CHAPTER 6: The Wedding Night

 "The first time with your mate is magical!"

They don't tell you that wedding nights can feel like funerals.

I sat in the bridal suite at the pack house, wearing a white nightgown I'd bought three weeks ago from a shop in town. It had cost more than I should have spent, delicate lace at the collar and hem, the kind of thing I imagined a bride should wear. The other mated she-wolves had told me stories while helping me dress earlier. Their eyes had gone soft and dreamy talking about their own wedding nights.

"You'll feel the bond strengthen," Sara had said, adjusting the flowers in my hair that would be gone in an hour. "It's like nothing else."

"He'll be so gentle with you," another had added with a knowing smile. "The first time, they're always so careful."

I believed them. Sat on the edge of the bed in that expensive nightgown with candles burning on every surface and believed that this night would be different. Special. That Damon would look at me the way he had three months ago when he'd first called me beautiful.

The room smelled like vanilla and roses. I'd spent an hour arranging everything. The candles at just the right height. The sheets turned down at just the right angle. I'd even put on perfume, something light and floral that the shop woman had promised was perfect for occasions like this.

I waited.

The celebration had ended an hour ago. I could hear the last of the guests leaving, car doors closing, voices fading into the night. Damon had stayed behind with Beta Rowan and Gamma Clark for one more drink. To toast properly, he'd said. I'd smiled and nodded and come upstairs alone.

That was fine. Normal even. Grooms celebrated with their friends. I understood that.

The candles burned lower.

I waited.

At some point I moved to the chair by the window and watched the moon through the glass. Full and bright, the same moon we'd gotten engaged under. A good sign, I'd thought then. The Moon Goddess blessing us.

My eyes were getting heavy when I heard footsteps in the hall.

I stood quickly. Smoothed the nightgown down. Tried to remember how to breathe normally.

The door opened.

Damon came in smelling like whiskey. Not just a little. Enough that I could smell it from across the room, sharp and sour under his cologne. His tie was loose, his jacket gone somewhere downstairs. His eyes were slightly unfocused when they landed on me.

"Sorry." He closed the door behind him, leaning against it for a moment. "The guys wanted to celebrate properly."

I smiled. Tried to. "That's okay. I understand."

He looked around the room then. At the candles burning low. At the turned-down sheets. At me in the white nightgown that had cost too much.

He didn't say anything about any of it.

Just moved past me toward the closet and started unbuttoning his shirt.

I stood there in the middle of the room, hands twisted together, not sure what to do. What I was supposed to do. The she-wolves hadn't covered this part. The part where your husband comes in drunk and doesn't look at you.

"Damon?"

"Mm." He pulled his shirt off, tossed it toward a chair. Missed. Left it on the floor.

"Are you... should we...?"

I didn't know how to finish the sentence. Didn't know what words to use. My face was hot. The nightgown suddenly felt ridiculous. Too much. Try-hard.

He turned and looked at me then. Really looked. His eyes moved from my face down to my feet and back up again. Something in his expression was flat. Assessing. Like he was looking at something he needed to get through rather than something he wanted.

"Yeah." He moved toward me. "Might as well."

Might as well.

The words sat in my chest like stones.

What happened next was quick and mechanical and nothing like what the she-wolves had described. He didn't look at me. Didn't kiss me the way he had under the full moon when he proposed. His hands were efficient and impersonal, like he was completing a task that needed completing.

I tried to connect. Tried to find that warmth from three months ago, from the walks in the forest and the flowers by the stream and all those moments when I'd felt chosen. When I'd felt like I mattered.

But he was somewhere else. Moving through the motions with his eyes closed and his jaw set, and when it was over he rolled away without a word.

I lay there in the expensive nightgown, staring at the ceiling, feeling the candles still burning around us.

"That's it?" The words came out before I could stop them. Small and confused.

He didn't turn over. "What did you expect?"

"I don't know. Something... different?"

"We're mated now, Iris. That's what matters." His voice was already getting slower. Sleep pulling him down. "Don't make it complicated."

He was asleep three minutes later. I could tell by his breathing, deep and even, the whiskey pulling him under fast.

I stayed awake until all the candles burned out one by one, leaving the room dark except for the moonlight through the window.

