novelxo King of the Cage: Chapter 19
Later, Declan showed up and took Sol home. Aoife made to leave, and generally the entire pub got quieter. It was getting late, and the longest day of my life was nearly at an end. I needed to go home, too, but felt strangely reluctant to be alone after tonight. The Selkie’s Rest was comfortingly bustling compared to the quiet of my apartment.
There was a giant of man with a ruddy red beard, working the bar. The family resemblance to Aoife was undeniable.
“That’s Fergus, my son,” Aoife seemed to read my thoughts. “I could tell you the life stories of every person in here, and their parents, and their parents before them.”
“Sounds suffocating,” I remarked.
She just shrugged. “That’s family for you, for better or worse.”
Before leaving, Aoife patted my hand warmly and gave me a real smile. “When you walked in here, I wasn’t sure if I could see you together. You and Bran, you looked like gasoline and a match. But now… I see it. Take care of my boy. He’s not like the rest of them,” she said, staring over my shoulder.
I turned to follow her gaze. Bran was still behind the bar, chatting with the made men of the family, pulling pints and listening to those who needed to talk, all while keeping a careful eye on my table.
“He’s not mine to take care of,” I murmured.
The old cook had clearly gotten the wrong idea about us arriving together.
Aoife smiled. “Isn’t he? See you tomorrow, Giada.”
I watched her leave.
“Aoife’s worked here since my ma used to run the place. She’s the beating heart of it,” Bran sighed, settling into the booth beside me.
He was so damn big, he took up all the space, and his side pressed against mine. He felt solid as a rock. I went to slide around the table a little to give him space, but his arm went around the back of the booth, and his hand cupped my shoulder, keeping me in place.
“She approved of you, that doesn’t happen often,” he said.
“Brought some pretty flings in here and she’s hurt their feelings, has she?” I meant to tease, but it didn’t come out that way. The thought of Bran bringing any of his adoring fans in here to his family pissed me off. I needed my head examined.
“How are you feeling now?”
I thought about it for a long moment. “I feel angry,” I admitted. Sure, fear was there, and I was shaken, too, but anger was the predominant emotion.
“How can they get away with treating people like they do? Because they’re rich and powerful, they can play sick games with girls, right here, in our city.”
Bran nodded. “But not for long,” he added. “Because we’re going to stop them.”
“We are?”
Bran nodded and hugged me close.
Heat flushed through me. “What are you doing?”
Bran flashed his eyes to the window beside me. “Putting on a show.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been followed since the second we left the hotel. Right now, they’re watching us.”
I stiffened, fear coating my mouth and turning it dry. “What do we do?”
“Play along. They think I’m trying to become a member. We need to let them think it. They also think that we’re engaged. We need to let them believe that, too.”
“Why?”
Bran sighed. “The way I see it, we take some boys, bust into the hotel, and kill everyone we find. Whether we find out who’s in charge, or who The Sentinel is… we might, or might not, but we deal them a blow.”
“No, we need to find the head of the snake… that’s the only way it all stops.”
Bran nodded. “Agreed, wee one, and for that to happen… I need you.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, a warm flush flooding through me. “You need me?”
He nodded. “I can’t keep you out of it. You can run rings around my boys.”
His lips lifted in an admiring smirk. No one had ever talked about me outsmarting them with such respect.
A potentially fatal flaw in the plan occurred to me. “My brother will kill you if he thinks we’re interacting… never mind fake dating, spending time together, any of it.”
“Let me worry about Elio.” He gazed down at me, and the intense, possessive look in his eyes set my skin on fire. “I need you, wee one.”
Oh man, this guy was hot. He was hot as all hell, and so disarmingly charming. I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t handle it, especially tonight.
“I need another drink,” I muttered.
“You’ve had enough. I’m cutting you off. You could be in shock,” Bran admonished. That’s right. He was hot as hell but bossy, too.
“You’re still drinking,” I pointed out.
“I’m three times your size,” he fired back, bringing his whiskey glass to his lips.
I grabbed his wrist before he reached his mouth and redirected it to mine. I took a long swallow from his glass and licked my lips after. My head spun from the sour, burning sensation of the whiskey.
Bran watched my lips intently. “That’s not playing fair, selkie.”
The nickname caught my attention. “Again with the selkie. You never did tell me why you call me that?”
Bran set his glass down and took a moment to answer. “A selkie is a seal, lassie. A wild, mythical creature, too special and magical to stay on land for long. When a selkie comes ashore, she sheds her skin and appears as a bonny lass. Men covet her. They scheme to steal her skin, so she can never return to her ocean home,” he said quietly.
His deep, rumbling voice was making me sleepy. I didn’t fall asleep easily. I wasn’t the kind of person who could drift off in strange, new places. It was a level of trust I’d never experienced. But tonight, with the whiskey, full belly, and the solid, secure presence of the man next to me, sleep tugged at me.
