The Lycan Prince's Sold Bride

POV: Ashley "You may now kiss the bride," the priest said. Dante lifted my veil slowly, like a man unwrapping something he had already decided he didn't want. He didn't smile. He didn't even look at me properly, his eyes somewhere past my shoulder, already searching the pews. He kissed me anyway. It was quick, dry, over before I could feel anything but the cold press of his mouth and the colder press of dread settling into my chest. The crowd cheered. Cameras flashed from every direction. I smiled because that was what I was there to do, and because my father was watching from the front row with his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Dante took my hand and pulled me down the aisle, not because he wanted to walk beside me, but because appearances mattered more to him than I ever would. Outside the church, his car was already waiting. A driver held the door open, and I moved towards it, expecting to finally sit beside my husband in whatever quiet we could manage before the reception. Instead, Dante turned and reached his hand out to someone behind me. Farrah... My chief bridesmaid climbed into the car after him, her dress hiked up over her knees, her laughter already spilling out into the afternoon. I stood there for a moment too long, watching my husband settle her into the seat that should have been mine, before I forced my legs to move and climbed in after them. There was barely room for me. Dante didn't glance my way once. His hand had already found Farrah's thigh, and before we had even pulled off the church grounds, her mouth was on his, her fingers threading into his hair, straddling his lap like I wasn't sitting three feet away in my wedding gown. I turned to the window and watched the church disappear behind us, my throat too tight to make a sound. My wolf paced somewhere deep inside me, snarling low, but she was as powerless as I was. Weak. That was the word the pack had used for her my whole life, and today she felt it more than ever. "Don't look so miserable," Dante said at some point, breaking away from Farrah just long enough to glance at me with something close to disgust. "You got what you wanted. A wedding. A ring. My name. Don't ask for more than that." I said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn't make it worse. By the time we reached the hotel, my face ached from holding it still. The car rolled to a stop beneath the grand entrance of the Moretti-owned hotel, the most famous five star hotel in the city, where our reception was to be held. Its glass towers catching the afternoon sun, and glistening in the whole city. I heard the driver open the door and Dante climbed out first. Then, without so much as a glance back at me, he reached in and helped Farrah out, his hand at her waist, guiding her onto the pavement as though she were the bride and I was the guest who had wandered in by mistake. He didn't wait for the driver to come round to my side. He didn't wait at all, he couldn’t care less about me. I watched through the open door as my husband pressed my bridesmaid against the side of the car, right there in front of the hotel, in front of the valets and the photographers and God knew who else, and kissed her like he had been starving for her all through the ceremony. Her fingers curled into his lapels. His hand slid up her spine. Nobody stopped them. Nobody dared. My chest burned with something too complicated to name, shame and grief and a fury I had no right to feel because he had told me from the very beginning what I was to him. A trophy. Nothing more. I gathered the heavy skirt of my gown and shifted towards the open door, determined to get out of that car with whatever dignity I had left before the tears building behind my eyes could fall in front of an audience. But my heel caught the hem of my dress, and suddenly, the world tilted. I felt myself falling forward, my hands grasping at nothing, a gasp tearing out of me before I could stop it. Then something caught me... An arm, solid as stone, wrapped around my waist and hauled me upright before I hit the ground. I looked up, my breath still lodged somewhere in my throat, and found myself staring into a pair of eyes so blue they didn't look real, framed by a face carved out of something far more dangerous than beauty. Everything in me came to life the moment I looked into his eyes, the whole word disappeared and all that’s left was us, just us. My wolf went utterly still for a moment. And then she screamed. Mate. Mate. Mate. His scent hit me a heartbeat later, something dark and clean, like rain on stone, and it curled through my chest and settled somewhere I had no business letting it settle on my wedding day. My whole body wanted to lean into him, to press closer to that warmth, to bury my face against his throat and simply breathe him in. For one terrifying second, I nearly did and then I caught myself just in time. I shoved myself back instead, putting as much space between us as my trembling legs would allow, and straightened my spine the way my father had taught me. A Beta's daughter did not swoon in the street, no matter whose arms had caught her. "Thank you," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper, my eyes fixed firmly on the pavement. I didn't dare look at him again. I was afraid of what my wolf might do if I did, afraid I'd lose whatever breath I had left. Behind me, Dante was still lost in Farrah's mouth, utterly unaware that his wife had nearly fallen at his own wedding, utterly unaware that a stranger's hands had been the only thing standing between me and the ground. I felt the stranger's gaze on me before I heard him speak, and when I finally allowed myself the smallest glance upward, I caught the exact moment his eyes moved from my face, no doubt still blotched and swollen from the tears I'd been fighting since the church, to Dante, still tangled up with another woman in full view of the entire wedding party. Something crossed his expression. Just for an instant. A frown so fierce it looked as though it belonged to a much older kind of anger, one that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the man who couldn't be bothered to notice his own wife. And then it was gone, smoothed away like it had never existed. He said nothing. He didn't ask if I was alright. He simply turned and walked into the hotel ahead of me, his shoulders set, his stride unhurried, as though the woman he'd just caught in his arms, the woman whose wolf was still howling his name inside her chest, meant absolutely nothing to him at all. I stood there long after he disappeared through the doors, my heart hammering a rhythm I didn't recognise, my skin still warm where his hands had been. Whoever he was, I had the terrible feeling my wedding day had just become the least of my problems.