Binding Ties

A/N: Quotes in this chapter come from episodes 3x09, “Coyote Piper”, 3x13, “Bride and Gloom, 3x17, “Pre-witched”, and 4x19, “We‘re Off to See the Wizard”. Also, with some apologies to Margaret Atwood.

Cole didn’t touch her that first night, and while Prue was relieved and grateful for the chance to get some sleep, she was also puzzled. She’d been under the impression that time was a factor in the fulfillment of this prophecy, or at least in how the Source viewed it.

She didn’t have to wait long for her question to be answered, though. Cole was gone when she woke up, and there was a note on the nightstand advising her to be up and ready for “an event” by the time he returned. That put her on edge, but there wasn’t much she could do besides shower, dress, and eat the breakfast which had been neatly laid out.

He entered the kitchen just as she finished. “Well, today should be a memorable day,” he said as he sat down.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Memorable how, Cole?”

He looked her straight in the eye and folded his hands in front of him on the table. “It’s our wedding day, Prue. You didn’t seriously think the Source was going to let the twice blessed child be conceived out of wedlock, did you?”

Through her astonishment and rising dread, Prue managed to retort, “Oh? And why not? Wouldn’t that help it to become evil, according to whatever karmic logic he’s basing all this on?”

Cole smirked at her and shook his head. “Not really. There wouldn’t be enough black magic influencing the pregnancy. And remember, he doesn’t just want the child.”

She raised her chin. “He wants me.”

He nodded. “So we should get going. But first, I have something for you.” He motioned for her to follow him to the large mirror outside the bathroom, where he took a small box out of a pouch. She raised an eyebrow when Cole opened the box. Inside was a thin silver chain necklace with a blood red ruby embedded in the brooch.

Putting the box on a small end table next to the mirror, he said, “In lieu of a ring. Here, face the mirror and I’ll…” he gestured with the necklace. She kept her eyebrows raised but turned obligingly. Cole raised the necklace over her head and brushed her now shorter hair to the side with one hand. He clasped it loosely enough that the brooch fell just below her collarbone.

Even while, despite herself, she admired the look of the necklace, Prue noted that Cole’s hands hadn’t left her shoulders. They both stood looking at the reflection. After a moment, he murmured against her hair, “So it is true. Every bride is beautiful on her wedding day.”

Prue stiffened, and said through clenched teeth, “Every conscious, non-paralyzed bride, maybe. Every bride who knows what’s going to happen next. Since when did you start quoting Dantalian, anyway?” She kept her eyes on the mirror.

Without missing a beat, he answered, “Since the Source told me he was going to improve on her scheme. Since I realized how ironic this whole situation is. Did Phoebe ever tell you how she and Piper finally found you? How she came looking for me at the mausoleum? I was the one who discovered what Dantalian had done, Prue.”

She stepped out of the reach of his arms before turning to face him. “So you want credit for what, saving me? Not a chance. Although that does remind me of something I’ve been wondering. What do you get out of this, Cole? Why go along with the plan of someone who put a price on your head? Especially when you‘d betray Phoebe in the process?”

Looking away from the mirror at last, he rolled his eyes. “There’s the easy, party line answer to that, or the one that might be difficult to understand.”

She stared at him, a little surprised by his frankness. Never one to back down from a challenge, she said, “Try me.”

Cole sighed. “I told Phoebe once that I’d believed my humanity had died before I met her. Whatever good I was capable of comes from that side of me. From my human father. You can choose to believe this or not, but I could never hate him, Prue. I never resented who he was, or that he made me less demonic. I just wanted him to be able to rest in peace. Even now, this idea that he can have a grandchild who will be partially human…to give him that, I don’t care that the Source is using me.”

Prue stood gazing at him. She knew that she needed to adjust her instinctual reactions if she was going to survive in the Underworld, but at that moment, she said the first thing on her mind. “Whatever the cost? To me, to Phoebe? If I had refused, to my youngest sister?”

He looked over her shoulder at the reflection of her back. “To Paige Mathews.”

She blinked and then narrowed her eyes. “Who?”

Cole finally met her eyes again. “That’s your sister’s name, according to the spies the Source has trailing her. They saw her meet Phoebe and Piper, and they guess it’ll be less than seventy-two hours, max, before the Charmed Ones are reconstituted.” He took her hands in his. “So now that you know who I’m doing this for, and who exactly you’re protecting, we have a wedding to get to.”

Numbly, she nodded. He led her out of their suite and through the passageway in the opposite direction from the way they‘d come before, until they came to a wide chamber with several niches in each of its stone walls. A candle occupied each niche. An altar stood at the head of the chamber, opposite the entrance, and a squat, rat-faced demon stood behind it. A smaller altar was off to one side, with a silver goblet on it. The demon was dressed in shabby gray vestments. Prue guessed that he must be a dark priest. He looked up from reading a large book on the altar when they entered.

“Ah, Belthazor, you are right on time. And your bride is as lovely as she was rumored to be. My name is Esalton, my dear. You will need to remember that for the ceremony. Come, stand in front of the altar, here, and we will begin.”