“Why would they do that?” I wondered, my voice slurring slightly. A big hand guided my head to a firm surface. Bran’s chest. I could feel his heart beating under my ear. It should be far too personal a position for both of us, but it wasn’t.
“So they can keep her… They’d do anything to keep her.”
“That’s cruel,” I muttered, pressing my face into his shoulder. God, that scent. It did something to me on a primitive level. It seemed to quiet my monkey brain, and there was just warm silence inside.
“That’s the nature of men. Tired?”
I nodded and made a noise of affirmation.
“Then take a rest, wee one. I’ll take care of everything else.”
Everything else? My exhausted mind could barely notice the odd phrasing before the world slipped away.
I woke to a gentle rocking sensation. Bran’s smell was all around me. I was so comfortable I didn’t want to move. I was surrounded by his arms. His fingers combed through my hair.
Then the rocking stopped, and a slam sounded. Cool air hit the top of my head, and then I was lifted.
Damn it. It was probably time I admitted I was awake.
I cracked open my eyes to the oddest sight.
Candles and flower displays, and the heavy scent of incense in the air. Men stood on either side of us, and Aoife was there, too. A man with an oxygen tank sat in a wheelchair. I struggled to sit up.
“Ah, you’re awake, after all?” Bran asked. “Good.”
“What’s going on?” I wriggled fruitlessly, since there was no way to escape Bran’s grip.
“Doing what I must.”
“Well, that’s not an answer,” I muttered and craned my neck around. I spied a man standing before an altar, a huge crucifix hanging above. The sight filled me with panic.
“Let me down,” I hissed, trying to escape.
“I can’t do that,” Bran said stubbornly. “I can’t have you trying to run away.”
“Run away from what?” I demanded, fully awake now. My heart beat hard, and nerves crawled up my throat.
Bran paused before the priest. He looked down at me, still caught in his arms.
“Our wedding.”
He set me down, and it wasn’t until the priest stepped forward and made the sign of the cross in front of us that my brain kicked into gear.
“You can’t be serious?” I gaped at him.
The priest cleared his throat, obviously impatient, and spoke. “Dearly beloved, we’re gathered here, at the arse-end of the night, for one reason, the only one that could pull me from my kip at this hour,” he intoned solemnly.
A chorus of amens echoed around the crowd.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, properly taking in the so-called priest for the first time. He had tattoos on nearly every inch of exposed skin, except his face. I turned around and stared at the audience. Made men of the O’Connor family, and their wives, all turned out in the small hours of the morning for a wedding.
My wedding.
Who I assumed to be Colm O’Connor, the patriarch, sat in the wheelchair, security around him, gazing on at us approvingly.
“What are you doing? Is this a joke? You only said I was your fiancée to save the situation — it was just a ploy!”
Bran shook his head. He was wearing his white shirt and black pants from earlier. His sleeves were rolled back to his elbows, and his long blond hair was pulled sharply back. He looked cleaner and tidier than I’d ever seen him.
“No. I just let you think that, selkie. You and I were always going to end up here.”
“No, we weren’t. I’m not getting married, ever, at all. Not as some silly act to keep The Enclave off my back, and not for anything else, either!”
“I’m afraid you are. You are marrying me. I think I’ve known that, deep down, since that night I saw you at Renato’s wedding.”
I shook my head, caught between confusion and fury. I took a step back and came up against a hard body.
Declan, right behind me.
Two more men stood below us, like lethal, tattooed bridesmaids, making sure I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Now, if the blushing bride would kindly shut her sailor’s mouth, we can get on with this thing,” the priest announced. “Do you, Brandon O’Connor, take this woman, Giada Santori, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to shelter and respect, to protect until your dying breath?”
I stared open-mouthed at Bran as he nodded. “I do.”
“What the hell?” I cried out and reached for him. “You don’t need to do this. You want me out of everything to do with The Enclave? That’s fine, I’m out. Just don’t do this.”
“Giada Santori, do you take this man, Brandon O’Connor, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, to shelter and respect, to protect until your dying breath?”
“No! I absolutely fucking do not,” I retorted.
“Excellent, then in the power vested in me from that website I registered on a few hours ago, I now pronounce you husband and wife.
As I stared around in horror at the priest, a tight, constricted feeling enveloped my ring finger. Bran had forced on a ring. I snatched my hand away and tried to tug it off. He watched me as I struggled, slipping a gold band onto his own ring finger.
“It won’t come off. It’s super glued,” he said with all seriousness. I could only stare at him.
The priest cleared his throat.
“Right, kiss each other, kill each other, do what you want,” the priest said then lit a cigarette, while the rest of the room erupted in cheers and bawdy suggestions.
“What the hell? That wasn’t a wedding. I never said yes!”
The priest shrugged. “I heard a ‘yes.’”
“So did I,” Declan said behind me.
“As did I, wee one,” Bran said, pulling me close despite my hard shoves at his chest. “Everyone here will attest to that, so that makes you — my wife.”