Ch 8- A bride being delivered

Maya 

The day after the dreams was the longest day of my life. I moved through it like a ghost, drifting aimlessly from my chamber to the window and back again, watching the sun crawl across the sky with agonizing slowness. Valeria had tried to feed me, and I had tried just as hard to eat, but neither of us had succeeded.

At dinner, Kai caught my eye from across the dining hall. The expression on his face was fierce, frustrated, and utterly helpless all at once. It nearly made me cry but Father was watching. So I looked away, swallowing the emotions clawing at my throat before anyone could see them.

I went to bed early that night, but sleep remained a stranger. I lay awake even longer than I had the night before, turning the same frightening thoughts over and over in my mind.

What if Tyler Kingston disappointed me? What if he moved on to the next job, the next tavern, the next desperate customer with a pocket full of gold?

What if Theo Griffin meant nothing to him?

What if I arrived at Draken’s fortress because there was simply no one there willing—or able—to stop it from happening?

The questions haunted me until exhaustion finally dragged my eyes shut. I didn’t dreamwalk that night. Or perhaps I did. If I had, I didn’t remember it.

Dawn had finally broken when they came to dress me. I hadn’t slept again after lying awake for most of the night. I had simply remained beneath the covers in the pale grey morning light, staring at the ceiling while listening to Valeria move quietly around the chamber.

I tried not to think about vampires or werewolves. Or the fact that today was the day everyone had been expecting.

Two maids I barely recognized eventually entered carrying a copper tube filled with warm water. They bathed me, perfumed my skin, and dressed me with the brisk efficiency of women who had been given a task and intended to complete it properly. They avoided my eyes and I didn’t blame them. They were only carrying out an order.

Valeria stood in the corner with her arms folded, supervising everything with an expression that dared anyone to make a mistake. When one of the maids tugged my hair too roughly, Valeria descended upon her like a small, furious storm.

“She’s not a horse being groomed for the market,” she snapped. “You need to be gentle.”

Despite everything, I smiled. When they were finally finished, I stood before the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back at me. The dress was a deep shade of red, made from fine wool. It was simply cut but beautifully crafted, with a V-neck collar and long sleeves that somehow made me look almost like a goddess.

My hair was pinned, braided, and curled delicately at the nape of my neck with a skill I could never have managed myself. I stared at my reflection for a long time. The girl looking back at me appeared composed and dignified. It was neither a good sign nor a convincing lie. I had my mother’s cheekbones. I knew that because I had studied her portrait enough times to be certain.

But I hadn’t inherited her luminous beauty. Mother had possessed the kind of beauty that seemed to glow from somewhere deep within her. The kind that could make you feel warm simply by looking at her. She had been extraordinarily beautiful and I was merely ordinary.

I wondered if Lord Draken would look at this face and see a person… or simply a prize.

My fingers rose and touched the cold surface of the mirror. For one brief moment, I imagined I was saying goodbye to something I couldn’t quite name. Then I lowered my hand.

I looked exactly like what I was supposed to be. A bride being delivered.

Valeria walked beside me as we made our way through the manor, with two guards following at a respectful distance. I had walked these hallways a million times without paying much attention to them. But today, I noticed everything. The worn patch on the stone floor at the bottom of the east staircase, where generations of Russell feet had smoothed the stone into a soft hollow. The crooked sconce on the third wall of the upper hallway. It had been crooked for as long as I could remember and would probably remain crooked long after I was gone. The narrow window at the end of the corridor overlooking the kitchen garden, where I had spent countless stolen hours as a child watching the cook’s cat hunt mice with businesslike dedication.

Every little detail suddenly felt precious. As though my mind was desperately trying to memorize the life I was leaving behind.

Valeria’s hand found mine in the dim corridor and squeezed it tightly. Then she released me before the guards could notice.

I kept walking. When I entered the grand hall, my father was already waiting. He stood beside the cold fireplace with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the doorway. He was dressed formally, as though this were some important state occasion rather than the morning he was sending his daughter toward what could very well be a cruel fate.

Mateo stood to one side, straight and silent as a post. He looked up when I entered and for a brief moment, something flashed in his eyes.

Guilt.

Or perhaps something that wanted to become remorse but hadn’t quite gotten there. Then it disappeared.

“You look well,” he said. The words were true but the tone wasn’t. He might as well have been commenting on the weather.

I looked at him: his too-pointed nose, sagging shoulders, the permanent furrow between his brows that made him look perpetually burdened. And, strangely, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Not anger. Not anymore. Just a vast, exhausted sadness.

For both of us.

“Goodbye, Mateo,” I said.

He cleared his throat and looked away. “Try to be good, Maya.”

There it was, his answer to everything. I let it go. I didn’t have the energy to be angry with him today. Besides, I had bigger things to worry about. Like whether a certain rogue mercenary was currently positioned somewhere along the geriatric sacred temple route. 

Or whether he was three villages away, spending my mother’s gold on ale and whores.

My father slowly looked me over, the way he had always inspected a horse before a sale. I forced myself to remain still beneath his gaze as I thought about Tyler Kingston’s dark corner in the Grim Goblin tavern. The oceanic blue eyes of a midnight-black wolf.

And I breathed.

“You’re just perfect,” Father finally uttered.

High praise from Alpha Russell.

He moved toward me. Then I noticed something in his hand.

A box.

My breath caught in my chest as he stopped in front of me and opened it. Inside it was a classic strand of white-gold pearl beads. They possessed a delicate, creamy luster that seemed to glow from within. At the center hung a white wolf emblem pendant.

I had seen it only once before. In a woman’s portrait locked away in the room in the north wing. My mother’s chamber.

My father’s hands were not quite steady as he reached around my neck and fastened the clasp. When he finished, he remained standing before me for a moment. He didn’t quite meet my eyes. His jaw worked silently, as though he were struggling to force words past his lips but none came.

I understood his silence. I had spent twenty-one years learning how to read my father’s silences. The pearl beads were his way of apologizing to me.

My throat tightened. “Thank you, Father,” I murmured. “For Mother’s insignia bead.”

It was the first time I had ever spoken about Mother aloud,Father flinched as though my words had struck him. Only slightly just for a moment. Then, just as quickly, his expression hardened into the familiar grumpy mask I had known all my life.

But I had seen it. For the first time, I had seen what he tried so desperately to hide.