Evanescent Ink (Copperline #4) (32 page)

Raven didn't even blink, stepping out of my arms to close in on Maggie, completely undaunted. The crowd around us grew quiet as Raven closed in with conviction.

“See,” Raven shot back, “that’s it, right there. You don’t get it. You don’t get
him
. Go back to being a fucking lesbian, because Drew
does
want
just
me.
Only
me. I’m better than you and all your slutty little friends combined. So get the fuck out of here and leave
my
man alone.”

“Are you serious? A little freak like you?” Maggie scoffed. “You'll never keep him. He'll go back to dreaming of fame and groupies and will leave you in the dust.”

But Raven just brashly smiled back. “You’re wrong, bitch,” she retorted, eyeing her with a level gaze. “In all the time you were controlling Drew, you never listened to what he was
truly
saying. You don't know him at all. I’m the wildest dream he ever had, and I’ve come true.”

“I should just kick your fucking ass,” Maggie snarled, but she stumbled back when Raven reached out and gave her a good, hard shove.

“Go ahead and fucking try it,” Raven growled, pushing her again.

A few people gasped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Felicity rise from her chair. Denny grabbed her arm, holding her back to let Raven settle this once and for all. Justin stood beside them, groaning a little every time Raven gave Maggie another shove.

“Oh, God,” he breathed, “girl fight… that's hot.”

Maggie’s confidence began to falter, and she struggled to keep the doubt from coloring her face as she stared down at Raven.

But Raven kept at her, fearless and sure. “You may be bigger than me,” she said to Maggie in a low, throaty voice, “but I’m a lot fuckin’ tougher than I look. I will take you down.”

With every scant pause in her words, she heaved Maggie back again and again until the bitch was pinned up against the wall with genuine uncertainty in her eyes. She clearly hadn’t expected Raven to fight back. A bully to the core, Maggie’s bravado left her the minute Raven displayed a solid backbone.

“So what’s it gonna be, bitch?” Raven asked.

Maggie stared down at her in bewilderment, faltering in her nerve. She looked around at the crowd that had gathered, my friends who had become Raven’s friends. She'd lost and she knew it. Without another word, she wheeled around towards the door and fled.

Raven turned back to the proud expressions of those around her and smiled widely.

“God, that felt good.” she sighed. “I’ve fantasized about doing that exact fuckin’ thing for the last two years.”

“That. Was. Awesome,” Sophie murmured as she sat perched on Brannon’s lap.

“I know, right?” Felicity nodded, relaxing her stance back into Denny’s arms.

I walked up to Raven and cradled her face in my hands. “God, I love you.”

“I know you do,” she smiled back up at me. “I couldn't have done that if you didn't.”

I pressed a firm kiss against her lips, wrapping my arms around her as she melted into my chest.

“You are, you know,” I murmured into her hair. “You’re my wildest dream come true.”

A couple months later…

Raven reclined back on the couch, flipping through steampunk pictures in Pinterest on her iPad. She leaned forward as I approached and sat behind her, then lay back and snuggled a little closer against my chest.

I loved lazy Sundays. No Ink. No Copperline. No place we had to be.

Just Raven and I in her little apartment. In our own little world.

The good life.

“That’s a nice one,” I murmured against her ear as she clicked onto a picture of a wildly ornate dress. Layers of fabric set off with cording and lace and ruffles. “You’d look amazing in it.”

“You just like it because it has a very short skirt,” she smiled softly.

“I like it because it’s you. You happen to be very sexy… the short skirt is a bonus.”

She flicked through a few more. One stood out to me. It was the usual corseted dress. Low-cut with a full skirt, high in the front and low in the back, but there was something different about this one.

Unlike so many of the others, this one was white.

“How about something like that?” I suggested. “Could you make something like that?”

“Probably…” she murmured.

“How long would it take?”

She looked up at me in a little confusion. “I’m not sure. Not too long. It would take a ton of fabric, but I could find something to cut down and alter if I went with a different color—”

“You don’t want to get married in white?”

She froze and looked up at me.

“
Married
?” she breathed.

“Yeah, married,” I replied with a warm smile, “but I don’t want to wait too long. I’d marry you today if I could, so how long do you think it would take.” I smiled at her stunned expression. “You wouldn’t have to make it, either. You could find one like it somewhere, or maybe have someone else make it.”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’d make it.”

