Chapter 4

The whole alley came alive on our wedding day, loud and bright as a festival.

I wore the finest dress I'd ever owned in my life. It was so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn't care. I was beaming from the inside out.

Walt stood beside me in his wedding attire, trembling so badly I thought he might pass out before the ceremony ended.

The sight of him that nervous only made me happier.

When we stood together at the altar, he turned and looked at me, and his eyes were nothing but soft.

"Yvonne, I have no home and no past. But from today, this is my home. Whatever my name is, whoever I was, I'm your husband now."

Those words hit me so hard that the tears just came.

After the guests left and the celebrations finally wound down, I shut the bedroom door behind me. Rubbing my hands together, I walked toward Walt where he sat at the edge of the bed.

"Darling, our wedding night won't last forever. Let's not waste it."

Walt turned red, his lashes fluttering.

"Y-Yvonne. Easy."

I grinned and launched myself at him like a starved woman.

"Don't worry. I'll take good care of you!"

I reached for the belt at his waist, slipped my hand beneath his shirt, and felt the lean muscle underneath.

Just then, a boom shook the whole house. Dust rained down from the ceiling.

Our solid wooden front door exploded inward, kicked clean off its hinges from the outside.

Cold air and something far more dangerous rushed in with it.

My hand was under the pillow and around my butcher's knife before I'd even thought about it. I threw myself in front of Walt, who was still half undressed behind me.

"Who in the hell just broke down my door? You've got a death wish!"

I stood there with the knife raised, ready for whatever came through next.

But the next second, my brain stopped working completely.

It wasn't bandits or thugs.

It was soldiers. Dozens of them, armored in steel and armed with spears, filling the entire street outside. Their armor caught the moonlight, gleaming cold and sharp.

Royal soldiers.

There was no mistaking it.

The one leading them wore finely polished steel armor, etched with intricate patterns. He stepped through the shattered doorway. His eyes landed on Walt sitting on the bed, clothes in disarray, and his eyes widened.

Then that imposing commander got down on one knee on my floor.

"Forgive me for arriving late, my lord. I have failed in my duty."

The moment he knelt, every single soldier outside followed. Hundreds of them, hitting the ground at once.

"Welcome back to the capital, Grand Chancellor!"

The sound shook the walls.

My knife slipped from my fingers, and the hilt landed directly on my foot.

I turned my neck slowly and looked back at Walt.

The shy, soft, flustered man just moments ago was gone. The flush had drained completely from his face. What replaced it was something cold and composed, an authority I had never seen in him before.

He calmly straightened the front of his shirt where I'd pulled it open. His eyes swept over the soldiers kneeling on the ground with no particular expression at all.

Then the wine glass he'd been holding slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor.

I was done for.

That was the only thought in my head.

The man I'd dragged home from the graveyard was the grand chancellor, Jeremy Sanford.

He was the most powerful man in the empire, the one they said was ruthless, brilliant and had never once hesitated to destroy someone who crossed him.

And I had just tried to seduce him tonight.

What was the punishment for that exactly? Death by torture? Dismemberment? Or would they just wipe out my entire family?