“Done,” announced Imani with a smile.

Ava rubbed my arm soothingly. “Is the pain easing?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah.” It had hurt like a bitch, but it would no doubt have been worse to feel Will die.

Will glared at me. “You’re going to let them kill me?”

“You tried to attack my mate.” Didn’t make any difference to me that we weren’t yet Bound – it was only a matter of time. “No one hurts her.”

Ava’s arms constricted around me. “Sam and Jared will take care of his punishment.”

I glanced down at her. “The last thing I’d feel is guilt if I took care of it.”

“You took care of Gina. Why should you get to have all the fun?”

“He tried to attack a member of the legion,” said Jared. “His punishment is therefore mine and Sam’s.”

Sam nodded. “Now go play with Ava or something.” With that, Sam and Jared teleported away with Will and Blythe.

“You okay?”

I knew what Ava was asking: Was I at all upset that my Sire was due to die? “He tried to hurt you. He deserves exactly what’s coming to him.”

Seemingly satisfied by that answer, she said with a little clap, “Come on. Let’s go vacuum Gina’s ashes.” Ava sounded so delighted by the idea that I felt a slither of amusement. Life would never be boring with this woman.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

(Salem)

“You don’t need to be nervous.” Jared clapped me on the shoulder. “I can tell you from personal experience that the ceremony moves pretty fast. And there’s no chance that Ava will stand you up.”

“I know that.” She and I had exchanged a few text messages, although they had been mostly to remind me just how pissed she’d be if I started anything with her asshole of a brother. The same asshole who had last night said, ‘If you ever hurt her, psycho Sid, I’ll kill you.’ Naturally, I’d replied by dangling him over the balcony until he begged me to pull him back up. It had been kind of fun.

“Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

I threw Jared a look of disgust. I wasn’t going to credit that dumb question with an answer. I wasn’t afraid of this. Wasn’t scared of the depth of commitment I was about to make. No one would ever fit me the way Ava did. Nobody. She accepted me just as I was, broken and all. Everything – even the fights – were good with Ava. And I knew that no matter what happened in the future, it would be a better one with her in it.

Also, after tonight, there was no way she could ever doubt how important she was to me. Nothing said ‘I love you’ like Binding every part of yourself to someone for your immortal life, did it?

Keeping to her word, Ava had rejected Sam and Jared’s offer to hold a week-long celebration for the Binding. Call me miserable, but parties really weren’t my thing, particularly if I was supposed to be the host and the focus of any attention. Also, I personally found the formalities and traditions that went with Bindings plain weird; I wasn’t much interested in throwing a celebration that was suited to everybody else. Thankfully Chico and Jude, who had asked to hold their own Binding in the same ceremony, were in total accord with me on that.

Much like me, Chico hadn’t really involved himself in the planning of the event. In fact, it would be fair to say that I’d actively avoided taking part. Maybe there were many guys out there who found it fun to choose flowers, balloons, table decorations, and fonts for banners, but I just wasn’t one of them. I wanted few things from tonight. One, to be Bound with Ava. Two, to have beer-flavoured NSTs at the – in my opinion unnecessary – after-party. Three, to have Ava revert back to the woman I adored…as opposed to the stressed out psycho of the past three weeks.

She had agonised over every minor detail to the point that she’d exploded on two occasions, and I’d hated that it was causing her stress. Particularly since, to me, a small ceremony was more meaningful than a showy production. I didn’t want the meaning behind the Binding to be muddied by colours, fonts, and styles. But when I’d – most reluctantly – offered to help in the hope of easing the burden a little, she had smiled and assured me, “It’s fine; me, Fletcher, and Jude have got this.”

Maybe she’d correctly sensed that allowing me to join in planning the event would have led to a very different evening. Instead, she’d told me: “I’ll give you the time, date, outfit, and sort out all the details. All you need to do is dress and turn up on time.” Was it any wonder that I loved her?

“Relax,” said Jared. It was only then that I realised I’d started to pace.

I couldn’t relax, and for a very good reason. “They’re going to do something,” I muttered, tipping my head toward where my squad was whispering among themselves in the second row seats. White covers and pink bows had been attached to each chair, as Ava had requested.

Jared frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”

“They’re going to pull some kind of prank.” I could see it in their oh-so-innocent eyes.

Arching a brow, Jared snorted. “What, you mean like they – you included – did at my ceremony?”

Well, yeah.

Standing under the floral arch, the Prelate – the same one who had performed Sam and Jared’s Binding – hmphed at me. The uptight vampire hadn’t been at all impressed by the pranks, and he clearly remembered them. Not only had we all pinned ‘Run’ signs on our shirts and flashed them at Sam, but we had attached a ‘Help Me’ sign to the back of Jared’s shirt.

“I think they call this kind of thing ‘karma’, right?” Jared smirked, the prick.

Just then, Chico came to stand at my other side in a similar get up as me – open necked shirt and pants. He cast the rest of our squad a quick, distrustful glance. “They’re going to do something.”

“Yep,” I agreed.

He fiddled with the collar of his white shirt. “I have a feeling Harvey’s speech is what we need to worry about.” As it was tradition for a friend of the couple to do a speech during the feast, both my squad and Ava’s had put their names into a hat. Harvey’s name had been drawn out, and we all knew that he would take absolute delight in making the entire thing painful at our expense. He could be a dick like that.