Chapter 3: The illusion of Safety

I know I shouldn’t be up and about, planning a wedding only weeks after my father’s burial. I know I should still be in mourning, wrapped in black, hidden away from the world. But where else could I go? When Seraphina and Lucien seized everything, my father’s houses, his accounts, his estate, when they stood before me with their lawyer and papers and their mocking eyes, I had no choice but to seek shelter here. With Damian.

One week ago, I had a home, a father, a future built with certainty. Now I had none of those things. All that remained was Damian..his house, his protection, his promise.

The weight of my loss clung to me like a second skin as I stood inside his grand estate, surrounded by fabrics and sketches, the chatter of seamstresses filling the room. They spoke of lace and cuts, of pearls sewn into veils. Their voices blurred into meaningless noise.

A wedding dress should have been a dream. Every girl imagined this day, the way her father would beam with pride walking her down the aisle. Instead, mine had been buried in a coffin before he could even see me try one on. 

I smoothed my gown they’d forced onto me, staring at myself in the mirror. Pale and Hollow-eyed. My father’s ghost stood closer to me in this reflection than I did.

Damian entered the room, his presence shifting the air. He always had that effect, a stillness that commanded attention without needing words. His eyes lingered on me, and for a moment, I thought I saw pride, Or possession. It was hard to tell with him sometimes.

“You look beautiful,” he said, his voice deep and steady, the kind of voice that could convince you of anything if you let it.

I forced a smile. “I feel… wrong.”

He crossed the room, brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. His touch was warm, but his gaze was unreadable. “Grief makes everything heavier than it should be love. You’ll feel lighter once the vows are spoken. Once you’re mine, the world won’t seem so cruel.”

The words should have comforted me, but they didn’t. They sat heavy in my chest. “I keep thinking about my father,” I whispered. “About how sudden it was. How… unnatural.”

Damian’s hand stilled. For a second, something flickered in his eyes.. A shadow, quick and sharp but then it was gone, sent away by his careful calm.

“You mustn’t dwell on such thoughts darling,” he said, his tone soft but final. “Pain twists the truth. It will eat you alive if you let it.”

I wanted to argue, to scream that my instincts weren’t grief’s hallucinations, but his gaze pinned me silent. He always had that ability… that authority that pressed down until the fight slipped from my bones.

The seamstresses bustled around, fussing with hems, pretending not to hear. But I saw the way one of them looked at me in the mirror, pity glinting in her eyes before she lowered her head.

Later, after they’d gone, Damian brought in his lawyer. Papers were set before me on a table, marriage contracts, arrangements for my dowry, details that blurred together in legal jargon.

“Just sign here, darling,” Damian murmured, guiding the pen into my hand. His tone was rich and persuasive, but it left no room for refusal.

I stared at the neat black lines, at my name already typed above the blank space where my signature should go. My pulse quickened. It felt too prepared, too precise, as if everything had been waiting for me to simply fall into place.

“Do you trust me?” Damian asked, his voice low.

I looked up at him, and for a moment, the weight of my loneliness collapsed against the strength of his presence. He was all I had left. My father was gone. My home stolen. My future slipping away. What choice did I have but to cling to the one man offering me a place in his world?

“I trust you,” I whispered, though part of me wondered if I was lying.

The pen scratched across the paper, sealing something I couldn’t quite name.

That night, alone in the guest room Damian had given me, I undressed slowly, leaving the gown folded across the chair. I sat before the mirror, my skin pale under the candlelight.

“I should feel happy,” I whispered to my reflection. “I should feel safe.”

My lips trembled. The girl in the mirror trembled back. But for one moment, one terrifying second, I swore it wasn’t me at all looking back. Her face was sharper and colder like a stranger wearing my skin.

I blinked, and it was gone, Only me again. Only Althea.

But a shiver lingered, crawling down my spine, whispering that maybe I didn’t even know who that was anymore.