Stolen Wedding

“Why are you not fighting back? Did you finally lose the will to live, baby girl?” Genevieve asked, taunting my silence and endurance.

I stared right into her eyes, the first time that I did ever since I came here.

“Yes, yes. You are right. I do not want to live anymore. You can kill me already and I am still going to thank you.”

I smiled through my bitter tears while grabbing the collar of her prison uniform.

“Please, kill me now, you fucker! Kill me now!”

She just grinned before pulling my head so she can whisper in my ears.

“Well, too bad because Mr. Phillips specifically instructed me to torture you slowly until you feel like being dead anyway.”

She laughed afterwards slamming me back down.

Out of frustration and anger, I managed to free myself from the bind and smacked my head into her face.

We ended up tumbling on the floor, rolling around biting and growling at each other but without my wolf, I am easily overwhelmed and defeated.

“You, bitch!” Genevieve screamed and hit my head with a metal bat.

I immediately fell back down, my head swimming in darkness.

“That’s enough.”

I was still able to hear a baritone voice from a man before I completely blacked out.

When I regained consciousness, I was already sitting in the backseat of a moving car with a beautiful middle-aged old lady beside me. 

“Who are you? Where am I?” I asked and hugged myself, disoriented about the sudden change of place.

What’s it going to be this time? Is this another Philip’s scheme to make me suffer?

Is this a dream? Am I dead? But why do I still feel the soreness of my whole battered body? That means I am still alive.

“Who are you?” I asked the lady and sniffed her scent only for me to gasp hard.

Her scent is so strong and powerful! She must be a very powerful werewolf! But what is she doing here with me? Where is she taking me?

“I am your savior, darling,” she answered and puffed out the smoke from her expensive cigar.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To Evan.”

My heart beat out loud. I knew it! That wedding is just a scam! He will really save me! My husband is going to save me! This is what he is talking about in order to save me!

Despite the pain in my whole body, I managed to smile hopefully. “Yes, please. Take me back to my husband.”

The car stopped and the woman looked at me. “I am going to let you watch a wedding.”

I blinked hard. “Do you mean my wedding?”

“No, Mariana Rose.” She pointed at the celebration outside us.

“I mean Evan Hugh’s wedding. Witness your own husband getting married to another woman.”

I snapped my head outside only to see a very elegant and beautiful garden wedding happening before us.

I looked around and saw the insignia of the pack of Evan. We are at his mansion and my husband is in the middle of the backyard adorned by my favorite tulip flowers dancing with a very elegant lady wearing a wedding dress that I designed myself for my own wedding with Evan.

She must be the princess of the NightBlood pack Amy was talking about.

I stared at the whole place. The colors… the flowers… the garden wedding motif… this is what I wanted all along. This is my dream wedding!

“Evan…”

I tried to open the door but the woman beside me quickly stopped me.

“Please, let me out. I have to stop Evan. He should not marry that woman. I am his wife. He married me secretly.”

I showed him the mark of Evan on my neck. “See this? He marked me as his mate and as his wife. I am his wife! That is my husband!”

But the woman only held my arm tighter. “I know that is why I tug you along with me.”

She clutched my chin and forced me to look back at the happy pair.

“Look at your husband, Mariana. Look at how he takes another woman as his wife proudly. He never did this to you. He kept you from the world like a dirty secret while he is parading this woman to be his new wife… all while you rot in your goddamn jail for the sin that you did not do.”

Tears cascaded down my eyes blurring my vision but the twinkling eyes of Evan remained in my head. Why does he look so happy and content? Why does he look like he is not forced at all?

“Congratulations to the newlyweds!” Evan's father's voice rang on the microphone while holding on a toast for everybody. “The bond of the two packs will be stronger now that the two of you are married. My son has been waiting for his mate his whole life.”

I gasped. Two years? What does he mean two years when I just met Evan a year ago?

“She was engaged to your husband way before you came into his life,” she whispered in my ears catching me off guard.

Does it mean that I do not have any right over him? Does it mean that he just deceived me all along?

“I love you, Evan,” the princess of the Nightblood uttered gleefully, the glow of happiness all over her face.

“N-No… please don’t say anything. Please, don’t say that you love her,” I begged while biting my lower lip.

