Chapter 22 Wedding of Thorns

Chapter 22 Wedding of Thorns
Marisol’s POV 

The High District Cathedral was a monument to hypocrisy. Its soaring white arches and stained-glass windows depicted saints and martyrs, but today, the air inside smelled like a slaughterhouse masked by too much incense.

I stood in the shadows of the narthex, my fingers digging into the rough fabric of my cloak. My heart was a frantic, jagged thing, beating against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every instinct I had told me to scream, to burn this whole place to the ground, and to find Sofia.

I could feel her. The bond—not the one with the golden-eyed bastard at the altar, but the blood-bond with my sister—was screaming. She was close. She was terrified. And she was being used as a decorative threat.

"Control yourself, Mari," a voice rasped beside me.

I looked at Mateo. He wasn't the boy who had grown up in the gutters with me. He looked like a corpse reanimated by lightning. His skin was the color of old ash, and his eyes were a swirling, toxic violet that didn't seem to have pupils anymore. He didn't smell like cedar or rain; he smelled like the deep, rotting earth of the tunnels.

"I can feel her, Mateo," I whispered. "Silas has her. If I move too soon—"

"If you move too soon, she dies," Mateo said, his voice a flat, dead drone. He reached out and took my hand. His skin was unnaturally cold, sending a shiver of revulsion up my arm. "But they aren't looking for a rescue. They’re looking for a show. So let's give the King his fucking performance."

The organ music swelled—a triumphant, oppressive sound that signaled the start of the final act.

I threw back my cloak.

I wasn't wearing a revolutionary’s rags. I was wearing a dress of sheer, blood-red lace that clung to my body like a second skin, the back completely open to show the world the mark Dante had tried to claim. I looked like a wound. I looked like a warning.

"Let's go," I said, my voice hardening into a blade.

The massive oak doors swung open.

The silence that followed was more violent than any explosion. Hundreds of Syndicate elites, human politicians, and Council members turned in their pews. The gasps rippled through the air like a physical wave.

I didn't look at the crowd. I looked at the altar.

Dante stood there in a white military dress uniform, looking every bit the King I had once thought he could be. But his face was a mask of stone. Beside him, Sloane looked like a silver spider in a gown of shimmering silk, her hand possessively tucked into his arm.

Then I saw them.

Off to the side, near the vestry door, stood Silas. And in front of him, forced to her knees with a silver dagger pressed to her throat, was Sofia. Her eyes were wide with terror, her face streaked with tears. Behind her, Enzo was chained to a stone pillar, his chest bare and bloody, the "Culling" marks fresh on his skin. He looked half-dead, but when his eyes met mine, he let out a low, guttural growl of warning.

Don't do it, Mari. It's a trap.

I ignored him. I ignored the guards leveling their rifles. I hooked my arm through Mateo’s and began the long walk down the aisle.

"Keep walking," Mateo whispered, his violet eyes locked on Dante. "Let him see what he traded for that silver bitch."

Dante’s reaction was subtle to the humans, but to me, it was a tectonic shift. His pupils blown wide, his jaw tightening so hard I heard the bone pop. The bond between us flared—a hot, agonizing pulse of jealousy and betrayal that nearly brought me to my knees. He looked at Mateo’s hand on my waist, and the gold in his eyes turned into a molten, murderous fire.

"Marisol," Dante rasped, the name catching in his throat.

"Don't mind us, Alpha," I said, my voice carrying to the rafters. We stopped ten feet from the altar. I leaned my head onto Mateo’s shoulder, a mocking, intimate gesture that made the violet light in Mateo’s eyes flare with a dark triumph. "We just couldn't miss the wedding of the century. It’s not every day a King sells his soul for a piece of silver."

"Get her out of here!" Silas roared, his hand tightening on the knife at Sofia’s throat. A thin line of red appeared on her neck.

"Touch her, and I'll turn this cathedral into an oven, Silas," I snarled, the red lace of my dress beginning to smoke as my magic surged. "I'm not here to stop the wedding. I'm here to witness the end of an era."