One thought repeated itself over and over in Prue’s mind while the priest positioned her and Cole just so, covered her face with a sheer black veil, turned a few pages in the book, and set a coil of twine and an athame on the altar. The bride of Belthazor. She, Prue Halliwell, was the bride of Belthazor. She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry at the thought, but she was grateful that it kept the other, sober thoughts and emotions at bay. Looking at the whole situation as a farce was much easier, and that’s what she tried to do when Esalton started to chant softly in Latin, until she noticed that he wasn’t anymore.

“Lewilah: Nerraw, Adnilem, Ecnedurp, Aicirtap,” it now sounded like he was saying. He took hold of her left hand. With a start, Prue realized the priest was chanting names on her family tree -- backwards, the way Abraxas had read the Book of Shadows. And somehow, she felt the effect of that, deep in her heart. Coolness settled there, and she began to be more interested in the ceremony. Cole nodded at her when their eyes met before shifting his gaze back to the altar and the book.

A few moments later Esalton stopped his reversed chanting. He took the twine and the athame from the altar over to the side table. Sprinkling a golden liquid from the goblet on both the athame and the twine, he murmured, “What was once separate shall now be joined by not only my powers, but their own. Malus entu exitis omne.” Then he handed the athame and one end of the twine to Cole, keeping hold of the other end and placing the goblet on the main altar.

Cole turned to Prue and said, “Give me your right hand,” which she immediately did. He turned it palm up, took the athame, and cut a jagged line across it. She winced. While the cut started to bleed, he did the same with his left palm. Then he pressed them together, and he and Esalton together wound the twine around the two hands.

Then the priest turned to Prue. “Repeat after me, my dear: I, Prudence Halliwell, pledge to you, Belthazor, that I renounce family, all good magic, and the charitable protection of the ancients to give myself to you in mind, soul, and body. I stand before you, with the priest Esalton as our witness, ready to be your helpmate and aid in joint and loyal service to the Source of all Evil. ”

Without blinking, Prue repeated the vow. Then Esalton said to Cole, “Your vow is as follows: “I, Belthazor, declare to you, Prudence Halliwell, that I renounce all other women before you and give myself to you fully, in mind, soul, and body. I stand before you, as Esalton is our witness, ready to be your partner and aid in loyal, joint service of the Source of all Evil.” Cole took a slight breath and repeated the vow. The priest took their clasped, entwined hands in his and had them chant once, “Malus entu exitis omne.” He released their hands and lifted Prue’s veil. Then he handed the goblet to Cole, who drank from it and passed it to Prue. She drank the golden liquid without hesitation, and let the coolness wash over her.

“Malus entu exitis omne,” they all chanted three times more. Esalton then held up their clasped hands and said, “Thou art bound to each other in matrimony and service from this day on.”

The rest of Prue’s second wedding day passed in a hazy blur. She could sometimes hear echoes of her sisters’ voices in her mind, and they seemed to be calling out to her. But then other memories would surface, and she would be left confused. She thought about her wedding, and remembered planning for the one that never happened. Cole seemed to be giving her a lot of space; he appeared to have known that this wedding ceremony, like the one Dantalian performed, wouldn’t produce an instantaneous transformation.

But she knew her memories and thoughts were slowly shifting; things she hadn’t thought about in years or realized before now were clear as crystal in her mind’s eye. One memory in particular.

She and her sisters stood in front of the Manor, back when Grams was ill. She and Phoebe were bickering back and forth about Roger.

“Can we please get this over with?” Phoebe had almost whined.

“Why, you got plans? Anyone that I know?”

“I’m just trying to be nice to the guy considering he’s gonna be part of this family soon…and why would I spend my time on a wimp who’s got mother issues?”

“I don’t know,” Prue had retorted, “but why should I believe anything that you say?”

Somehow it took awhile for her mind to move past that response, with everything it had implied about what she had thought of Phoebe back then, to any of her other thoughts. Gradually it was harder to remember how proud she was of Phoebe now, what she admired about her, or that she missed her sisters at all. She also realized, with not only horror but morbid curiosity, that she had probably come close to telekinetically choking Roger to death when she’d quit the museum. A small voice in her mind whispered that he had gotten what he deserved.

She recoiled instantly from that voice, though. A reassuring warmth of righteous indignation swept through her --she was a good witch, and she wasn’t supposed to punish the guilty. Phoebe, of all people, had reminded her of that. Phoebe, her brave baby sister, who understood her and pushed her to be better like no one else had, and in the process taught her so much about life and love. Prue clung to that thought as the day came to a close. She sat on one of the sofas in the suite’s living room, lost in thought, when Cole came toward her from the direction of the bedroom. Prue looked up at him. Wordlessly, he held out his hand, and she took it.

He led her into the bedroom. Methodically, she undressed, and so did he. She lay down on the bed, thinking how much she wanted this ‘memorable day’ to be over. A moment later, she watched him kneel beside her. “Well,” he whispered, reaching out to run his thumb along her jaw line, “here we are.”

Prue didn’t reply right away. Her thoughts were still with her sisters, especially Phoebe. Oh, Phoebe, she pleaded silently, please forgive me for what I’m about to do.