I cried quietly into my pillow so I wouldn't wake him.

Morning came too bright and too early.

I woke to an empty bed. The sheets on Damon's side were already cool. He'd been gone for a while.

I found him in the kitchen.

With Clarissa.

She sat at the table in pajamas and a robe, her blonde hair pulled back, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands. Damon stood at the counter making breakfast. Eggs and toast, the smell filling the whole first floor.

He never cooked. In three months of dating, he'd never once offered to cook anything.

They both looked up when I came in.

"Good morning!" Clarissa's smile was bright. Warm. Genuine-looking. "I hope you don't mind. I arrived early this morning and Damon was kind enough to make coffee."

"She needed a place to stay," Damon said without looking at me. He was focused on the eggs in the pan, the spatula moving in careful circles. "Just for a little while. Until she finds something permanent."

I stood in the doorway of my own kitchen in my bathrobe, my hair still messy from sleep, watching my husband make breakfast for his half-sister the morning after our wedding.

"I really don't want to intrude on you newlyweds." Clarissa's voice carried just the right amount of concern. "If it's too much, I can figure something else out."

"Don't be ridiculous." Damon plated the eggs and set them in front of her. "You're family."

Family. The word sat warm between them.

He turned to me then. "Iris, can you make up the guest room? Fresh sheets and towels."

Not a question. An instruction.

"Of course." My voice came out quiet. Careful.

Clarissa smiled at me over her coffee cup.

There was something in that smile. Something I couldn't quite name but that made the back of my neck prickle. Not warmth. Something else. Something that looked like victory.

I went upstairs to make up the guest room for my husband's half-sister on the first morning of my marriage.

The first week passed in a blur of Damon being busy. Beta duties, he said. His father was training him harder now that he was mated. More responsibility. More expectations. He was barely home.

When he was home, Clarissa was there.

In the kitchen. In the living room. Sitting beside him while he worked through pack documents at the dining room table. Laughing at things he said. Touching his arm when she made a point. Being present in a way that somehow made me feel like the guest in my own house.

I tried to be understanding. Tried not to be the demanding wife Sara had warned me about over coffee one afternoon.

"Men need space," she'd said. "Especially Alpha males. Don't crowd him."

So I gave him space.

He took miles.

Two weeks after the wedding, I suggested we go out. Just the two of us. A walk by the stream where we used to go when we were dating. Maybe dinner in town at the little restaurant with the good pasta.

"I'm not your entertainment, Iris."

The words came sharp and fast. He didn't even look up from his laptop.

"I just thought... we haven't spent any time together since..."

"Since what? Since we got married?" He looked at me then. "Is that not enough? You need me to perform for you too?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" He stood, closing his laptop harder than necessary. "Because it sounds like you're being demanding."

"I'm not. I just miss..."

"Miss what?" He moved toward me. Not threatening exactly, but filling the space in a way that made me want to step back. "We're married now. This is what marriage looks like. We don't have to pretend anymore."

The words hurt more than they should have. Pretend. Like the three months before had all been an act.

"I wasn't pretending," I said quietly.

"Good for you." He moved to walk past me toward the door. Toward escape.

I reached out without thinking. Caught his arm. "Damon, please. Can we just talk about..."

His hand closed around my wrist. Hard. Fast. His fingers finding bone.

"I said NO."

The pain was immediate and sharp. I gasped. Tried to pull away. His grip tightened for one more second before releasing.

I stumbled back, cradling my wrist against my chest.

He looked at his own hand like it had done something without his permission. Something crossed his face. Almost like guilt. Almost.

"I'm sorry." He ran his hand through his hair. "I'm just... I'm stressed, Iris. You don't understand the pressure I'm under. You know better than to push when I'm like this."

I should have said something then. Should have drawn a line. Should have recognized what was starting.

But he looked tired. And stressed. And I had pushed when he'd said no.

"I'm sorry," I said instead.

He nodded. "Just... give me space right now. Okay?"

He left. I stood in the middle of the living

room with my wrist throbbing and told myself it wasn't his fault.

That night, the bruise came up purple and blue.

I forgave him.

That was my first mistake.

It wouldn't be my last.