The first few weeks of my marriage to Lyrien were a living theater. Every day was a performance, and every action a carefully calculated move. I played the part of the devoted wife with a sickening perfection, my face a mask of love and adoration. I smiled at him at breakfast, kissed him at the door before he left for work, and waited for him with a fake longing in the evenings. The reality was a cold and constant dread. I was a puppet, and he was the puppet master. He held the strings to my life, and I was terrified of what would happen if I made a mistake.
Our new arrangement was a strange one. He treated me with a distant, formal courtesy, a stark contrast to his behavior with other people. In public, he was the doting husband, his hand always on the small of my back, his eyes filled
