Chapter 5: Rules of the Ruse

<Cassandra>

The ceremony grounds had gone very quiet.

The torches were still burning, but most of the wolves had filtered back inside, and the flowers strewn across the aisle were already beginning to curl at their edges in the cool night air. All the chairs were empty, and somewhere behind me, the huge front doors of Blackthorne Manor had closed shut.

I was still standing at the far edge of the grounds, my entire body as rigid as a pole.

I hadn't moved a single muscle. Not because I couldn't, but because I genuinely didn't know where else to go, and I wasn't quite ready to follow a man I'd married barely thirty minutes ago into a house that wasn't mine. 

So I stood with my hands clasped in front of me, while flower petals drifted across the stone at my feet, and I stared up at the bright full moon, silently asking the goddess, ‘Why?’

The mark on my neck pulsed quietly, and I carefully pressed two fingers to it without thinking. The skin around it was still faintly sore to the touch, and I felt the slight warmth of it beneath my fingertips.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached my ears, and only then did I turn my neck toward the direction of the footsteps.

"The Alpha has gone inside," Jasper said, coming to stand beside me.

I forced a smile, not exactly sure how I was supposed to respond to that.

“He has requested that I bring you in. There is much to discuss about your current, uhhm… situation.”

'I’m sure there is,' I thought, as he began walking away, toward the manor. 

I made my way across the grounds slowly, gathering the skirt of the gown in one hand to keep it off the wet grass. As we approached, one of the servants near the entrance caught sight of us and moved immediately, opening the heavy door without a word and stepping aside to let us pass.

I followed Jasper inside, and the Manor swallowed me whole.

When Jasper was leading me out of the room I had woken up in and toward the ceremony grounds, I really didn’t have the luxury of looking around. But now… it was different.

The entrance hall was enormous, with high stone walls and dark wood beams running the entire length of the high ceiling. Portraits hung at intervals, wolves I didn't recognize staring down from golden frames with expressions that all seemed to carry the exact same message — you do not belong here, orphan.

As Jasper led me to goddess knows where, I made sure to observe all I could and see if I could make a mental map of sorts, but at some point, the sheer size of the manor overwhelmed me, and I lost track.

We stopped at the door of a room on the upper floor.

Jasper’s knuckles rasped against the polished brown oak door, and he pushed it open seconds later.

Inside was a sitting room, or close enough to one. The furniture was tasteful and cold, the fireplace was unlit, and standing near the far window with a glass of red wine and her shoulder angled very slightly away from the door was a woman I had never seen before in my life.

She was beautiful in every sense of the word. Her skin was flawless, and a distinct pale shade of white with rich ginger hair and full red lips. She was tall and slender, yet had curves that existed in perfect proportion.

But her eyes weren’t looking at me, or anywhere in my direction. Her gaze was directed at Dominic.

He was standing near the desk with his jacket slung over the back of a chair. He actually looked up when we entered, his gaze traveling the full length of my body, making me squirm unconsciously.

"Cassandra." He said with absolutely no emotion in his voice, “Please, take a seat.”

I folded my hands into fists at my sides as I mustered up courage, “I’d much rather stand, thank you.”

Dominic moved away from the desk slowly, and I tracked him with my eyes the exact way helpless prey would track an incoming predator. He came to stand a few feet in front of me with his hands clasped behind his back and his silver-gray eyes locking onto my brown ones.

"Have it your way," he spoke, his voice dropping even lower, "But I'll say this once, because I don't intend to repeat myself, and I think you're intelligent enough that I won't have to." He held my gaze without blinking. "What happened today, us getting married, was nothing more than a ruse. The ceremony, the mark, the title — all of it was just a means to an end, and that end has been met." 

He paused and tilted his head slightly. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

'Perfectly,' I thought, but instead I said, "You marked me. I don’t even know what is going on, and nobody has the common decency to tell me anything!” I yelled.

Suddenly, I felt something sharp close around my neck, and my breath hitched. “Watch your tone when you speak to the Alpha.” Jasper said, his claws trailing along the side of my neck.

