Becoming my husband's best friend

Revelation the first

I was deposited inside the palace like mansion and left to fend for myself. My new husband’s best man had abandoned me just as I was about to take a step into the house. No words were spoken other than what he had already said. He just regarded me the same way my husband had and then left me standing there staring at the opened door at the person waiting inside for me.

If I had thought that was rude, the welcome that I received inside wasn’t all that much warmer. What I assumed to be the butler, herded me inside the opulent entry way and right down the passage.

“Right this way, my Lady,” said the older gentleman. He had a refined air of someone used to everything they saw and heard. Like nothing could shake his calm demeanor.

He wore a double breasted grey suit that looked ironed just perfectly, his collar and necktie perfectly in symmetry. His platinum blond hair parted sideways and coiffed just so. His face set in grim lines, I was unsure if he was handsome or not as I couldn’t really tell what he looked like, what with him walking so fast and me running along to catch up to him looking at his back mainly.

He seemed the type of man who was supremely organized. He planned his day down to the last second and there were very few deviations. However, I’m so sure he planned for those too. Considered all avenues before even waking up for the day. You could tell the man loved and breathed his job with how he held himself in such high esteem and how he expected the new lady of the house to just follow him as he went.

He seemed quite capable.

So capable in fact that I barely noticed my new lodgings as I was briskly led to another large room at the top of the really long and wide red carpeted staircase. I didn’t even get to enjoy the view. Wasn’t even allowed a second to turn and look at the scene below that I had traipsed across.

I wondered what the hurry was about but I kept my silence as I was directed further into a room.

A woman awaited me in the center, armchairs that looked really comfy surrounding her as she stood to attention waiting to receive me.

“My Lady, allow me to introduce Layla to you,”

“Nice to meet you, my Lady,” said the woman as she bowed her head in acknowledgement to me. I smiled faintly back.

The butler, still without introducing himself, nodded to me and turned stiffly around, marching out of the door as quickly as he had brought me here. As if congratulating himself on a job well done.

What the heck did I land myself in? And who in the world were these people?

*________*

“So what you’re trying to tell me is that I’m his only wife?” I asked, disbelief coating my words, eyebrows arched so far up my forehead it was almost part of my hairline.

“Yes, my Lady,” said the maid that was apparently my new personal attendant.

“How in the world does that even make sense?”

Like really? How can this be true? The vampire was in essence the king of their people. He lived multiple lifetimes in one single span. You can not possibly tell me he had no other wives.

Women were used as political commodities in our society. Just look at me, I had been sold off as a way for my pack to get funds for the next few years and the power associated by marriage with being affiliated with the oldest vampire horde to date.

“Begging your pardon, my Lady, but I do agree as well. It does sound rather strange, however, I’ve known the Czar for years and to my knowledge you are his first wife. His only wife,”

I hummed in thought, still not fully accepting the answer but the words Layla spoke rang true. I turned back to looking at myself in the mirror. The person who stared back at me was gaunt, their face pale and sallow, her green eyes looked tired and bruised, and her mouth seemed down turned in sadness. Her hair was also in the same theme as the rest of her, falling all over the place with no rhyme or reason. A big tangled mess of black strands almost sucking in whatever light around it.

I sighed. I felt like an imposter staring at myself in the mirror, a myriad of emotions welling inside of me and the only thing really discernible to others was the tiredness and stress of the day taking a physical toll on my appearance. Underwhelming really. Who in their right mind would think I was now the only wife to the vampire king? Certainly not me.

Should I have felt any differently from the emotional exhaustion I was in right now? Was I supposed to be happy or sad or angry at my situation? I didn’t know and that left me even more frazzled than I knew what to do with.

Layla had taken me out of the uncomfortable wedding dress and I was now in my pj’s, getting ready for bed. A good night’s sleep would do me wonders. Maybe I’d lose some of this depressing melancholy that filled me from the morning. It also stopped me from being my usual dumbass self.

“Layla? Do you think I could get a cup of warm milk before bed?”

“Yes, my Lady, as you wish,”

I could hardly hear her footsteps as she walked out of the room. Her heels cushioned by the thick carpeting.

Finally, some peace.

I took a deep breath and turned to stare at the bed once more. It was a massive, the sheets were of the cotton variety. A dark blue that complimented the rest of the room. Pillows of different sizes graced the bed and looked quite comfortable actually. I smothered the urge to jump on it, deliberately messing it up. The room itself was also on the large side. It made sense since the man also was rather large too. Coming back to the room, it was all dark brown furniture and soft carpeting. There were large windows but it was currently shut with heavy dark blue curtains covering it. I actually wondered how it would look uncovered during a thunder storm.

My vision swivelled back to the bed and I was once again grateful to the cotton sheets. Imagine slipping and sliding throughout the night next to some random vampire? What if I accidently slid onto his open mouth, because mouth breathers was a thing, and I end up on his fangs and then he’d accidently drink all my blood all the while thinking it was a dream. You can’t tell me no one has a dream about eating yummy foods!

And what’s blood to vampires?

Their yummiest food yet!

I could die accidently in my sleep because of satin sheets!

Thank goodness it was cotton.

Maybe that was why he didn’t have other wives? He had had satin sheets on his bed but then they slid down the bed onto his open mouth and he accidentally killed them. Then he wakes up to a corpse and thus no sister wives for me.

I sighed again.

Well, it seemed my coping mechanism for the absurd was back to up and running. It was there to hide the actual worry of something else. The real reason my brain was latching onto the most random concerns imaginable.

What if he demanded the marriage be consummated tonight?