Ladies Prefer Champagne Alpha Male Romance Mega Bundle (36 page)

Marriage

The next morning, my whole body was sore. I felt like I’d been in a fight. The Wolf had fucked me all night, well into the morning and I had screamed myself hoarse. I could barely walk but somehow, I struggled into my dress with Diara’s help.

“I know you’re not happy about this…” she whispered to me, her eyes big and fearful. “But your dress is so, so beautiful…”

And it was: where the Wolf had gotten it from, I had no idea—or maybe my parents had had it already, knowing I was nearing the age at which I would be married? I had no idea. But there it was for me, looking like pure, liquid gold, including a thin veil made of tiny diamonds—an almost ethereal, glowing, and shimmering spider web of jewels.

Most amazingly, though, there were threads of tiny rubies running up and down the dress in intricate lines. Just to feel the dress on my body was amazing—to feel the way it flowed with my form, the way it molded itself to my flesh.

“I know…” I whispered to Diara. “I know it’s beautiful.”

“I’m almost… Jealous of you,” she said softly, her eyes meeting mine. I gave her a smile. I knew I had to put on a strong show for her. And to be honest, I was conflicted about whether or not I wanted this…

“It’s not that bad,” I told her, reaching out to strong the side of her pretty face. “He was… Wonderful last night.”

“I… I heard you. Everyone heard you. Throughout the castle.” Diara had blushed a deep, very becoming crimson—goodness, but she was a pretty girl. She would make a very much favored mistress from some night someday—I was sure of that.

I flushed at her admission that everyone had heard me, moaning, groaning, enjoying myself and serving the sexual—the word felt so naughty, so dirty—needs of my world lord.

So, it was true. Everyone had heard. My parents. My father. My mother. My sisters. They all knew what the Wolf had done to me, how he had disgraced me before we were even married.

Of course.

Well, not like I really had a reputation to save, was it?

“Diara, don’t you be embarrassed. These are the things that women must do for men,” I said, assuming an air of aristocratic superiority. There was nothing else I could do to make myself feel better now… I had to pretend like this was par for the course. Both for Diara, and for myself. Not to mention my parents and my sisters.

“Even… Even if you’re not married to the man?”

A shudder went through my body.

“Well, I’m to be married to the Wolf now, so what difference does it make?” I said hotly. Diara recoiled suddenly and I felt bad, but it wasn’t her life, her body that had been sold off to ensure her father’s kingdom, now was it?

“What did he do to you, mistress?” Diara asked, nervously. I smiled grimly at her.

“Everything. He made me his whore for the night. He did the nastiest things you can imagine.”

“I heard you screaming about where he was putting his manhood…” Diara murmured I couldn’t meet her eyes. “It was… Was it… In your…”

“My ass, yes. You’ll know what that’s like too someday, I’m sure,” I growled, feeling angry, growing frustrated with Diara’s questions. “Maybe tonight, if the knights drink too much and I direct them your way…”

Diara’s eyes widened with betrayal and a hot blush of shame spread over my cheeks. No, how could I threaten my very best friend, my confidante with such things? I was becoming at bad as my father, using manipulation and fear to hurt people… To get what I want.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” Diara muttered, unable to meet my eyes. “Please, allow me to keep my virtue a bit longer…”

I reached out and grabbed Diara’s face, holding her up by the cheeks.

“I apologize, Diara, my sweet,” I said softly. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Diara took my hand, holding it close to her face, tears falling from his pretty eyes, onto my hand, onto my palms.

“Mistress, I’m so sorry…” she whispered, rubbing my hand against her face. “I wish I could save you…”

“I don’t want to be saved,” I growled, kissing her hand and pulling her close. “Listen to me, look at me, Diara—I don’t want to be saved.”

I pressed my lips to her forehead and continued to get dressed.

Before long, I was weighed down now only by my dress and veil but by dozens of tiny rings, earrings, bracelets, broaches, necklaces, and more. I was a veritable walking treasure chest, wearing every important piece in my family’s vault.

Such displays of wealth, of course, are important to Clan culture—it’s important to show other clans how wealthy you are, how much money you can afford to throw around and to throw at ceremonies like weddings. That’s in spite of the obvious inconvenience, both financial and physical—since, after all, walking in this stuff was practically impossible.

Accompanied by Diara, I clanked through the hallways of the castle, my face burning as much from embarrassment and shame as from exertion—the exertion of wearing all this jewelry, all this gold, in the warm castle, every long corridor lit by thick, hot torches. I was sweating by the time my sisters joined me and we processed in an uncomfortable silence into the banquet hall.

Ours is a small, modest castle of the old style. Newer castles, as is the style now, separate the banquet hall from the chapel but the ancients of our clan, as was common in their time, built them together, attached, as a single unit, for feasting was important for religious ceremony and vice versa, so it was seen as axiomatic that the two should be one in the same, part of the same room.

I know that the distinction was fashionable now but I had always found it strangely comfortable to find the chapel in the banquet hall, to see it not far from my family’s head table when eating. Comforting, perhaps—not comfortable. Even as a girl, sitting over feasts. I knew I would eventually be married in this room—though I never expected it to be like this.