“Do you think we could be ready in a month? Two?”

“Yeah, but there would be other things to get ready, too. We’d probably need a couple months… at least.”

“So how about June?”

Raven stared up at me, and I could almost see her trying to figure out if I was really, truly asking what it sounded like I was asking. Like my own little clockwork doll, the gears and cogs were turning.

So I pulled the ring out of my pocket. The minute I’d seen it, I’d known she needed it. I needed her to have it. I saw it in the display at the steampunk fair and, in my mind, I’d seen it on her finger. A fine white gold band, but ornate. Victorian in appearance, it had been crafted into a delicate vine that bloomed out to cradle a round-cut amethyst. When light hit the facets of stone, it almost glowed like a violet rose. So unique. Incredibly Raven.

“I know it’s not a diamond,” I murmured, “but you needed something purple.”

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered back.

“Marry me, Rave.”

Swallowing back a sob, she nodded and responded with a hushed little, “Okay.”

I slipped the ring on her finger and dipped my head to kiss it into place.

Just like I’d seen it in my mind.

Then I kissed Raven, and all talk of steampunk dresses and wedding plans were set aside while I made love to my fiancée.

June

Brannon seemed nervous… again. He checked his watch for the eight-millionth time… again. He sighed loudly and began to pace back and forth, pulling at his collar… again.

“Where the fuck is he?” he groused.

It was like Cody and Ilsa’s wedding all over again.

Except that we were in the Copper King Mansion this time.

I was channeling my inner Cody, doing what I could to stay calm and laid back. I wasn’t really nervous about what I was doing. I just wanted it over. I just wanted Raven to be my wife.

The real Cody was doing exactly what I was trying to do. Laid back as usual, he just smiled and shook his head at Brannon.

“Jaysus,” Denny exclaimed as he came through the door, “wait ‘till ya see what the girls are wearing. They’re all done up to the nines, but in their knickers.”

“They’re in what?” Brannon asked. “Speak English, you fucker.”

“Corsets and frilly, lacy petticoats and the like. They look like they should be in an 1800s Dublin brothel.”

Brannon and Cody just kind of stared at Denny, obviously trying to picture his vague descriptions. I thought I’d help them out a bit.

“You guys know how Rave dresses, right?” They both nodded slowly. “Well, picture that, but just a little more sexy. A little more extreme. A little more…
more
.”

“Holy shit,” Cody gasped. Yeah, Cody gasped. Cool and laid back Cody… he gasped when that image hit his brain.

“Damn,” Brannon breathed, forgetting for a moment to be grousing about Justin running late.

“Mmm… yeah,” I grinned. “Welcome to Raven’s steampunk world.”

A half-cocked smile touched Cody’s lips. “Makes these get-ups we’re wearing a bit more bearable.” He looked down at his brocade three-piece suit. All three guys were dressed in similar black, long-tailed coats, each with a different colored vest over a black dress shirt. Brannon in deep blue, Denny in an emerald green, and Cody in a dark magenta.

Mine, of course, was purple.

Each guy also had a Mad Hatter style hat decorated just slightly different with various gears, feathers, chains, and laces. On mine was a pair of black goggles with purple lenses and the purple feather Raven had worn to the steampunk ball. The very one that had fallen on the floor next to William A. Clark’s bed.

Their looks were complete with boutonnieres crafted of brushed aluminum, sculpted into metal roses.

Raven had pulled Felicity, Ilsa, and Sophie in to plan the whole look and feel, and they’d done an impressive job. The guys had been extremely skeptical of the idea, much like I had been when Raven had dressed me up that first time, but I had no doubt they’d come around once they got a good look at how the look transitioned in their women.

Nothing was sexier in my mind than Raven in full steampunk. A look they were starting to imagine as they waited for the ceremony to start.

The girls were upstairs in the master sitting room getting ready while we waited in the octagonal parlor a floor below them. Guests had started arriving and were milling about through the main floor of the house, checking out the ornate industrial age decor of the Copper King.

Justin, of course, was late again. At least he wasn’t officiating this time. Raven’s old high school friend Lloyd had taken that honor. Justin was a bit unnerved by the prospect of being paired up to walk down the aisle until Raven had paired him up with her cousin Lacey.

He’d met Lacey. He liked Lacey. He’d done Lacey the last time she’d come to visit and didn’t have any qualms about doing her again. Justin quit his bitching and went with it.