The day of the wedding arrived and it was beautiful and Aldain insisted he wanted to take care of setting everything up. Tori wasn’t sure what he had in mind but his mother assured her, whatever it was, it would be spectacular. He also wanted to choose picking out her wedding dress. She trusted him enough to let him do all these things while she concentrated on the guest list and the food. She was glad her sister turned out to be such a marvelous cook, not to mention her mother and Cassie were there to help with matters. They all insisted on fixing the meals for the wedding. It seemed that the numerous items delivered came in truck loads. Tori’s list of guests was very small since everyone she wanted there was already at the castle. Aldain’s list, on the other hand, was huge. When Tori saw his list, it looked like he invited all of Scotland. His entire clan was invited along with everyone from the McEwan clan. It also looked like there might be everyone from town too.
Tori got to meet Aldain’s best friend Malcolm MacMurray who was also the one in charge of Aldain’s clan when he wasn’t around to take charge. Aldain wasn’t there much because being a council member took up much of his time. Malcolm did a superb job of taking care of matters concerning the clan. He was also going to be best man at the wedding.
Tori was having her best friend Carrie as her maid of honor. She asked her sister, but Becca really wanted to do the cooking for everyone. Tori wasn’t hurt at all that she had declined the offer, she knew her sister loved her and she loved her sister enough to not feel offended. If cooking for the masses meant that much to her then she was all for having her do what made her happy.
As the time grew closer for the ceremony, Tori was feeling butterflies in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t seen Dain all day. She was starting to wonder if he was capable of setting things up like he said. While wondering if she should just sneak away and peek at the glen they were going to be married in, the doorbell rang. When she answered it, a man dressed in the colors of Dain’s clan stood there with a large clothing box in his hand. He bowed to Tori, introduced himself as one of the honor guards that was part of the wedding party and informed her he was delivering her wedding dress.
Tori had no idea the wedding was going to include an honor guard. It was Dain’s wedding too so if he wanted an honor guard he could have one. She would find out later that honor guards were all part of Paragon Dragon weddings. They were the first dragon shifters to come into existence and were the protectors of the human race. It was something special when one found their soul mate and she was in for a wonderful surprise when she got to the glen.
Her mother, Heather and Cassie all followed her upstairs. Their curiosity was so palpable that Tori didn’t have the heart to draw out opening the box slowly. She tore it open, her curiosity as intense as theirs. When she opened the tissue paper and saw the gown, they all gasped. It was the most glamorous gown they had ever seen. It was made to mold to her body like a bodysuit. The background of the gown was white, but throughout the gown were small flames of orange and red.
These flames represented Dain’s clan coat of arms. It was a huge red flame with a smaller orange flame in the middle. The silk of the gown had a luminous glow to it. The entire waist was covered with blue sapphires and the hem was surrounded by golden leaves. They represented the leaves on the Tree of Life. Tori was touched that Dain remembered her telling him about the design on Athena’s armor. The entire length of her veil was embossed with golden Trees of life. In the box was a small square jewelry case, in it were earrings made of pure gold. On them was a single leaf surrounded by more flames. They shimmered every time the light hit them when Tori moved her head. The flames were dancing and looked alive when light touched them. By the time the women were done with Tori she looked exquisite.
Her bouquet was made of white and blue flowers with tiny orange roses set in strategic places to make everything be noticeable. She was met at the door by six honor guards and she walked in the middle of them as they marched towards the glen. They were all dressed in the Kincaid colors, their shirts were red and their kilts were red plaid. They each had a sword attached to their waist with the Tree of Life etched in gold on their scabbards. They were all solidly built and you could tell they were soldiers from the way they carried themselves. Tori knew they would be formidable men to meet in a battle. Her family and Carrie walked behind the small procession.
Tori gasped as she arrived at the glen. There was a small gazebo in the middle of it with chairs surrounding it in a semi-circle. Canvas tops were above all the chairs and farther back were more tops above tables of food. In the middle of the gazebo stood the Kincaid minister, Aldain and Malcolm. Dain looked extremely handsome in his Kincaid uniform.
The sight of him took Tori’s breath away. When Aldain saw her his jaw dropped slightly but he quickly closed his mouth. She was beyond stunning; to him she was the most beautiful woman in existence. His dragon huffed and Aldain was having a very hard time keeping him at bay. “Hey, she will be ours soon enough. If you keep acting like this you will scare her away then all the patience we used getting to this moment will have been for naught. Behave!” His dragon made a mewling sound but was quiet for now. They both knew she would belong to them shortly.
The honor guard stepped back as they arrived at the gazebo as Tori’s dad then took his place beside her. He whispered in her ear. “You are beautiful sweetheart. I have never been so proud.”
Tori’s eyes brim with tears. “Thank you, daddy. I love you!” He cleared his throat at her declaration.
Music started in the background from the many bag pipe players which was the minister’s que to ask who was giving her away. With a look of pride and love Tori’s dad put her hand in Aldain’s. As they turned to face the minister, Aldain pulled a paper out of his pocket. He had written his own vows. Tori was surprised because he didn’t tell her he was going to do this. If she would have known she would have written her own also.
He looked deep into her eyes as he said in a strong voice, “Tori my love, until I met you I didn’t realize how lonely my life was. The love you have given me has taken away my loneliness and filled my heart and soul with love and laughter. Your smile is like sunshine, your laughter like the song of angels. You are the air I breathe; you are my life and the other half of my soul. You took a half of a man and made him whole, I tell you this day. I will love no other, I will be there for you in good times and bad. Forever I will love you and will do everything within my power to make you happy and love you unconditionally. I am honored to be your husband. I love you more than my life, forever I am yours.”