The banquet hall was decorated triumphantly, a strange contrast with the dull, unhappy, and grim faces that greeted us in the hall. As we processed past well-wishers and peasants, the former remaining stonily silent while the latter crossed themselves, saying silent prayers presumably for my health, for my soul, as I was marrying the Wolf, the incarnation of evil…

At the wedding, I felt all the eyes on me. All the eyes from my family, from the court, from the army, all of them on me. They all knew what had happened. Judging from the bags beneath many of those eyes, some of them had even heard it. They watched me walk down the aisle, slowly, uncertainly, my ass and pussy throbbing with agony with each step. It hurt to walk but it hurt even more to sit, so I remained standing as long as possible.

The only one smiling in the whole room was my Wolf Lord—Victor de Sanchez—and his party. He wore his armor, which was beautiful, though tarnished and bloodstained. His men wore similar suits. They hadn’t bothered to clean themselves up for the ceremony, a fact which I’m sure was noticed and discussed to death in the fine society and court that surrounded my father’s castle. Such things never went unnoticed or undiscussed amongst us.

“There she is…” the Wolf said triumphantly as he lay his gaze upon me. “There’s my… My princess. The light of my life.”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Fortunately, instead of enraging him, this delighted him and he laughed, throwing his handsome, long-haired head back.

“Look! Look at this spirit! Marrying a monster and she’s still got spirit!”

He glanced at my father. “If only your men had had the same spirit as your daughter, maybe you wouldn’t have needed my services.”

My father’s face darkened. I felt bad for him but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel like perhaps the Wolf was onto something—I was almost always excluded from matters of military and state but, as we had just seen, they very often affected me directly…

I was presented to my clan, and to my father especially, and then to the Wolf Lord. The priest, a representative who could say services for the Old Gods and the New, looked me over and spoke to the Wolf.

“This… er… Maiden…”

The Wolf chuckled evilly. A murmur of disapproval ran through the banquet hall.

“…has been presented to you, as the vessel into which you will pour your seed—“

“Already done that…” the Wolf muttered cruelly. Tears sprang to my eyes and I hung my head.

“…and sow the fields which shall be your legacy, your family. Do you accept this Maiden?”

“I do,” said the Wolf, grinning.

“And you, my dear,” the priest said gently to me. “This man…”

“He’s a werewolf and we all know it,” I growled loudly, looking up at the Wolf fiercely. The Wolf grinned back at me. Damn it. I knew he liked it when I got angry. This had been all part of his ploy. He wanted to tease me, to make me angry, to make it so I would please him all the more… The bastard. I hated him in that moment and, truth be told, I loved him as well.

“This man…” the priest continued, struggling to maintain order, the order of the Gods, in this otherwise ungodly ceremony. “Has been presented to you, of his own will, with the approval of your Father and the House of your Fathers and Mothers, to become the farmer who sows and works your fields, who brings forth fruit from them and makes you a mother. Do you accept him?”

“I…” I looked up at the Wolf and then at my father. Of course, I had no choice but I couldn’t help but reflect. Did I… Did I really accept Victor? Did I really want this?

Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted to be married to him, to rule with him. All these other men, any other man my father might have attempted to marry me too—they were all weak, effete, poor excuses for men, let alone wolves. Yet the Wolf…

Here was a man. Here was a beast, a triumphant creature of the night, of the woods. I wanted him and I wanted to be his.

“Yes,” I said, a faint smile starting to play on my lips, in spite of everything: in spite of the humiliation, in spite of the pain in my ass and pussy, in spite of everything that I had experienced in the last twenty four hours or so—I still said yes. Yes, I would. Yes, I will.

“Yes, I do.”

Ceremony

“Grand!” the Wolf said with a hungry growl to his voice. “Do I get to kiss the, ha, maiden now?”

“Uh…” the priest stuttered, taken aback half by the Wolf’s unfamiliarity with the ceremony and half by his brazenness, by his determination to offend. “Yes… I suppose you can do that whilst I offer the final blessing…”

“Good, good. More efficient that way, I think. And after all, we’ve got feasting to do!”
 

And suddenly, I was in the Wolf’s arms. I looked up at him, at his face which was handsome in all the most wrong ways—ways that made me hate myself for loving him, for lusting after him.

“You must hate me,” he whispered. “You must despise me—do you?”

“I do. But not as much as I hate myself.”

The priest, meanwhile, began the blessing.

“Why hate yourself?” the Wolf asked, his cruel lips pulling back into a grin—the kind of grin that I found hard to resist, as much as I wanted to—as much as I wanted to be the kind of paradigm of purity that the priest was attempting to bless.

“Othon, look down upon these young lovers and grant them bliss, grant them health, grant them prosperity, grant them children, grant them…”

“Because… Because I liked it…” I whispered, hoping that he wouldn’t hear… Hoping that no one would hear.

The Wolf laughed softly to himself.

“Othon, grant them…”

“I always found church boring,” the Wolf growled, gripping me hard by my ass, squeezing me hard. I gasped, blushing, as he pressed his lips to mine, kissing me hard. I all but melted into that kiss, and I hated myself for doing that, for succumbing to his rough, evil charms in front of my parents, in front of everyone, for being so nasty, for having moaned and screamed the things last night that the Wolf had wanted me to scream…

God, why did I give in to him?

Because, that was what was expected of me.

And because I wanted to—I couldn’t forget that most important of parts.

We kissed now, the distant voice of the priest lost to us as our tongues dueled. I’m sure it was gross for my family to watch but I didn’t care…

Eventually, the priest gave up trying to deliver his sermon and perform the rites. He merely declared us married, gave his blessing, and that… Was that.