching everyone's attention with a single, spine-tingling whistle that was very clearly magical in nature.

"To the last night," she said, her voice clear as crystal. "The last night my best friend will legally be allowed to flirt with waitstaff."

Davina, red-faced, shouted over the laughter: "I'm marrying a Monroe! I don't look at waitstaff."