As he recited his vows, the tears were falling freely down Tori’s face. She couldn’t imagine loving him any more than she did at this moment. She felt his love fill her entire being. Her love for him poured out of her body, it overwhelmed the area around her. People close to her could feel it springing from her.
Tori thanked him for his eloquent and heartfelt words. She said, “My precious love; I have no words written on paper to tell you how I feel or what your love does for me. Each day I wake I find I love you more than the day before. I have experienced the love of your heart and your soul and for this I thank you. All I can do is return your love as deeply as your love is for me. I promise you, I will love no other, desire no other and I want only you at my side. I will love you during the good and bad times. I love you more than the stars in the sky, to lose you would be worse than death. I need you in my life; I am yours now and forever, in life and in death.” Aldain wasn’t expecting this from Tori. Her love for him humbled him like nothing else ever had.
They both looked deeply into each other’s eyes, sending each other their love and a promise of ecstasy when they were alone. They both turned towards the minister. He said very few words after the vows they had just expressed to each other and pronounced them man and wife. As he pronounced Tori his wife, Aldain lifted her veil, pulled her body close to his and assaulted her lips with a sensuous kiss. His kiss deepened as Tori’s lips matched his, her tongue curling in his mouth, showing him her heightened senses were just as strong as his. Both seemed to forget where they were until a cheer went up from the men in Aldain’s Clan. Tori’s face turned red, which Aldain thought was adorable. He had never seen someone’s face turn quite that shade before. He would have to see if he could manage to do that again, from a distance of course. His idea of having fun at her expense might not go over as well with her and he wasn’t an idiot. She might be small but she was dynamite when crossed. She was the true epitome of ‘watch out for big things coming out of small packages’.
As people from Aldain’s clan all stood in line to meet their Clan Lord’s new wife, Tori thought she saw someone at the edge of the tree line, standing where he could barely be seen. When she blinked, and looked again, he was gone. She must be getting paranoid or something. Maybe it was having so many people taking up so much space in her little glen; she loved the glen. It was the one place Dain and her would go to spend time together. Whether to sit under a tree and talk, fish, swim or make love. It was their secret gem and she wasn’t used to seeing it full of other people. It almost felt sacrilegious to her but she knew it was only for today.
The line seemed unending to Tori. Her feet were killing her and she was getting hot standing in one place. Aldain noticed his brides discomfort and to her surprise carried over her favorite recliner, the one she always liked to sit on in the castle.
She raised an eyebrow. He looked at her with a sheepish grin. “Well I knew eventually you were going to get tired standing on your feet for so long so I had some of my men hide it away out here for when you needed it.
Tori gave him a hug and pulled his head down to hers. “You are something you know that, I so owe you one for this.” She gave him one of her smiles that sent the blood rushing from his heart to his manhood. He felt it start to stiffen and engorge. The entire day he had been fighting with his body to behave. Tori looked so appealing all he wanted to do was take her with him to the place he was taking her for their honeymoon and devour that luscious body of hers. For most of the day he kept it under control, but it seemed as time went on he was starting to lose the battle.
Cade and Becca remained in the castle while the sun was high, using the excuse that they had to keep the food going for the hungry people outside of the castle. Becca had told Tori earlier about her being turned into a vampire by Cade. Tori wasn’t sure how she felt about her sister being a vampire, she worried about the fear of her having lost her soul. Cade assured her that this wasn’t the case. The only way a vampire lost its soul was if it preyed on humans and became totally evil, having lost the last of its humanity over time. Cade might have spent a couple of hundred years killing the descendants of the judges that put his first wife to death, but he didn’t feed off them. He just killed them because the thought of their blood in his body turned his stomach.
Becca had told her that they lived off animal blood or occasionally got blood from the blood banks from the hospital. They had a fellow vampire that worked there and he could sneak out blood when they would get a surplus of it in from the occasional blood drives the hospital would have. Considering her sister would have died if Cade hadn’t turned her softened the blow for Tori. She was grateful her sister was still alive, in a manner of speaking, so was glad that Cade had saved her. She didn’t particularly care how as long as it didn’t turn her sister into some kind of soulless blood sucking monster. Finding all this out made her feel safe enough that her nightmares were almost non-existent now, not to forget that she was also the mate of a dragon. What human could even come close to winning a fight against them?
As the sun started to set and the light of the sun started to turn a soft yellow, Cade and Becca were finally able to join in the party. The rest of the food was being kept warm in warming pans; Becca had finally fixed the last of it. She was tired but had a pleased expression on her face when she saw most of what she had fixed had been eaten. It seemed there wasn’t going to be as much left over as she had thought. It gave her a feeling of accomplishment to see that everyone there seemed to enjoy the food she had prepared, Cade was just as proud of her. He sometimes wondered if a vampire could get fat from eating too much food. He could also eat human food but blood was the life force that kept a vampire alive. Eating human food, was just something that was enjoyable and helped them keep in touch with some of their human qualities.
Tori was glad to see them both, they walked over to her and hugged both her and Aldain. Tori’s dad thought it a little strange that his daughter Becca wanted to stay inside during the wedding service but he recorded the ceremony so Becca and Cade could watch it on DVD.