002
1005 Words
CAMILLIA'S POV
“Argh…..
I couldn't help but groan, waking up with a whole load of splitting headaches.
I turned to touch my head just to be yanked back really hard, the sound of metal chains echoed, and it bit into my wrist hard.
I blinked hard until my vision got stable, Stone ceiling. Damp walls. A single dim light hung from the ceiling like it was also tired of being there.
Gosh …yesterday…memories bit in.
The rain. The running. The hand closed around my arm in the dark. Ricosta's dead eyes looking straight through me.
Basement 23.
Great, I spent my wedding night sleeping in the basement.
I couldn't help but chuckle, the sound echoed, felt like my world was mocking me too.
The sound of a lock turning snapped me upright.
A maid stepped through the door. Young, neat, eyes fixed firmly on the floor. She bowed slightly. "My lady. It is time to prepare for the Council meeting."
I stared at her. "I am not going anywhere."
She said nothing but Just stepped aside.
Four guards filed in behind her.
Ohh, she came prepared.
I did not even get the chance to argue. They unlocked the chains and pulled me up by my arms before my legs had fully remembered how to work. I stumbled.
Nobody cared. I was half dragged up two flights of stairs and shoved through a bathroom door so hard I nearly hit the opposite wall.
The female maids who followed were not gentle. They stripped me out of my ruined clothes with the efficiency of people who had done this before and had no feelings about it.
I mean, I'm naked. Have some respect.
They shoved me under a shower that was at least warm. Scrubbed and lotioned and pressed and pinned until I barely recognised the face staring back at me from the mirror.
I looked like a bride.
They tossed a dress at me. Deep green. Expensive. I put it on because I had run out of ways to resist before ten in the morning.
And finally, I was pulled down to the dining table, now standing in front of the monster who was definitely controlling this.
The table was silent, long and maybe too big for just breakfast for two.
He did not look up from whatever he was reading. A plate appeared in front of me. I pushed the food around and watched him from under my lashes.
He looked completely unbothered. Like last night had not happened. Like I had not spent my first night as his wife chained in a basement twenty-three floors below where normal people slept.
I hated him with every cell in my body.
——
The black SUV was waiting outside after breakfast. A guard held the door open and I slid in, Ricosta followed. The door shut and the tension in that car was immediate and suffocating.
I stared out the window.
"When we are inside that room you say nothing except yes. I agree. Understood." His voice broke the silence in the car and made it more awkward.
"If something feels wrong or unfair, you keep your mouth closed. I handle everything."
"And if I disagree?"
"You don't."
I rolled my eyes so hard it almost hurt.
Rubbish.
"You stay beside me at all times. You smile and definitely shake no one's hands."
With that, nothing else came out of him again.
Much better than him listing rules.
I watched the dark trees blur past the window and thought about how many different ways I could hate one person simultaneously.
The Council building was all grey stone and cold authority. We stepped out together and I felt his hand settle on my waist the moment we walked through the entrance. Warm and firm
I nearly flinched.
His lips barely moved. "Smile. Or you lose your waist muscles."
I smiled.
Inside, six elders sat behind a long oak table. I looked at them and thought immediately, these are the ugliest, nastiest, most greedy-looking old men I have ever seen in my life. They looked like they had been sitting in that room since before I was born and had not enjoyed a single day of it.
The ceremony was brief and brutal.
An elder drew a silver blade. Cut Ricosta's palm. Then mine. The pain was sharp and clean. When our hands pressed together to seal the blood oath something jolted up my arm. Electric. Wrong and too much.
Ricosta dropped my hand the moment the elder finished speaking.
"She looks fragile," one of them said. A woman. Sharp features. Eyes like a blade. "Are you certain she can carry the Blood Eclipse lineage, Alpha?"
Ricosta did not even blink. "She is a bloodline vessel. Her health is the only thing that matters." A pause. "Her feelings are irrelevant."
I felt every word land separately.
I kept my face completely still. I had promised myself I would not cry in front of these people.
"Excuse me." My voice came out steady. Impressive, considering. "I need a moment."
Ricosta's eyes cut to me briefly. I ignored it.
★★★
The corridor outside was dark and quiet. I pressed my back against the wall and closed my eyes. Breathing. Just breathing.
‘Her feelings are irrelevant.’
I was a vessel. A land deed. A contract with a pulse.
A hand closed around my arm from behind.
I was spun around and pressed against the wall before I could make a sound. My back hit the stone. Both my wrists were pinned above my head in one firm grip.
Dante.
He was looking down at me with those storm-grey eyes that were nothing like his brother's. It was alive and burning and fixed entirely on my face.
“What….what are you doing?”
He said nothing but rather leaned in slowly, deliberately, his warm breath kissed my skin before his cold lips did.
Just a few more mistaken shifts and he would have his lips on mine.
“Camilla!”
- Writer
