CHAPTER 7: The Marriage

"I'm tired. Not tonight."

They say a frog will sit in slowly boiling water until it dies. I was that frog.

Six months after the wedding, Alpha Thornwell died in his sleep. Heart attack, the pack doctor said. Quick. Painless. A good death for an Alpha who'd led Silverpine for thirty years.

Damon became Alpha at twenty-three.

The ceremony was three days later. I stood beside him in the town square while the pack elders bound the Alpha bands around his wrists and pronounced him leader. His face was stone. Grief locked somewhere I couldn't reach.

I tried that night. Came to him where he sat in his father's study, now his study, staring at papers he wasn't reading.

"Do you want to talk?"

"I'm tired. Not tonight."

I left him alone.

That became the pattern. I reached out. He pulled away. I gave him space. He took more.

The months between us touching went from one to two to three. When it did happen, late at night when he came home smelling like whiskey and couldn't sleep, it felt like charity. Like he was doing me a favor. I lay awake after, listening to him breathe, trying to remember when it had felt different.

Clarissa's temporary stay became permanent somewhere in those first months. She moved from the guest room to the bigger room down the hall. Brought more clothes. More belongings. Nested.

"She helps with pack business," Damon said when I asked how long she planned to stay. "I need her right now."

He didn't need me. That much was clear. But he needed her.

She was there every morning when I came downstairs. There every evening when I tried to have dinner with my husband. Sitting beside him while he worked through Alpha business, her hand on his shoulder, her voice soft in his ear. Helping him in ways I didn't know how to help.

I told myself it was fine. She was family. He was grieving. I needed to be understanding.

I was understanding for so long I forgot what it felt like to be anything else.

My friends stopped calling after the first year.

Sara had been the last one to try. She'd invited me to lunch three times. I'd canceled twice because Damon needed me home, and the third time I'd sat across from her barely saying a word, too tired to pretend everything was fine.

She didn't invite me again.

When I mentioned it to Damon, he shrugged.

"You don't need them. You have the pack."

But the pack followed his lead in everything. When he stopped looking at me, they stopped seeing me. I walked through the pack house like a ghost. Present but not accounted for. Spoken around rather than to.

The only person who talked to me regularly was Clarissa.

She'd find me in the kitchen or the living room, always with that warm smile, always with some piece of advice wrapped in concern.

"Damon is under so much stress," she'd say, touching my arm. "Try not to burden him with small things right now. He needs support, not more problems."

I nodded. Took the advice. Made myself smaller.

"You seem tired," she'd observe another day. "Are you sleeping enough? Damon mentioned you've seemed off lately."

Had he? He barely spoke to me. But I believed her. Tried to be less off. Whatever that meant.

She was gaslighting me with kindness. I see that now. Then, I just thought she was trying to help.

Year two brought new rules I hadn't agreed to.

"I'll handle our money," Damon announced one morning over breakfast. Just stated it like the decision was already made. "It's easier if everything goes through one account."

My paychecks from the healing rooms, small as they were, started going into an account I couldn't access. He gave me an allowance. Enough for groceries and household things. Not enough for anything else.

When I bought a new dress because all mine were worn through, he held up the receipt.

"This is expensive."

"It was on sale. I needed..."

"Is that appropriate for a Luna?" He looked at the dress like it had offended him personally. "It's too tight. Too bright. You're representing the pack, Iris. Act like it."

I returned the dress.

Started wearing the things he bought instead. Beige and grey and shapeless. Things that made me disappear.

He started checking my phone that year too.

I came home from the healing rooms one afternoon to find him scrolling through my messages, his face dark.

"Who's this male wolf texting you?"

My stomach dropped. "That's Daniel. He works at the..."

"I know who he is." His voice was quiet. Dangerous. "Why is he texting you?"

"It's about work. A patient we're both..."

"It doesn't look like work." He held up the phone. The message read: Thanks for covering my shift yesterday. I owe you one.

"That's exactly what it is. He needed coverage and I..."

"You didn't tell me you were covering someone's shift."

"I didn't think I needed to tell you every..."

"You do." He set the phone down carefully. Too carefully. "You need to tell me everything. Where you are. Who you're with. I'm your Alpha, Iris. Or did you forget?"

I hadn't forgotten. He reminded me daily.

He was jealous of threats that didn't exist. Suspicious of every man I spoke to, every moment I wasn't home where he could see me. But when I was home, he barely looked at me. Indifferent to my presence unless it inconvenienced him.

The comparisons started around then too.

"Why can't you be more like Clarissa?" He said it over dinner one night, looking at the meal I'd spent two hours making. "She's so organized. She made this incredible roast last week. Perfect."

I looked at my pot roast. Dry. I'd left it in too long.

"I can try her recipe."

"It's not about the recipe." He set his fork down. "It's about effort. She puts in effort."

I bit my tongue. Didn't point out that I worked full time and came home to cook and clean while Clarissa's only job was existing in our house. Didn't point out that she had time to make incredible roasts because she had nothing else to do.

"Clarissa made this amazing dinner. Can you learn from her?"

The next week. And the week after. Always Clarissa. Always better.

She'd smile when he said these things. Humble and embarrassed.

"Oh, Iris is wonderful in her own way!" She'd touch my arm. "We're just different, that's all."

Different. That was one word for it.

It was death by a thousand cuts. Each comparison small enough to swallow. All of them together heavy enough to bury me.

By year three, I'd stopped recognizing myself in mirrors.

The woman looking back was quiet. Compliant. Invisible. She didn't laugh anymore. Didn't have opinions. Didn't take up space. She apologized for existing and thanked people for the bare minimum.

She was exactly what Damon wanted.

I'd given him everything. My money. My friends. My voice. My self. Piece by piece until there was nothing left that was mine.

And then I got pregnant.

Sitting now in our locked bedroom, his ultimatum still echoing off the walls, I finally understood.

He never loved me.

Not at the beginning when he brought me flowers and called me beautiful. Not on our wedding night when he couldn't look at me. Not through three years of slowly crushing me down into something manageable.

He'd wanted someone uncomplicated. Someone who wouldn't challenge him or expect too much or interfere with whatever he had planned with Clarissa.

He'd wanted a placeholder.

And I'd volunteered for the position. Had stood there with my hand raised saying pick me, choose me, love me. Had been so desperate to matter to someone that I'd let him reshape me into whatever he needed me to be.

This was always the plan.