#6: Feywin Bride

Perhaps I would make history by being the first bride to get married and die on her wedding day.

My hands formed fists. My mouth wouldn't move. All I could do was stare.

“Your incessant staring won’t get you anything today, Feywin,” was the simple remark he made before joining me in the carriage.

He snapped his fingers. The carriage lurched forward.

The cold air Lord Aubrey radiated was vastly different from the man I had encountered last night. As the seconds went by, I began to wonder if my withered old Lord had perhaps switched souls with the dastardly handsome man I met last night. Or had things changed now because I knew he was a monster.

On pure instinct, I shifted away from him, my back hitting the walls of the carriage.

“What do you plan on doing to me?” I asked, unable to handle the silence any longer.

The more time I spent in silence, the more my mind had a chance to drift to all sorts of ridiculous conclusions, and the more I felt panic creating rooms in my veins. If I didn’t say something, I could have as well passed out from the sheer fear I felt building up, or I would bawl my eyes out, thinking that my sister and former best friend set me up to be the wife of a monster.

Perhaps Lord Aubrey couldn’t smell the desperation for conversation off of me, because that could be the only explanation as to why he was quiet.

“I know….” I stopped and then swallowed. “I know that you’re not human. That at night you’re… something else.”

He didn’t even spare a glance at me when he admitted it. “Werewolf.”

The word hung between us.

“And there is a pact? The one my family made?”

“There is. Your ancestors sold future daughters for gold and protection. My family accepted. That’s why we’re here.”

“My parents knew.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

The betrayal cut deeper than I expected.

“Was that why you approached me last night? You wanted an early taste, knowing I was a Feywin. Somehow, with your monster powers, you knew that I would be the Feywin bride and that you could use your special abilities to trick me into getting into your bed, didn’t you?” I spoke even more, making sure to say the ‘Feywin bride’ in the same condescending tone he had used earlier.

He turned to face me slowly. Those dark eyes were nearly black.

"Yes," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I used my dark powers to force a supposedly virtuous lady to sneak out unchaperoned, proposition a stranger, and beg him to bed her. That was all me. You had no choice in the matter."

Heat flooded my face. "I didn't know—"

"You didn't know because you didn't care." He leaned forward. "You wanted one night of freedom. So did I. We both got trapped because of it. Don't pretend you're the only victim here."

"You acted like you wanted me last night!" My voice cracked. "Was that a lie, too? Just another part of the trap?"

"There was no trap!" He slammed his hand against the carriage wall. "I didn't know who you were. You didn't know who I was. We were both escaping the same fucking prison, and fate decided to mock us both by binding us to it anyway."

Lord Aubrey’s lips curved into a smile, but it was nothing like the smiles he offered me last night. This one was mocking. Taunting. It was a smile a predator would offer their prey right before striking, and this prey had absolutely nowhere to hide.

My heart plummeted. A sheen of sweat formed on my forehead. And that tongue of mine that always wanted to get busy creating new words ceased to function.

"But since you seem so convinced I'm a monster, you'll have no trouble meeting my father tonight. He'll show you what a real monster looks like.”

The words from Ophelia’s letter replayed in my head.

The payments. The names. The symbols written in red.

They wear skin like costumes during the day. At night… they aren’t human. 

If the man you marry feels wrong, if he looks at you too long, don’t let him smell your fear, and don’t let yourself trust him.

 Not only had I allowed myself to trust a monster once, but I had slept with one. If fate had it in her to play one more trick, then tonight my very own name could be written in red. Engraved with my own blood. Sealed in holy matrimony and death.

I felt tears begin to form, only this time I had no way to hold them back.

They fell slowly, mixing with the makeup that I had no business wearing today but had to because my dear sister decided I was fit to play sacrificial lamb.

And through it all, Lord Aubrey smiled, appearing even more satisfied than he did last night.

This was his true nature, and this was the new world I would have to learn and understand.

As though the fates could sense that I could no longer engage in any conversation with Lord Aubrey, the carriage stopped, and the doors opened to reveal a young man who I believed could be no older than eighteen. Still, then again, we were dwelling in a world of monsters where nothing really appeared as it seemed. He spared me no glance as he gestured for us to come down. The young boy must be used to seeing new brides cry often. After all, this was tradition, was it not?

Lord Aubrey came down, and I did not have to wait for a word before I got down. I had heard more than enough for today.

Cold air bit into my arms the moment I stepped out, and yet I had no urge to hug myself. My hands remained at my back, tightly holding onto the last piece of Ophelia that I had.

My eyes did a quick sweep of my new prison. The estate sat before us like something that belonged in one of those stories in my journals, and not something that belonged in reality.

Towers climbed toward the sky. They were taller than anything in Evenmoor, darker, built from stone that seemed to drink in light rather than reflect it. Torches burned in brackets along the walls despite the afternoon sun, their flames an unnatural blue-white.

Gardens surrounded the main structure, but these weren’t the careful, manicured hedges of a home. Everything here grew wild as though they had somehow adapted to the monstrous ways of the things that lived inside of it. The roses were the size of dinner plates. Vines as thick as my wrist. Trees with bark that looked almost like fur in the shifting light.

And everywhere, people moved with a fluidity that made my skin prickle. Too smooth. Too quiet. Too perfect to be real.

This wasn’t a home. It was a den.

When Lord Aubrey began to move, I followed quietly behind him, hiding Ophelia’s letter in my corset in case anything happened inside.

The inside of the  castle was even more magnificent than what I had seen outside, and yet all my sightseeing was cut short when my eyes landed on an old man on a throne. 

With each step we drew nearer to him, the more I could see the resemblance between him and the younger Lord Aubrey. He had the same dark brown eyes his son had, and there was something about the air around him that told me that Ophelia’s words had been kinder than reality. Every nerve in my body yelled at me to run, and I began retracing our steps, thinking of all possible escape routes.

“So this is the Feywin bride,” the old man said, his voice more gravelly than any man’s I had heard before. All thoughts of escape suddenly vanished.

The man slowly stood from his throne, his steps measured, and when I tried to back away, the young Lord Aubrey gripped my wrist tightly and gave me a single sharp look that convinced me to stay put.

When his father was close enough, he stopped. 

The old man circled me slowly, like a buyer examining livestock. He lifted his head for a few moments and smiled, exposing his pearly whites and a single golden tooth. “You've claimed her already. How unlike you to take initiative, Lewison.”

My heart thundered against my chest. How did he know?

“Things are moving along nicely. The mating ritual proceeds tonight.” He continued, his eyes raking over me. “Then we’ll parade the toy to the pack. They’ll want to see what a Feywin looks like these days.”