Dante stepped forward, ignoring Sloane’s frantic grip on his arm. He looked at me, and for a second, the Alpha mask cracked. I saw the man who had held me in the safehouse. I saw the man who had sacrificed his honor for Enzo.

"Mari, leave," he whispered, his voice thick with a desperate, silent plea. "You don't know what you're doing."

"Oh, I think I do," I said, looking him dead in the eye. I reached up and stroked Mateo’s cheek, my fingers lingering on his cold skin. "I found someone who doesn't need to cage me, Dante. Someone who understands that the Vein doesn't want peace. It wants us."

The insult hit him like a physical blow. Dante’s wolf roared in his chest—a sound so loud it shattered the crystal chalice on the altar. He moved toward me, his hands clenching into fists.

"He's nothing to you," Dante growled, his voice a primal vibration. "He's a puppet of the rot."

"And what are you?" I challenged. "A puppet of a Council that has your brother in chains and your mate’s sister under a knife? You’re not a King, Dante. You’re a fucking slave in a white suit."

"Enough!" Sloane screamed, her face contorted with rage. "Silas, kill the girl! Kill them all!"

Silas raised the dagger, his eyes gleaming with a sick, righteous joy.

"Sofia!" I screamed, lunging forward.

But I didn't reach her.

The world didn't just shake; it screamed.

A sound like the earth’s ribs snapping echoed through the cathedral. The massive marble floor beneath the altar suddenly buckled. A jagged, violent crack tore through the center of the aisle, spreading with terrifying speed.

Violet light—darker and more toxic than anything I’d ever seen—erupted from the fissure.

"It’s time," Mateo whispered, but it wasn't his voice. It was the thousand voices of the Vein.

He didn't look at me. He looked at the floor, his arms spreading wide. The earthquake intensified, throwing the pews across the room. People were screaming, scrambling for the exits as the stained-glass windows shattered, raining shards of colored glass like lethal confetti.

Dante lunged for Sofia, his wolf-speed a blur, but the floor between them exploded upward. A pillar of obsidian-black stone shot out of the earth, separating the altar from the rest of the room.

"MARI!" Dante’s voice echoed over the roar of the collapsing building.

I looked at Mateo. He was hovering a few inches off the ground, his skin beginning to crack as the violet light poured out of him. He wasn't just a witch anymore. He was the conduit.

"The expansion ends here, Alpha!" Mateo’s voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of the city. "The earth is tired of your poison! It's time for the High District to sink!"

The crack in the floor widened into a chasm. I saw the Syndicate guards falling into the violet abyss, their screams cut short.

I looked toward the vestry. Silas had been thrown back by the blast, the dagger falling from his hand. Sofia was scrambling away, and Enzo—bless his stubborn soul—was ripping the stone pillar out of the floor with the raw, desperate strength of a wolf who had found his reason to live.

"Sofia! Enzo! Get out!" I yelled, trying to move toward them, but the ground beneath me was vanishing.

The cathedral was splitting in half.

On one side stood Dante—isolated, his wedding ruined, his empire literally falling into the dirt. On the other side stood me, anchored to a monster that wore the face of my best friend.

The floor beneath the altar gave way entirely. The massive stone structure began to tilt, sliding into the glowing violet maw of the earth.

"DANTE!" I screamed, my hand stretching out toward him.

He looked at me, the gold in his eyes meeting my violet for one last, agonizing second. He didn't reach for Sloane. He didn't reach for the crown. He lunged across the growing gap, his fingers grazing mine as the roof of the cathedral began to cave in.

"I'M NOT LETTING YOU GO!" he roared.

But the Vein had other plans.

A massive surge of violet energy erupted from the chasm, a physical shockwave that slammed into the walls. The ceiling collapsed in a rain of white marble and gold leaf, plunging the entire sanctuary into a suffocating cloud of dust and violet light.

As the ground settled into a terrifying, rhythmic thrumming, the last thing I heard wasn't the screaming of the dying or the roar of the fire.

It was Mateo’s voice, whispering in my ear with the cold, dead certainty of the grave.

"The wedding is over, Mari. The reign of the wolf is finished."

I looked down into the abyss. The High District was gone. In its place was a pulsing, violet heart—and we were all being pulled down into the dark.