"Why are you doing this?" I whispered, clenching my eyes closed. "I stayed. When will it ever be enough?"
"When you're my wife," he growled, his fingers gripping my flesh so harshly I almost fell to my knees at his side. "When you're pregnant with my son. When I am imprinted on your very fuckingsoul," he snapped. "Only then will it ever be enough,mi reina."
"Do you, Rafael, take Isabel to be your wedded wife, to cherish in love and in friendship, in strength and in weakness, in success and in disappointment, to love her faithfully, today, tomorrow, and for as long as the two of you shall live?" The Priest's words crawled over my skin, the meaning something entirely different for most people than it would be for me.
There would be no divorce for me. No matter what he did, Rafael would never let me go.
"I do," he said, the words cracking against the evening air. I glanced up at him from the corner of my eye, finding his bright gaze turned to me. I bit my bottom lip as I waited, never looking at the man who would help Rafael condemn me to my fate as he spoke.
"Do you, Isabel, take Rafael to be your wedded husband, to cherish in love and in friendship, in strength and in weakness, in success and in disappointment, to love him faithfully, today, tomorrow, and for as long as the two of you shall live?" the Priest asked.
"I can't," I mumbled, flinching back against Rafael's grip.
"Say the fucking words, Isa," Rafael ordered, raising the gun he still held in his grip. He lifted it in my direction, touching the barrel to the side of my head as I looked at him out of the side of my eye.
The gasp caught in my lungs, echoed by the sound of the people standing behind us. "Rafael," the Priest protested. Blood roared in my head, the shock of his gun touching my face making everything beyond the two of us seem fuzzy.
"This is the only way you leave here without my ring on your finger,mi reina," he said harshly.
"Rafael," I whispered, tears falling as I stared at him in betrayal. I'd thought him incapable of surprising me, I'd thought I'd known exactly what he was capable of, but the violent storm in his eyes dared me to test him. There was no doubt he would follow through if I pushed him.
"I will not live without you as my wife. So say the fucking words, or we'll both stain the ground with our blood," he ordered.
I clenched my eyes shut, the hollow of my life settling over me. Rafael was a raging inferno, destroying everything he touched. I'd been foolish to think I might survive the flames. "I do," I whispered, sealing my fate.
Rafael dropped his hand from my neck and turned me to face him as he shoved his gun back into his pants. Alejandro stepped up at his side, depositing two rings into Rafael's outstretched hand as he grabbed my left in his grip and lifted it. He lined up the rose gold bands, sliding the engagement ring with a large, round moonstone at the center into the middle of the double banded wedding ring. The top of the band was studded with diamonds, resembling the crown on the Queen, and the wordshasta que la muertewere engraved into the bottom band as he slid them onto my ring finger.
The moonstone stared back at me, gleaming in the setting sun as the sky tinted orange.
Alejandro held out a ring, the brushed black gleaming with the golden wordsnos separeetched into the surface as Rafael lifted a hand. I sniffed back tears, plucking it out of his palm carefully and sliding it up his finger and accepting him as my husband.
"By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride!”
Rafael's face loomed closer, the fire in his eyes dying down to a burning ember as he cupped my face in the palm of his hand. His lips touched mine in our first kiss as husband and wife, a crushing and claiming touch that echoed everything he’d already made clear.
I would never be free.
The cold metal of his ring touched my skin as he devoured me, a physical reminder that I wasn't just me anymore.
I was the wife ofEl Diablo.