They woke me up at six, and it was time for the ritual bath. There was a new lady, and we didn't go to the bath as she brought some sort of portable hot bath where I went and sat down. I was visible from the neck up as my whole body was then inside the machine. It was pretty damn hot. I was almost sweating. I needed to be as clean as possible.
I did not know that they had actually purified my alpha vampire power and it would be almost a century later when I would try to do it myself.
The woman put my hair first and curled it more. She gathered most of the braids to go around my head so that my back was free and visible, and only a few strands of hair framed my face. The sauna machine was then cooler as the lady started putting makeup on me.
First, she cleaned my face and then put on who knows what creams, powders, eye shadow, concealer, and mascara. After cleaning my face, she applied various creams, powders, eye shadow, concealer, and mascara. She plucked and styled my eyebrows, and polished and filed my nails, which had many curvy patterns with black bases and gold-colored decorative patterns.
In my time, I looked and realized they were decorative lettering of D.S. Damon Salvatore. I could literally see his influence and grip on me. I had no underwear other than panties and I was just thinking about this larger bust that a bra would probably have been in place.
It was seven o'clock when the women dressed me. They laced the dress over me and it had a corset sort of attached. You could feel the bones and the dress showed off my breasts very well.
The dress was blood red satin, almost metallic, and looked like they dressed me in blood. Black lace adorned the neckline of the dress, which was open enough for my breasts to almost spill out. Additionally, it had only straps and featured deep ribbing in the back.
I felt almost half naked in my upper torso. There were thin gold embroideries that started at the shoulders and went from my bust to my waist and then spread to the hem in several decorative patterns. There was also black lace on the hem in several layers.
My makeup was heavy, and it made my skin look smooth and pale. My lips were blood red and my eyes were black, and gold, which made my eyes look more exotic than they were. It also slightly reduced the size of my eyes and covered all my dark circles. My skin looked flawless.
They also did my chest and back. Someone applied powder and anointed me with different scented oils behind my ears, on my wrists, and under my arms.
My shoes were black, very high-heeled, and tied with intricate laces along my legs. The hem ended halfway up my shin so the strings of the shoes were visible.
I was an innocent bride. The dress wasn't quite as princess as a traditional wedding dress, but the hem was satin, and there was plenty of it.
This dress accentuated my new hips. The dress was surprisingly heavy and hot on me. The hem moved like blood in a container as I walked and only an exotic scent left behind as the women guided me towards the elevator.
Luckily, I could walk in these shoes. I had a wreath of white roses in my hair, but no veil. That wasn't a vampire thing. And no bridal bouquet.
They directed me from the basement to the lift. The lift was gold colored, and the woman explained that this was the bridal lift. The bride was taking this lift to the wedding.
We got off the lift and went down a long corridor to large black doors with brass-colored metal decorative handles and two men standing on either side of the door. Nick and Elias. They would give me to Damon. They had black suits on them, not many other colors than black.
I caught the men looking at me in amazement, as if they couldn't fathom that I, the poor skinny woman who had been brainwashed and turned into a werewolf, could look the way I did.
Elias smiled in surprise and said, " You are an exquisite vampire bride. Damon is lucky to have you."
Nick smiled crookedly and said: "All you have to do is commit to Damon now."
Nick looked at me from head to toe and said, " You're gorgeous. I'll give you that. Rebecca also told us about Krycheck and Sark. It's nice to have a job for yourself. A few things to harass. It won't be too boring."
I said, " Be careful, those are nasty guys and could hurt you too. Is Rebecca my bridesmaid then?"
I figured Rebecca would be my bridesmaid because Rebecca had come to the spa yesterday to talk and help. She had just told me about the rituals.
Nick replied, " Nope, there are no bridesmaids in the vampire wedding. Back in the day, this was also a ritual where a human sacrifice was taken to a vampire, his bride, and he got to decide her fate, so there were no bridesmaids. There are only two bride keepers, that's us Originals. We sacrifice or deliver you, our kin, to Damon."
I nodded and remembered what Rebecca and I had been talking about, Damon, because something in that sentence made me furrow my brow.
I had asked Rebecca if she wasn't jealous when I took Damon; she replied:
"You know, Mimi, of course, any sane woman would want Damon, so would I, but this ritual, I don't want to commit to anyone forever. As you know, we, at Michaelson, have always and forever. Family. That's what I'm committed to. Never to anything else."
Se had thought a moment like she had been unsure if I could handle her confession.
