Chapter 4: Kiss in Chaos

The silence struck harder than a bullet.

One thousand eyes looked at Liana as she moved down the aisle. Velvet carpet swallowed the whisper of her heels. Her gown shone like an illusion, a silk prison that sparkled under suspended chandeliers like moons in sorrow.

Gasps spread through the crowd like music. Too tall. Too human. Too wrong.

Lady Virello's fan slipped from her fingers. Smooth wood struck marble with a sudden, ringing crash. Her husband, Lord Virello, leaned forward in his chair, nostrils flaring, lips trembling with strained indignation.

"That is not Stella," he breathed into the air.

At the back of the altar, Dante's jaw hardened. A muscle twitched in his cheek. His wolf stirred under his skin, a slow, growling roll of confusion and instinct. That wasn't her. That wasn't Stella. That was a human. A stranger.

Then, it arrived. Like wind seeping through bone.

"Control yourself," his father's voice crept through the bond, not words precisely. Something older, wilder. A command swathed in velvet steel. "Don't spoil this."

Dante remained silent. His gaze locked on Liana as she moved like a ghost across the room to him, her white-knuckled fists gripping a withering bouquet. Her breath shuddered. Her eyes roamed the room-searching. For someone. Anyone. Familiar.

No one.

Just wolves in ties, beasts in silk, and a crowd suspended between confusion and etiquette.

"Father," Dante snarled against their bond, his wolf at its leash. "Who is she? Where's Stella? This ain't her. This is a goddamn human."

"Keep your damn mouth closed," the response, colder this time. "The press has come. Politicians. You speak, all this union burns. We will handle this later. But today you marry. Today you smile."

Dante forced-swallowed down the anger. It had been bitter and like iron.

Down the audience, Stella's mother caught hold of her husband's arm. Her lipstick-red mouth quivered. "Where is our daughter?"

"This is unacceptable," Lord Virello snarled, rising to his feet halfway before a wordless warning glance from Alpha Volmore's had him sitting like a razor.

And Liana walked on.

She didn't understand why her legs were moving. Her mind was screaming. Everything in her was screaming. She felt it occurring-the blankness encroaching from her fingertips, a numbness surrounding her thoughts in cotton.

It wasn't hers. That silence in her mind. That wasn't hers.

In the background, far above the shadows of the dome, a figure caused a dainty rune to dance through the air with gloved fingers. It glowed, golden and otherworldly. Mind magic. Old and Powerful.

Liana's spine went rigid. Her mouth dropped into something like serenity. Her eyes went out, not quite blank, but lost. As if the part of her that would have screamed had been locked in a box.

Alpha Volmore whirled about, coal-fire eyes fixed on the officiator. One nod.

The wedding began.

And no one would speak truth.

Well, no one but the chandelier. It flickered again. As if it, too, wanted to fall.

Liana's POV

I shouldn't be here.

I shouldn't be wearing this dress, walking down this aisle, gazing down into the precipice of a life that belonged to someone else.

But my feet continued.

Not because I had wanted them to. God, no. With every step, it was as if stepping into a mouth - a large, smiling mouth, all teeth and gold and clapping. The hem of the dress swept by marble like a sigh. I felt the silence that fell over the crowd, as if all the air had been drawn out of the room. Or perhaps that was me.

Eyes.

So many eyes.

They weren't just looking at me. They were peeling away from me. Leaving me bare of curiosity, suspicion, hunger. My hands tightened around the bouquet. Not for elegance. For balance. For something to cling to as my world was unwound thread by thread.

As I stepped closer,

I saw him. Clearly.

The groom.

Tall. Still. Sculpted out of ice and stone and icy rage. His eyes burned behind the gauze as if it wasn't there. He glared at me - at me - and for a moment, I promise you, he was going to descend and stop all this stupidity.

He didn't.

He just glared. No smile. No welcome. Just. awareness.

He knew.

He knew I wasn't the bride he was supposed to wed.

His father stood next to him, back rigid, nostrils flared. Something flashed on the man's face - anger, bewilderment, even terror - and was gone, overwhelmed by the weight of expectation. The father didn't move either. The crowd didn't. No one screamed. No one rose to cry out, "Hey, wait, that's not Stella.".

Because I looked like I belonged. I looked like a bride. And this was an act. A goddamned production. The cameras rolled. The guests held their breath. And the stage was too perfect to have reality crash through it now.

I tried to open my mouth and speak. To confess. To cry. To run.

Nothing came out.

My lips trembled, but the words would not shape. My tongue was heavy. My mind, foggy.

That's when I felt it.

Cold fingers, unseen, insinuating themselves into my brain.

As a wind behind my head. Like my body belonged to someone else. Like I was a puppet in a gown, and somebody else held the strings.

I attempted to yell. I did. But my lungs betrayed me.

My arms raised the bouquet on their own. My chin settled into place, as if I'd been ready to do this. My back straightened, shoulders dropped-polished I'd never possessed before coursed through me now like poison dripped into wine.

No, no, no-

I wanted to fold. I wanted to rip the veil back and scream Stella's name and shout questions and tear the truth apart until someone, anyone, saw me. Actually saw me.

But I couldn't even twitch.

And still - I walked.

The skirt of the wedding dress trails behind me like the shadow of a girl I used to be. My every step rings out too sharply upon the clear surface. The music is subdued, orchestral, almost romantic - but to my hearing, it drowns. It rings like a dirge.

The Groom stands by the altar like a winter statue, chiseled and unyielding. unreadable. Tall enough to look down on kingdoms. I don't know him. Not quite. But something in his stillness pricks the air between us. As if he knows. As if they all do.

But no one moves.

No one speaks.

Not the priest. Not the groom. Not the scores of hawky eyes behind masks of jewels and oily camera lenses.

I catch up to him. My hand brushes his when I stop, and he doesn't flinch back. Just blinks. His eyes are darker than I'd remembered in the hallway - colder too, like something's been broken and refrozen.

I wait for someone to protest. For the dream to shatter.

No one does.

The vows begin - not mine, not exactly. Some voice says them aloud in that strange old-fashioned language, thick and formal, as I nod and echo like a string puppet, hardly understanding the words. They are not mine. I know my mouth is saying it, but it's not me speaking.

I scan the crowd, desperate for a familiar face - a lifeline. But I don't know them. I don't know where I am. I don't know why my body feels heavy, why my thoughts slip through my fingers like water.

Why can't I scream?

Why I don't run.

A pressure hums low in my skull. It isn't pain. It's. fog. Soft, velvety, convincing. Like maybe this is fine. Maybe this is normal. Maybe I'm supposed to be here.

I try to shake it.

I try to focus.

The Groom vows his next. His voice cuts as sharp as a knife wrapped in velvet. The audience is silent. I am not. My heart pounding in my throat, palms damp in the lace gloves.

Then the priest speaks the final words. The binding words.

"You may kiss the bride."

My world holds its breath.

Wait..what?

Kiss??