Chapter 20 - The Throne of Truth
The wedding was not held at the Greenwich Country Club.
There were no press photographers, no corrupt mayors, and no society gossip columnists trying to dissect the guest list.
It took place on a private cliffside estate in Newport, Rhode Island, overlooking the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean—the very place Celeste’s family had once ruled, now reclaimed and repurposed.
Only a handful of people attended: Mrs. Gable, Marcus, a local judge who valued his life too much to ask questions, and a very happy four-year-old flower girl in a white lace dress who spent the entire ceremony trying to catch seagulls.
I wore a simple, elegant ivory gown that caught the ocean breeze.
When the judge pronounced us husband and wife, Caleb kissed me with a fierce, possessive hunger that made the Atlantic waves crashing against the rocks sound like distant applause.
Later that evening, as the stars came out to blanket the New England sky in diamond dust, I stood on the balcony of the cliffside villa, looking out over the dark, beautiful ocean.
Footsteps approached softly behind me.
Warm arms slid around my waist, pulling me back against a solid, familiar chest. Caleb rested his chin on my shoulder, inhaling the scent of my hair.
“Cold?” he murmured.
“Never,” I replied, leaning back into his embrace. “I used to think people like us—people who survived the dark—had to keep running forever.”
Caleb tightened his grip, turning me around in his arms so I could look up into his stormy gray eyes.
“We aren't running anymore, Marisol,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. “We own the dark. And we built the light.”
Down below, on the manicured lawn, Daisy was chasing fireflies in the moonlight, her innocent laughter ringing out like music against the night.
May you like
I smiled, resting my hand over the sapphire ring on my finger, knowing that no matter what storms lay ahead in the world we had chosen, we were safe.
We were home.
