001: The Unimaginable Wedding Gift

The Unimaginable Wedding Gift

Talia’s POV

“Let all rise for our most beautiful bride, Talia Vale.”

Mateo’s voice filled the hall, warm and proud, his voice made me feel like everything was going to be okay. The heavy oak door groaned open, and I stepped inside.

The white dress I wore had been stitched together from three different pieces of thorn cloth. The flowers in my hand had been picked from the edge of the forest before dawn. The candles lining the aisle were mismatched stubs that had already burned halfway down. None of it was perfect, but it meant everything to me.

The villagers rose to their feet, and the clapping started… slow at first, then fuller, and warmer. I saw Mrs. Beran pressing her hands to her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Old Harv, who never cried, was absolutely crying. Children who barely understood what a wedding was stood on their toes to catch a glimpse.

I walked slowly, not because the dress was heavy, but because I didn’t want it to end. Outside these walls, the world was ash and silence and the constant low hum of fear. Burned houses still stood like skeletons along the road. The werewolf patrol came every third night, and we all knew how to disappear before they arrived. We had learned that lesson in the worst way possible.

But here, tonight, I let myself be happy.

I looked toward the altar, and there he was.

Valik.

He stood straight, dressed in a clean white shirt that had been pressed with a hot stone that morning. His dark eyes found mine immediately, and the corner of his mouth lifted in that quiet, private way, he gave me the kind of smile that felt like it was made only for me. The villagers adored him. They called him a perfect gentle and good man.

They said I had found something rare.

They were right. It’s hard to believe that just months ago, I almost left him to die.

That day, I had gone into the forest to pick herbs, canned goods, cloth, medicine, just anything useful. I found him, face down in the mud, surrounded by so much blood that I thought he was already dead. Deep claw marks tore across his back. Blade wounds cut along his ribs. His breathing was barely heard.

I stood over him for a long moment. Fear gripped me.

Those wounds... they looked like a werewolf did that.

It was what took my family away from me when I was twelve. That night, I stood alone among the piles of bodies. They all had wounds like these.

I never forgot that day.

Before I knew it, tears filled my eyes, burning at the corners. I wanted to save him. But I was just a human orphan. What if he has messed with the werewolves? Could I really bear the consequences?

For our humans, living under werewolf rule was no different from the end of the world. We were just scraps hiding in the shadows, barely hanging on. We had no place thinking about saving anyone else.

That’s just the world now… we learnt it young and that’s how we were able to survive this long.

I was already turning away when his hand stopped me.

It was half-curled in the dirt, and something about his touch pulled me back ten years in a single second. To the night the howls came without warning, my mother’s voice cutting off mid-scream, my brother’s face when a wolf’s claw pierced through his heart, swallowed by the chaos. My father never even made it to the door.

I stood in the dark alone, and nobody came back.

I couldn’t walk away from him.

So I saved him.

And now he was standing at the altar waiting to marry me, and I genuinely believed that fate had a shape. That it had led me to the forest for a reason and something good had finally decided to find me.

The priest smiled as I reached the altar. Valik took my hands in his, and his grip was firm and warm.

We began our vows.

The words came easily. I had practiced them alone at night, quietly, like a secret. When it was his turn, his voice was steady, and his eyes never left mine, and I felt the kind of happiness I haven’t felt in a long while. I prayed in my heart to the almighty that this joy never fades again.

The priest cleared his throat, opened his mouth to pronounce us one.

“I now pronounce you as husband and…”

A howl split the night open.

My blood turned to ice.