But Dominic remained completely expressionless at my outburst. He glanced at Jasper, and Jasper immediately retracted his claws and went back to standing as he was.

“I’ll be merciful since it is still, afterall, our wedding.” Dominic said calmly, then in the blink of an eye, he grabbed my chin roughly and pulled my face closer to his. “But the next time you raise your voice at me, I’ll throw you in the dungeon until even your bones rot. Understood?”

With his hand still on my chin, he made me nod my head in agreement, then flashed his fangs in a smile before letting me go.

He straightened slightly. "Your role is simple. In public, at council meetings, at ceremonies, at whatever this pack requires of its Luna — you will show up. You will be present and you will be incredibly convincing." His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "But in private, you will stay the fuck out of my way.”

“You'll have your own quarters, your own servants, and every comfort that comes with the title of Luna. And in return, I expect discretion and compliance.” His fanged smile returned, “Nod if you understand.”

I held his gaze for a moment longer than was probably wise and said, "And if I say no?"

A small chuckle escaped his chest. "You were found half-dead in a forest two days ago with no pack, no bond, and no one in the world looking for you." He let that sit. "I don't think no was ever really on the table, Cassandra."

When he finished, the woman by the window finally turned. She looked at me like I was — to put it plainly — utter garbage.

"I want to make sure you understand what he means," she said. Her voice was smooth, and she had laced it with just enough warmth to make it sound like concern. "You were a rogue wolf two days ago. Whatever this—" she gestured lightly between Dominic and me with her wine glass, "—looks like from the outside, I assure you, that is where the resemblance to a real marriage ends." She paused, letting her words settle. "He loves me. And his heir will be mine. You served your purpose, sweetheart. Don't complicate what's left of it by forgetting that."

I looked at her for a moment. Then I looked at Dominic only to see that he had stopped paying attention to me completely.

"I understand," I said.

*

My room was on the third floor, at the far end of the East corridor. It wasn’t the same room I had woken up in, but it was by far even better than it. 

It was larger than anything I had ever occupied. A four-poster bed with linen that smelled squeaky-clean, a writing desk I was sure I would never use, a wardrobe, and a window that looked out over the back grounds of the Blackthorne estate. The fireplace had been lit before I arrived, and the warmth of the room enveloped me the second I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

‘A room fit for a Luna indeed.’

Under different circumstances, I would have been completely overwhelmed by it. But it was hard to appreciate it after my encounter with Dominic and Alice Everheart, whose name I found out from the servant that led me here.

I sat on the edge of the bed in my wedding gown — still wearing the flowers in my hair because I genuinely hadn't thought to take them out — and I stared into the fire, thinking about the last seventy-two hours.

'Not bad for three days' work, Cassandra.' I chuckled bitterly to myself. 

I lay back against the pillow and looked at the ceiling, forcing myself not to cry. I had already done that. I had sat on the frozen forest floor with dirt pressed into my cheek and a vial clutched between my fingers, and I had cried until there was absolutely nothing left to cry with. 

I was done crying.

A few hours passed, and I finally fell asleep, but then muffled sounds drifted along the empty corridors of this huge manor and came through the walls.

My eyes fluttered open, and the ceiling looked back at me.

“Oh Dominic… please don’t stop! Oh God yes!”

I grabbed a pillow and covered my ears, trying my best — without much luck — to block out the sound of them fucking.

I lay completely still and listened to the sound of Alice and the man whose name I now legally shared, drift through every inch of this house.

At some point, the sounds faded, and the Manor went quiet again.

I let go of the pillow, tossing it back on the bed. Then I reached up and pressed my fingers to the mark on my neck, the way I'd been doing without meaning to since the ceremony ended.

An unconscious thing really, like checking for a wound.

I felt the mark pulse briefly, making me frown at the ceiling. 'A forced mark doesn't do that… right?'

But while I was still trying to figure out the mark, somewhere outside my room, I heard the sound of footsteps, moving down the corridor and coming to a stop directly on the other side of my door.

I froze the second I saw a shadow under the door, and waited for a knock. But it never came; instead, the doorknob began to turn, and I held my breath as my door was slowly pushed open.