Elfie’s head spun while they picked out rings, and Tryp wouldn’t even let her ask the jeweler how much they cost.
He scrutinized the forty-some choices of men’s rings at the store, all stuffed into a velvet case, and finally called Elfie over to help him choose a wide band, wire-like ridges running around it so it looked sort of industrial, but very manly. The silvery platinum would match the steel chains he wore around his wrists at shows.
And then it was Elfie’s turn, and she stared at all the pretty rocks that glittered and cast laser sparks like the box was full of fire.
“Which one do you like?” Tryp asked.
“I don’t know.” So many. So, so many. All flashing at her.
“So buy two or three, and you can switch them out.”
“That’s weird! But only one would be the real band when we said our vows, anyway.”
“Nah, I’ll just hold all of them and stick them on all at once. Buy seven of them. Then you can have one for each day of the week.”
Okay, so he was teasing her. She grinned at him, and he laughed and tucked her under his arm again.
One ring in the corner caught her eye. Wavy gold X’s crisscrossed around the band, and diamonds studded the spaces between, above, and below the arms. “I like that one.”
Tryp craned his head to look at it. “The bent X’s look like fire,” he said. “It’s perfect. Don’t you want an engagement ring, though? One of the big ones?”
She shook her head. “I like that one.”
He slid his hand down her back from her shoulders to her waist, and Elfie leaned into him.
They separated to buy her dress and his suit, since he didn’t have another one beyond the suit that was lying in pieces across the Utah desert. Elfie found a sleek white dress that looked absolutely nothing like the swollen monstrosity that Sariah had brought to her. The yawning shop assistant found her some platform high heels that made hemming it unnecessary.
Good God, she was going to do this. She was going to marry him.
It had been a really wild day.
A tremor of nerves in her heart was squashed when she saw Tryp, carrying a garment bag but wearing his jeans and black tee shirt. Those gorgeous tattoos swarmed over his arms, and he was a smiling a huge smile just for her.
He trotted over. “Got everything?”
“Yeah. I guess I already did my hair and make-up.”
“And I already shaved. Let’s go to the chapel.”
She had to give the rock star one last chance to back out before he did something stupid and married the roadie. “You’re sure about this? Really?”
Tryp caught her around the waist with his free arm and pulled her against him. His lean, muscular body was firm under her palm, and she licked her lips.
He said, “I am more sure about this than anything else in my whole life. We belong together, my fire goddess.”
“I always thought of myself as a pyromaniac.”
“No, that was magic, when you threw fireballs and chased them all out of the temple, and then you burned it down.”
“It wasn’t all that great. I could have done it safely if I’d had an hour to set up, special effects bases, and a proper ignition board—”
He kissed her, and his mouth caressing her lips made her forget what she was protesting.
They rode the elevator upstairs to the chapel, her small hand in his strong one the whole way, and changed into their wedding outfits in separate dressing rooms in the chapel.
A man knocked on the door of Elfie’s changing room. “We’re ready for you, whenever you’re ready.”
Elfie took one last glance at herself in the wide mirror. Her gold-blond hair brought out the gold thread woven through the slim ivory gown, and she did kind of look like a fire goddess.
The guy handed her a bouquet of white roses, and she smiled at the symbol of purity for two virgins—one of them recently minted—marrying, and he opened the door to the chapel for her to walk down the aisle.
Tryp stood at the altar, darkly handsome and wearing a black suit and tie, as devilish as his middle name, amid thousands of white roses and candles, all glowing with fire.
She couldn’t have dreamed of anything more perfect.