Dark Love

The Wedding

"I don't even know him," she whispered, her amber centred green eyes widened at her profile in dismay.

A narrowed eyed vision of similar hues met hers in the ornate mirror. "What's to know?"

Saera turned and met her mother's gaze head on. "What's to know? Are you serious?"

Her mother met her aghast stare unperturbed. "Listen to me Saera, you marry the man who wants to marry you, not the one you want to marry."

Saera bit back a whimper of distress and turned back to stare at her profile in the mirror. Neither options were feasible. Saera didn't know a man she wanted to marry and the one who wanted to marry her wasn't so platable either. She'd never even met him. She didn't even know his name. "Remind me again, why he wants to marry me."

"Marry you?" Her mother hurrumphed. "You should know better than that."

And that was exactly why she was still so confused, getting a straight answer out of her adoptive mother was next to impossible. Massey Shore was as bitter as bitter guard and had the natural disposition of a piranha. She was, however, still family. The only blood relation she had left. An estranged aunt who turned up at her doorstep to claim her when her parents upped and died on on her. She'd been all of two years old when that happened.

"You are born of the Shore bloodline, Saera and very possibly the last of your line, why wouldn't he want to marry you."

At least her groom to be knew her name even if she didn't know his. One out of two isn't too bad a score.

Her mother straightend the drab grey fabric over her hourglass frame and tugged sharply at the laces to bind her in. Saera reach out to grasp the mirror frame, holding on for dear life while her mother strapped her into the most horrendous dress of all time... her wedding dress.

"Does it have to be this monstrosity? Can't I wear something else? Anything else?" Saera reached down to run her shaky fingers over the threadbare fabric. "It's almost in ruins."

"It's traditional, Saera," Massey reminded her. "Worn by every Shore bride from the beginning of the Shore line. It's good luck."

"Good luck? How can this be good anything? It's thin enough to tear right through. I don't think I dare breathe in it." Saera held her breath as Massey continued to tug at the straps. The bodice of the dress resembled a straight jacket used in mental hospitals to strap psychotic patients in to keep them from self-harm. Saera could see the appeal. It was probably the only way her Shore ancestors could be made to go through with the ceremony. Strapping them in to keep them from running away while also eliminating the option of taking themselves out of the equation by more homicial means.

Really the dress itself was enough to inspire a swift demise. Let alone everything else. How had she ended up in this situation.

Massey caught her wrinkled nose look in the mirror and smirked,"It's probably a good thing you're the last of your line to wear this thing... unless of course you and your husband to be have a daughter to carry on the line and the family traditions."

Saera shook her head hard, uncaring that the sudden movement tossed her brown hair in disarray. Children with the man she didn't know didn't bear thinking of. Saera huffed at a loose lock of her overgrown fringe that slipped free from the many clips Massey locked her hair in with and then blew out a frustrated breath. She stared at her frumpy profile unperturbed. She had no interest in looking remotely presentable for her own wedding. The ghastly dress aside, there was not much she could do with her appearance. Not with her unruly honey brown hair determined to do it's own thing.

"And to think I had been waiting for the day I turned twenty." She actually hadn't been waiting for this day at all. Turning twenty didn't do much for her. It did not open doors to pubs. She already could drive and well her magic wasn't really that important. Not when it meant she'd need to marry a complete stranger on the very day her spark is lit. Witches come ok into their powers at twenty.

Massey smiled. But there was no warmth to her gaze. "Every girl dreams of the day they come into their power," she said.

"That's true," muttered Saera. "But that's only because they don't know the price of accepting that power."

Massey clucked her tongue impatiently. "You're no longer a child, Saera. Stop acting like it." She stepped back a pace to admire her efforts, then with a non-committal hurrumph she turned heel and headed for the door. "I'll see you downstairs. Don't dwaddle. He can't be kept waiting."