Faery Wedding by Mina Carter Page A

it was time.
    She could do this. She had to do this. There was no way out. She had to marry Lord Hunter, Keeper of the Black Plains. A man not just older than she was but five hundred years older.
    The door opened behind her.
    “Isn’t it bad enough I’m the damn virgin sacrifice? I thought I told you lot to go,” Ash snapped, as tension and anger at her situation made her temper short and her voice sharp.
     

    Gods, in her wedding dress she was stunning.
    Deverell, Lord Hunter, leaned against the doorframe and studied his bride. He’d left her early this morning whilst she slept. Spread naked over the bed, the silken sheets highlighted rather than concealed her perfect curves. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. He’d had to do it though. If he stayed, he ran the risk of cracking and telling her everything.
    If he did that, it would mean admitting he was the groom she was trying to deceive, and that he’d been deceiving her in return. He didn’t want to do that, not just yet. He wanted to see the look of joy on her face when she walked down the aisle, and he was waiting for her rather than the grumpy old lord she was expecting.
    Still, he hadn’t been able to resist this one glance at her before the ceremony. As soon as she’d arrived the need to see her had built up until he couldn’t bear it anymore. It wasn’t done, and he wouldn’t have acted on it had he not seen the women filing out of the small chamber set aside for the Bride and her party. Knowing Ash was alone had galvanised him into action. Before he’d made a conscious decision, he was pushing open the door.
    “Didn’t I tell you to g—”
    When he didn’t respond to the first soft order, Ash turned around. Anger flared in her eyes and crackled in the witching around her. She was gorgeous when she was mad, so sexy it made his heart stop, and after today—no, after last night—she was all his. The need to touch her, claim her again, roared through him. Dev strode forward as the look of anger on her face was replaced by one of shock.
    “Dev? What the hell are you doing here?”
    He didn’t give her an answer. Instead, he caught her up in his arms and pinned her against the window behind her. He boosted her up a little. Her ass fit perfectly on the window ledge as the full skirts of her wedding gown billowed around them.
    His lips crashed down on hers, demanding and taking as he ruthlessly prised her lips apart. Any finesse he possessed was gone, crushed under a tsunami of possessiveness and desire. He didn’t care that outside the room, a whole congregation of people were waiting for them. He didn’t care that she was in her wedding dress and he was crushing it as he parted her thighs to lodge his hips between hers. He didn’t care that she didn’t know her groom was already claiming her as his.
    Again.
    All that mattered was the heaven of her silken lips and soft mouth as he plundered them, and the lush curves he hauled up against his hard body. She was like a drug, an addiction he had no intention of fighting.
     

    It all happened so fast. No sooner had Ash turned to berate whoever had decided to intrude on her last few moments of freedom, she recognized the tall form lounging in the doorway. It was a figure she’d know anywhere, even though this time yesterday she’d never seen him before in her life. After last night, every solid line of muscle, and look on his cruelly handsome face, were carefully locked away in her memory. That was last night, and this was today.
    Her wedding day.
    She tore her lips away from him. “No. Dev…we can’t do this.”
    Without a pause, he started to kiss along her neck, seeking the spot behind and below her ear that made her squirm. His voice was a harsh rasp of need as he answered.
    “Too late sweetheart, we are.”
    His hands pulled at her full skirts, seeking her legs. He sighed against her lips as his callused palms found her silk covered ankles and stroked upward. Fire and ice swept