Before this nonsense happened I had a plan for my life. It wasn’t big or clever, I didn’t want to become a pop star or a celebrity. I just wanted a good job, a house, a car and maybe a cat. That was the plan. Relationships and marriage didn’t really figure in my plan. I always thought you had to be over thirty to get married and settle down not eighteen. How many teenagers got married nowadays? None for crying out loud! I stared at Dante like he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me. Was he serious because I was praying this was a joke…

He obviously enjoyed my reaction because he was grinning from ear to ear. There was no way I was going to marry him not even if he put a gun to my head. Marriage to a vampire psycho was completely out of the question. Dante stopped and smiling and looked very seriously at me,

“I suppose you’re thinking there is no way you are going to marry a vampire like me?”

I nodded calmly.

Dante rubbed his jaw and shrugged, “Yeah, I anticipated that so I planned ahead.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know how much you hate injections?” He said.

“Yes.” I replied feeling uneasy about how he knew my phobia.

“Isn’t it better when the nurse just stabs you and gets it over and done instead of dragging out the whole procedure?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to agonize over the whole build up to the wedding and turn into some sort of bridezilla. So I had all the arrangements for us to marry in about twenty minutes.”

“What?” I blurted out feeling the colour drain from my face.

“Think of it like speed dating only more permanent.”

“Dante, I’m not going to marry you.”

“Now darling you know I can’t hold a gun to your head and force you up the ailse,” Dante said moving off the bed pacing over to a large wardrobe and opening the door, “But I think I might be able to persuade you.”

He smiled and lifted out a box covered with a cloth out of the wardrobe and held it in front of me. Underneath I heard a snuffling sound. Curiously I watched as Dante pulled the cover off revealing the contents.

“Luna!” I screamed rushing towards her.

Dante snatched the box away wiggling his finger, “Ah, ah, ah, that’s not how it works Ebony.”

“Give me my dog Dante.”

“Can you believe that this darling little creature clung onto your sleeve all the way here?”

“Dante give me Luna.”

“Give me your hand in marriage.”

“No! That’s stupid we don’t even know each other!” I said lunging towards him.

Dante moved with supernatural speed and I landed in a heap on the floor where he had been standing seconds ago. Dante now stood with the dog cage in his hand holding it dangerously close to the blazing fireplace. My heart stopped dead, he was going to throw my dog on the fire? Panicking I screamed,

“Fine- whatever you want, please don’t hurt my dog.”

“So you will marry me?”

“Yes, absolutely.” I panicked.

Dante smiled and shouted out, “Did you hear that Father?”

An elderly man in religious looking robes wandered out the shadows and nodded,

“By the power invested in me I now pronounce you man and wife.”