My wedding night resembled a house of mourning rather than a celebration. I felt as if I had surrendered a piece of my heart into the ice-cold hands of a dead lady. Every sound echoing through the corridors was not a herald of love, but an announcement of an execution.
Hours collapsed like centuries. Varg's thunderous commands, his insults, and the savage howls of his wolves rose from the grounds.
Every claw on patrol was ravaging the forest, tracking the foul stench left behind by the vampires. But time was a hangman's rope tightening around Vespera's neck; despite the hours passing, the only news I waited for had not arrived.
Varg could never give me those indescribable feelings I found in the dusty romance novels I read. He was a man who fought for the lullabies of prophecies, not for his heart.
The fact that he was one of the most handsome men in the world wasn't enough to warm the stone mass inside his chest. This coldness made him beautiful only in the way a masterfully carved, yet lifeless, statue is beautiful.
But God had forgotten to breathe a soul into him. The only power that could have graced him with breath was the God of War and Destruction.
It was impossible to find even a single drop of human emotion on that sculpted face. The veins of his heart beat not to love, but to hate, to tear apart, and to protect his territory.
The tears streaming from my eyes were the funeral ceremony for my hopes dying in the forest. Chloe, Melanie... My breath grew shallow whenever I thought of their empty stomachs and trembling knees.
I pulled my hair into a rough, hasty bun at my nape. In this castle, there wasn't a single thread that belonged to me, nothing of mine to touch my skin.
"Stupid Alpha…" I whispered, the rage in my voice barely enough to silence my trembling chin.
It was impossible to keep wearing that silver wedding dress, heavy with mud and blood. The fabric felt like a shroud pricking my skin. Among the massive, luxury walk-in closets, the only things I could find were Varg's oversized t-shirts, looming with his heavy, masculine scent. I pulled one over my head. The fabric reached down to my hips, but I was naked beneath.
No. I wouldn't wear his... I wouldn't wear the underwear that had touched his parts, that carried the heat of his skin!
As the moonlight struck my bare legs and hips in a silver chill while I stood by the closet, I realized there was no trace of "softness" in this man's life. No pajamas.
Only shirts that looked like battle armor, stiff jeans, and black t-shirts. I pulled on a pair of elastic sweatpants I found at the very back of the closet.
While I fiercely scrubbed the underwear I'd worn all day in the bathroom sink, I faced my reflection in the mirror. Hair frizzy from the dampness, dark circles under my eyes, and skin as pale as the dead.
"It doesn't look much like those romance novels we read, does it, Vespera?" I said to my own darkness.
"Where is the man who wraps his arms around your waist and lays you on the bed? Where is the one who trails his lips across your skin like a prayer? Where is the voice saying, 'I will love you like the union of the moon and the night'?"
Those dreamy lines in my mind were shattered by a massive blow to the bathroom door. Thud!
"Freak hybrid!" Varg roared from outside. His voice cracked the wood of the door. "What is it? Are you trying to drown yourself in that water to escape me?"
"I'm fingering myself on our wedding night, Varg!" I shouted back, not bothering to hide the venom in my voice. "I have a virginity problem that you're too incompetent to handle, too afraid to even touch! Just like you're too incompetent to bring my friends back!"
"What did you say?"
The door shook. Vespera knew that for Varg, that door was no more than a piece of paper. The curses of a monster whose patience had run out filled the corridor: "Fuck! Dammit! Open this fucking door!"
"My fingers are lost inside, Alpha!" I mocked, my voice sharp as a blade. "Just like my friends you left lost in the hands of those blood-sucking maniacs!"
When Varg burst through the door with his shoulder, I was met with a man who looked like a bull seeing red. He was breathless, his eyes turning to those burning lavas. He was catching the scent of the air; the only thing hitting his nose was the smell of wet underwear washed with his own heavy shampoo.
"I didn't know my wife was an unchaste omega," he said, his voice laced with a bestial growl. The hatred in his eyes poured over me like a flood. "I don't want you to starve to death and become an ill-omened ghost in my house. Get downstairs and eat, freak."
"I won't take up as much space as the actual ghost in your heart, don't worry!" I snapped. My tongue curled like a viper in my mouth. My heart wasn't pumping blood; it was pumping pure poison into my veins.
Varg stepped toward me, seizing my arms with such ferocity that I heard the creak of my bones. He shook me like a fresh fruit tree being stripped of its harvest. His fingers tightening around my wrists were shackles.
"I never promised you rose gardens!" he roared into my face. "If you're this weak, this fragile, you won't be my key—you'll be the burden on my back. You live by my rules, or you die in this misery!"
"If you tell a lamb that you're taking it to the slaughterhouse soon, Varg..." I said, narrowing my eyes. "That lamb won't obey you; it will only wait for the sharpness of the knife!"
"You are no pathetic lamb! You're a wolf, act like one!" he thundered. "That bastard Kael clearly never taught his pack how to obey."
"Maybe he didn't treat his future wife like a mandatory soldier who had to obey!" I spat, digging my nails into his arm.
Varg brought his face so close to mine that his hot breath scorched my skin. He cupped my jaw in his palm like a vise. "Do you think I'm a fool? Your intelligence isn't even enough for your own pain, you miserable little omega. You want me to give up, to let you run back to your pathetic forests."
"If I have to be married to a monster," I said with a long, weary breath. "I'd prefer it to be a monster that respects me."
"Get downstairs. Join the family and eat. Now!"
"I'm not part of the family, and I never will be, will I?" I said, unable to hide the fragility in my voice this time. "Tell me, Alpha... Did the real Luna used to cook? Which side of you did she sit on the couch?"
A dark, mocking smile flickered across Varg's face. "You don't want to know, freak. You could never take her place."
"Let me guess... She sat on your left, didn't she?" I said, the lump in my throat burning. "Because the heart was on the left. A person's heart beats differently when they love... It quickens. It crashes like storm waves against the rocks."
Varg's brows furrowed, the wild glint in his eyes freezing for a moment. "Who told you that?"
"You wanted to keep her close to your heart," I said, swallowing hard, my eyes fixed on the void. "You wanted her close enough to hear your heartbeat, to fall asleep to that sound. But me... I only hear the echo of your hatred."
Varg didn't answer. He didn't deny it either. He just remained silent.
And I, Vespera—the woman whose hair held the melting, bloody snowflakes of the forest, whose soul was covered in bruises—realized in that moment that the romance novels weren't lying.
Empires were toppled for the sake of love, heroes died for it; that much was true. The "fabric of love" truly existed.
Varg wasn't a monster. It was just that... the tailor of the "dress of love" Varg wore was another woman. His heart had been embroidered by her needle, dyed in her colors.
His boundaries began at the sharp edges cut by her scissors.
Romance novels weren't a lie. I just wasn't the woman being loved.