I Was A Male War Bride Novels & Stories

Time passed quickly, and before I knew it, spring arrived the following year. I was at work when my assistant told me someone was asking to see me. It wasn't Percy or Julian. It was the last person I expected. Sabrina strutted in and slammed a marriage certificate onto my desk. "Percy and I got married. He's my husband now." I put down my design sketch and stared at her as if she were ridiculous. "You came all the way here just to tell me that? You really have nothing better to do."

"I've seen this before." Everyone turned toward him. "It was over thirty years ago. The Bratva. They sent dead brides to rival families." The old man lowered his voice. "It meant one thing." "What?" "A declaration of personal war." Lorrie stood beside the window, unable to tear her eyes away from the limousine. She whispered, "Who was she?" No one answered. Finally, Grace walked over and gently squeezed Lorrie's hand. "It doesn't matter." Lorrie shook her head. "It does. She had a family. Someone loved her. They're using her like... like she never mattered."

What I got instead was a room full of people recalculating in real time, my father’s stunned expression collapsing slowly into something that looked, against every odd, like relief; my mother’s hand pressed flat against her chest as if she were physically holding herself in place. “Lydia.” My father caught himself, the old childhood nickname escaping before he could pull it back, the one only family ever used, the one I hadn’t heard in years. He stepped forward and lowered his voice, though I knew the nearest row could still hear him. “Mira. What is this?” “This is the wedding,” I said. “The groom changed. Nothing else did.”

Although Marcus was giving me the most reassuring smile he could, I couldn’t help the trepidations in my heart. The war had arrived much sooner than I’d expected, making it even harder for me to let go of him. In fact, I didn’t think any number of days would have prepared me for this one, for no wife would want to bid adieu to her husband as he prepares himself to fight the most cruel monster known.

“Put it on.” Elena didn’t touch it. She stepped closer to the table instead until the damp heat of the citrus wrapped her and Ferrero’s cologne cut through it. “What did you do to my mother,” she asked, and the words struck bone. “Facts. Not stories.” A line formed between his brows. For a second, the knife-sharp man blurred and she saw the human underneath, thinner, young again, desperate. “I married her in war,” he said. “I lost her in peace.” He drew a breath. “She loved with a ferocity that made enemies and allies call her blasphemy and miracle in the same sentence. She was not a woman this world forgives.”

The day I caught Joel Kemper in bed with another woman, she slashed up her own face. Joel pulled her tightly into his arms, refusing to let me see her no matter how hysterical I got. His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at me. "This is all my fault, Valerie. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I'm begging you. Don't go after her." After that day, Joel gave up every shred of privacy. He handed over his phone every day and even installed hidden cameras throughout his car. If a female patient so much as texted him, I would question him over and over, and he never once complained. He went along with everything, asking only that I take him back. Then, three days before our we

"But we're going to do it anyway. Because that's what we do." I looked at him for a long time. And then I nodded. "Okay," I said. "Let's go plan a war." --- We drove back to the cabin with the folder on the seat between us. My father was sitting exactly where I'd left him, on the couch with the blanket around his shoulders and his hands in his lap, and when we walked in he looked up at us like a man who hadn't been sure we were coming back. "You saw her," he said.

The moment he realized that the woman he’d married wasn’t the same woman who’d been taken two years ago. I’d been broken and rebuilt. Tested and forged into something stronger. And I wasn’t going to hide behind his protection while Isabella remained free to hurt the people I loved. The war was coming. And this time, I intended to fight.

It was bizarre, to say the least. The old me would've thought his gesture meant that I mattered to him, at least in some way. Now, I wouldn't even hire him to be the opening act for a cheap circus with abused animals. Zachary strode back to me and clamped a hand around my chin. He held up his phone with his other hand and pointed its camera at my face. "Look into the camera and repeat after me. Tell her you welcome the baby and will step away as my wife. Tell her you wish us happiness."

She's definitely got this old, happy lady vibe going on. "My husband and my Brother. They were both in service together. After their second deployment, me and my Husband, Theo, got married and then during his fourth deployment, I got the news that Theo had been in an accident and so had my son, My son survived the accident, but once he got to the hospital and gave me a weak smile before surgery he never made it off the table"