But Evan cupped her face and kissed her mouth passionately. “I love you with all of me, Iris.”

“Oh…” was all I could say as I covered my mouth in surprise.

The guests roared in celebration while I slowly melted into grief and hopelessness in the backseat.

“I love you with all of me, Mariana. You are the only woman for me. You are my one and only mate.” I remembered him saying that to me with utmost sincerity.

“Why are you saying that to her as if you really mean it?” I punched my own chest when the pain is too much for me to handle. This is much much more painful than all the torture I endured. “I am your wife, Evan. How could you marry her?!”

They climbed into the car and drove away from my sight, away from my gasps and cries. That’s when my instincts kicked in.

No! I can’t let him go like this!

“E-Evan!” I ran out of the car into the empty road to chase him. “Evan!”

I ran and ran until the soles of my bare feet bled. It did not stop me because all I want to do is to ask him why he did this to me!

But the car sped away leaving me all dirty in the middle of the empty road.

Exhausted, I knelt down on the concrete and wept.

“How could he do this to me? H-How could he betray me like this? I sacrificed my whole life for him! I went to jail for him but how could he throw it all away like it’s nothing?!” I shouted to the sky.

A pair of red heels stopped in front of me. “That’s how men operate, Mariana. Once they suck everything out from you, they will leave you dry and dead.”

Biting off the pang in my heart, I crawled into her feet and clung unto her. “I want to be free from jail. Please, help me! I will do everything in exchange!”

Hearing that, the woman smiled at me. “What can you do for me, Mariana?”

“What do you want me to do? Tell me. I will do anything!”

She lifted my chin using her red long manicured nail while holding a sinister smile on her lips. “Be my puppet. Do everything that I will tell you. Prove to me that I can rely on you because I will give you everything you need, Mariana. I’ll give you freedom and a new identity.”

In surrender, I bit my own arm until it bled and showed it to her, a sign of my allegiance.

“I will give you my hands if you ask me to. That’s how I want to leave the jail. I’m not guilty! I didn’t kill that poor woman! I have nothing more to live for. Please, for the sake of my pack! Help me!”

A big wide smile ripped her from her face. “Good. From now on, you are no longer Mariana Rose. You will be Glenda Ricks, the youngest of the Silverthorne pack,” she said that while caressing my face that’s full of scars due to Genevieve’s torture.

Despite the confusion, I nodded willingly. I do not care anymore who that woman she’s talking about. 

I will be the person she wants me to be.

All I want is to be free from the prison and she is the only one who can help me.

On that very same night, my name died together with my heart.  

Things have been so fast that I already lost count how many times I have ridden the car and the plane. When we arrived at a secluded place after three days where a secret hospital is located, everything was set and I went under the knife for a whole day to change my face.

“Mariana Rose who was recently convicted has been found dead in her cell. Authorities are ruling it to be suicide,” the anchorman’s voice reverberated inside the recovery room where I stayed still recovering full of bandages.

I could only cry as my original face flashed on the screen.

“I have to do that, Mariana,” the woman said from my back. “Your identity should disappear from this world. You are no longer alive, okay? You are a new person now.”

She placed a hand on my shoulders and pivoted my chair so I could look at my reflection in the mirror.

“From now on, you are no longer Mariana Rose, the loser and the secret wife of your rotten mate. You are no longer the weak and useless member of the Stonecrest pack. You are now Glenda Ricks, the youngest elite daughter of the Silverthorne pack. You are now more powerful than ever, child.”

And I believed her.

In the months that followed, I underwent training here and there. Speaking, posture, how to be a daughter of a wealthy family. I learned all of them as fast as I can to prepare for my introduction into the most secretive and wealthiest pack in the world.

Days after, I found myself walking down from a private plane into the biggest and most luxurious villa that I have ever laid my eyes on with my ‘family’ waiting for me.

I breathed hard and went down the stairs with calculated grace just like how a wealthy woman should be.

With my new face, no one would know that I carry a wound in my heart that will never heal.

With the way I smile confidently, no one would know that I was the same person deep inside that’s scarred for life.

The way I appear to be innocent, no one would know that the revengeful convicted luna is back.