"I can have fun with Damon if he ever takes me, but no, none of us would ever commit the way you do. Except for Cole, he's not as family-oriented as Nick has kept him in check for a long time. You're a brave girl, and I have a feeling you do not know who you're going to vampire marriage with. I don't want to ruin the surprise, because maybe you two were made for each other. And it's all going to work out just fine. You're a strong woman and you can handle being Damon's."
Then Rebecca chatted about ordinary things for the rest of the time. I didn't know if it was a warning or what. And what Nick had interjected about sacrifice. I wondered for a moment what was going on, but then the brass trumpets sounded. It was a signal that we had to go.
The doors opened. Two vampires dressed in fancy black and gold opened the heavy doors. Both men offered their arms, took on a slightly more serious expression, and walked down the endless corridor. I took proper timid expression, not being powerful at all but innocent sacrifice.
The room was a large hall. There were torches and no electric lights; the torches created their own atmosphere, and that was fine. I was going to a vampire wedding at Vampire Castle in Transylvania. What could be more vampiric?
There was no carpet covering the corridor. And they could hear my heels from beneath the noise of talking. The women were dressed in fancy dresses, no one was in red because at a wedding only the bride wears blood. The women had told me that.
The vampire women looked at me with disdain and Nick said in my mind, "Damon has done a lot of conquering of vampire women over the centuries and then he's had his own terrible experiences with that too, like all us old male vampires. So not all women are friendly. They trap men and enslave them. Damon has experienced it and many times, so have I and Elias. Some of these women are the very ones who enslaved Damon or us, and Damon has invited them to his wedding just to fuck with their faces."
The corridor seemed endless, and the hall was dim. I slowly made out the altar. Several figures were standing there, and I recognized Damon's posture.
The music was playing, and we had to walk to it and the name of the game was to get to Damon just as the song ended. So we were going along at a slow pace, and then eventually I saw Damon.
They dressed him in black, purple, and gold. He was really gorgeous. He was wearing a purple silk shirt and a black velvet jacket with gold trim. A thick gold chain that ran diagonally from shoulder to hip, like some president, and black velvet trousers, again with gold trim.
There was coldness in his face and he was very dangerous-looking, and there was no gentle affection in his expression. His expression was that he saw me like a predator sees his prey, which I was, in theory. He was pale and his eyes seemed to glow almost electric blue. A vampire as best he could be.
He had several signet rings on his fingers, which I didn't remember him wearing before. I had no jewelry, as again tradition requires the groom or husband to give his wife jewelry the next day. It was a sign of how well the bride had done on her wedding night in the old days.
If the husband was happy with his bride's performance, everyone would see it on the day of the celebration, when the wedding couple would come out for the first time. I didn't know what to expect in that regard. I tried to take it all one moment at a time.
The men handed me over to Damon. He gave me his arm without saying a word and I took it. I kept my expression neutral and looked ahead.
Someone stood up and walked closer, a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a black velvet dress who also had heavy makeup, some sort of necklace around her neck, and several thick bracelets.
The woman nodded to Damon, not looking him in the eye, and asked Damon: "Is this your future wife? Do you accept the sacrifice you have been given? Are you accepting her as your own and giving your blood to her so that you can have her blood and you can have blood together? Do you promise to guide and instruct her? To train and mold this woman to be your wife forever? Will you have her in your bed, in your house, in your honor? Do you pledge your blood to her forever? Will you pledge yourself to her forever?"
Damon looked at the woman, his expression arrogant and proud. I could clearly smell the campfire burning.
He said in a cold, authoritative voice: "Yes, I accept the sacrifice of the Michelsons brought before me. I promise to guide and instruct. She will be my own, always and forever. I take her into my bed, into my house, and give her the honor of being my wife. I give her my blood, that my blood may be hers and her blood mine. She will be under my protection, and I defend her as my own."
She turned to me, "Will you give your blood to your future husband so that your blood will be his and his blood yours? Will you pledge yourself and your innocence to your husband of your own free will?"
I said." I promise my blood, I promise myself, and I promise my innocence. I promise them from my own free will."
Nick helped me and sent in my mind what I had to say. Damon glanced at Nick, his expression a little tighter. He didn't move more than his eyes for a moment. Nick and Elias were standing a short distance away. They were witnesses to our union. Damon didn't like Nick talking in my mind.
She took a ritual knife and first cut Damon's palm. There was a wound that didn't heal. Then she took my hand and cut into it. That stung quite a lot. Damon held his own wound over a golden chalice and poured his blood into it. He took hold of my wrist and made my blood flow into the chalice.
