Eileen Wilks - Mortal Sins

He didn’t, crossing the lawn with her still in his arms. “We might be celebrating your managing to stay in bed for nearly the entire day.”

“Almost worth it,” she decided as he at last set her on her feet next to one of the glossy white chairs.

There was champagne chilling in a bucket. Rule reached beneath the draped table and pulled out an ordinary ice chest—but the contents were anything but ordinary. Grapes, three kinds of cheese, apple blini with sour cream—who in Halo knew how to make blini?—and cold roast duck.

Also pickles. Five kinds of pickles. Lily nearly teared up over the pickles.

“In memory of our first meal together,” he murmured. “You piled half a jar’s worth of pickles on your burger.”

“And you piled half a cow’s worth of patties on yours. Rare.” She smiled—and, dammit, she was tearing up. “Now look what you’ve done. I . . . What, there’s more?”

He’d bent to retrieve one more thing from beneath the table—a lily. Or rather a cluster of lilies on a single long stem, lilies the color of flame, with big brown freckles like sunspots on their tightly curled petals.

Lilium lancifolium. The Oriental tiger lily.

“How in the world did you find tiger lilies? I’ve tried—for Grandmother, you know—but florists never carry them. They fade too quickly.”

“It . . .” Rule stopped. Swallowed. “Toby. He went around on his bike, found someone who grew them. I . . .” Mutely he held out the bright flowers.

She took the stalk, but her attention was for Rule, not his offering. He was . . . tongue-tied? Nervous, definitely, and she’s never seen that in him.

“The ribbon,” he said, his voice tight, as if his throat were closing up on him. “The ribbon.”

Oh. She hadn’t noticed, but yes, there was a green ribbon tied in an awkward bow at the center of the stalk, half-hidden by one of the blooms. Did he want her to untie it? Puzzled, she moved the bloom aside . . .

And shoved to her feet, her heart pounding like a mad thing, her eyes wide and fixed on the orange flowers she’d dropped, such a bright orange against the white china plate. Flowers tied with a green ribbon. A ribbon threaded through a ring.

A ring with a single diamond.

“It’s not a snake,” Rule said dryly.

“It’s a ring. An engagement ring.” Now she looked at him, her voice rising. “You can’t give me that. You can’t.”

“I can. I have. The question is whether you’ll accept it.” He pushed back his chair, stood, and ran a hand over his hair. “I had this speech worked out. I thought it was good, but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember a single word. I got everything else right, but the words . . . I wanted it to be right.”

She spoke slowly, as if he might need time to absorb each word. “You can’t get married. You can’t marry, so you can’t give me an engagement ring.”

“Marry me.”

That’s when she lost words.

He’d found them again. “I’m pretty sure that was part of the speech, though I hope I worked it in more gracefully. Marry me, Lily.”

“You think I’d do that?” she demanded, suddenly fierce. “You think I’d agree to cut you off from your people, force you into something you believe is wrong, in order to please myself or to satisfy some—some bunch of whoevers who know nothing about us?”

“No. Marry me because I ask.” He rounded the table and gripped her arms just above the elbows. “Not to satisfy anyone else, though other people do matter, Lily. Your family matters. All the people who deride you for associating with me—their barbs can hurt. And they make trouble for you. You know they do.”

“No biggie. I can handle that sort—who wouldn’t stop being assholes if I wore a ring, you know.”

“They aren’t all assholes. Take Sheriff Deacon. He made your job harder because of me. He’s not a bad person—bigoted, or he was, but that’s ignorance. He’s basically an honorable man, and he couldn’t see you clearly because of me. Because he believed I treated you dishonorably.”

“So to make my life a little easier I’m supposed to ruin yours? Rule, I may not have grown up in the clans, but I know how they’d react. How your father would react.”

“I can handle it. Handle him.”

“Some of them are shunning Cullen. Did you know that? You must. He shrugs it off, but he’s used to being an outsider. You—”

“He was right. He said I was jealous, and he was right. I want this for me . You’ll have to decide if it’s right for you, but . . .” His expression hardened. “I warn you, if you say no, I won’t give up. I’ll keep asking.”

Reality had turned fizzy. Or maybe that was her blood bubbling in her veins. Her head felt light, floaty, as if she’d already downed that bottle of champagne. “That’s not exactly fair, is it? I can’t leave if you—if you keep bugging me.”

“You’ll have to deal with that.”

Oh, there was that arrogance again, but with it, beneath it, he was grim. Her heart fluttered. “Why?” she whispered. “Why do you want this? I love you. We’re bonded for life. Marriage won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off. She swallowed. “Why?”

“I want to plight you my troth.” His voice was soft now. Quiet. “It’s a lovely old word, isn’t it? Troth. It means loyalty, the pledge of fidelity. It comes from an Old English word meaning truth. You are my truth, Lily.”

This man, she thought. This was the man, the only man, her Rule, her mate, the one she loved in both his selves, wolf and human . . . Loved his mysteries, his beauty, his quirks, and his arrogance. Loved his slanted eyebrows and the way he listened and the way he gave and gave and gave. She loved him. Loved him.

And he said it again. “Marry me.”

Like suddenly starred ice, she cracked—the fissures spreading, breaking up into giggling shots of fizz—a cork-popping, fiercely bubbling, frost-and-fire effervescence that had her laughing, throwing her arms around him and laughing as she held on, held on to him as she said it: “Yes.”

[end]