Once the chalice was full of our shared blood, he took my wounded palm and placed his own wound against it, taking a firm grip on my hand, and interlacing our fingers. It hurt, but I controlled myself. I could feel our palms sort of growing together, and Damon's grip was tight.
He drank from the cup first himself and then raised it to my lips, making me drink our shared blood. I was not supposed to be doing anything to myself, but Damon would make me do everything. When I had drunk enough, Damon handed the cup to the woman who put it on the podium and went and cut the wounds on Nick and Elias' hands too, making them give a blood sacrifice too.
She said, "The sacrifice has been accepted and taken into the family. The family's blood is now joined. "
She set the blood on fire after she had lifted the chalice back onto the stand and it burned with a dark red flame. Oh, cool looking. Nick and Elias weren't so happy, but Damon was. This was some little twist he came up with and he had just made Nick and Elias a good 1-0.
Then the lady came back in front of us, looked at me, and said, "Do you pledge to be thy husband's property forever and ever? Do thee promise to obey and do as you are told? Will you pledge to always and forever try to please your husband? Will you promise to be under his protection and his protection alone and let him mold you as he sees fit? Do you promise to be in his bed, to bring glory to your family and your husband, to the end of eternity and beyond? "
I said, as Nick told me what I needed to say. "I am my husband's property, his own. I will do as he wishes, bring honor to him as best I can, and entrust myself always and forever to his protection, his bed. I will devote my life to him to be the best wife I can be. I will let him mold, guide, and instruct me, and punish me if I have not fulfilled my duties as he wishes."
The woman said, "The oaths of marriage are sworn, the blood is joined, the blood of family to caste to light your path to eternity and beyond. You are each other. Now it is the turn of the Elders to marry you."
The woman stepped back. Three old-looking men replaced her. One man resembled old Russell Crowe, another was like Tommy Lee Jones, and the third resembled Michael Caine, or so I saw them. They weren't doppelgangers exactly, but these came to mind now. These were the elders.
We stood with our hands together and listened to a speech that I couldn't understand a word of at first. Each man seemed to speak a bit, look at Damon, and nod and then it was the next man's turn, same thing. I felt a slight heat in my hand, as if the connection had somehow become stronger. My heart seemed to beat a little irregularly.
Then I heard Damon's voice in my head, "Surprise, Mimi, I'm actually a pretty competent telepath, and apparently this ritual connected us rather uniquely. I had never connected with you this well before, but you felt that warmth in your hand as our bond strengthened. We belong together. Look at the bond between us as mates. It's become a soul mate bond, and that's rare. I'm translating the speech for you in my mind."
I thought, "Fine, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand."
Damon squeezed my hand. Okay, so now he can hear everything I'm thinking. I had been in the notion that he was a telepath but it was limited and not too powerful. But I guess I was wrong. I could actually feel him in my mind, doing something. I guessed that he had stopped Nick from talking to me in my mind.
Damon said in my mind, "Yes, darling, I can hear everything. I am a powerful telepath and yes, Nick shall not influence your mind anymore."
I concentrated on listening to Damon translate the elders' speech. They talked a lot about the good old days. They told us how important this ritual was.
One passage went like this: " This ritual is more ancient than time itself and this will bring Damon to you, a Bride who is Pure and Untouched, a Clean slate and you will shape her into your own. You have power and authority over her. She exists for you just as you exist to protect her. You are strong, and immortal, and now you have a chaste virgin in your bed. May her blood and your wedding night bring you glory and pleasure."
The entire speech was the same formula of praising Damon's abilities as a husband, a vampire, a man, and even a wolf and promising me to him repeatedly. Somehow, I knew this was going to get even more special after this. My heart was kicking in my chest again.
Damon's steady voice in my head said, " Your heart is fighting back, but it will obey and start beating at the same pace as mine."
Oh, that his heart was telling me to. Fine. Then it was just that. We didn't have to recite any more vows, just listened to Damon being praised as the head of the family. Crafty.
He had taken Nick and Elias into his own family through me, and he was the head of the family. So, in the eyes of the vampires, he had power over the originals. No wonder Nick had looked like a liver patient.
They must have been praising Damon for an hour.
Then Damon said in my mind. "Well, soon this part will be done and we will move on to the other hall, darling, where there will be more rituals and once our hearts beat in unison, then we will compete with darlin. We will see who is better."
I replied in my head, "I'm ready. Whatever comes my way, I'm ready."
Damon's mouth twitched ever so slightly. The smug bastard knew something I didn't, but I was ready to get on with this wedding. I thought to myself that the wedding couldn't get any more special. Well, little did I know at that point.