Wendy
The transition from the floor of the observatory to the world I wake up in isn’t a transition at all—it’s a violent, sensory assault.
My head is a cathedral of shattered glass and white noise.
The sedative tastes like copper and rot in the back of my throat, making my tongue feel like a heavy, leaden weight.
I try to blink, but the light is too much—a blinding, aggressive shimmer of a thousand crystal chandeliers that makes my retinas scream.
I’m not in the observatory. I’m not on the rug.
I’m standing. Or rather, I’m being held upright.
The air is thick with the cloying, funeral scent of ten thousand white lilies.
They’re everywhere—trailing from the vaulted ceilings of a private chapel I’ve never seen, woven into the heavy gold altars, and lining the aisle like a snowdrift.
The walls are draped in cream silk, and the floor is a mirror-polished white marble that reflects the terrifying, glittering spectacle above.
Then I feel the weight.
My arms are heavy. I look down, my vision swimming, and my heart stops. My wrists are encased in thick, polished gold cuffs, connected by a short, heavy chain that clinks with a sickening, melodic finality. They aren’t iron; they’re jewellery. Gilded shackles for a gilded bride.
I’m wearing a dress that shouldn’t exist. It’s a masterpiece of lace and silk, the bodice so tight it feels like a second skin, the skirt a massive, frothing ocean of tulle that spills across the marble. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I want to scream until my lungs burst.
“Easy, Darling,” a voice purrs.
I snap my head to the side. Peter is standing there. He’s dressed in a charcoal suit so sharp it could cut glass, his hair pushed back, his face clean of the wine and the blood. He looks like a saint. He looks like a king. He looks like the devil in his Sunday best.
I look past him. The pews are full. The Council is there—the cold, grey-faced men who run the city’s underworld—alongside Vane and the rest of Peter’s inner circle.
They’re all dressed in black, a somber, predatory audience to my ruin.
And at the end of the aisle stands a priest, his hands trembling as he holds a leather-bound Bible.
“What… what is this?” I rasp, my voice sounding like it’s been dragged through gravel.
“A beginning,” Peter whispers, his hand settling on the small of my back, his touch as viral and possessive as ever. “I told you, Wendy. No more fires. No more choices. Just us.”
The realisation hits me like a physical blow. The stars, the wine, the way he held me—it wasn’t a surrender. It was a distraction.
I yank at the gold chains, the metal biting into my skin, the clink-clink-clink echoing through the silent, expectant chapel.
I struggle, my heels slipping on the marble, my breath coming in panicked, ragged gasps.
I look at him, at the calm, terrifying devotion in his eyes, and the sweetness I felt in the observatory turns into a mouthful of ash.
“You drugged me,” I choke out, the tears hot and jagged. “Just when I think there is a human fucking man in there—just when I think you might actually be capable of something other than a goddamn transaction—you do this?”
“I am a human man, Wendy,” he says, stepping closer until he’s shielding me from the gaze of the Council.
His voice drops to a low, lethal vibration.
“And a human man protects what is his. I’m not losing you to a war, and I’m sure as hell not losing you to your own indecision.
You wanted a claim? This is it. In front of God and the men who would kill us both. ”
“This isn’t a wedding! It’s a sentencing!” I scream, the sound tearing through the floral-scented air.
I pull at the shackles again, my wrists turning raw and red beneath the gold. “I hate you! Do you hear me, Peter? I fucking hate you!”
“I know,” he says, and he actually smiles—a small, heartbreakingly beautiful smile that shatters what’s left of my heart.
He leans in, his lips brushing my temple as the priest begins to read.
“But you’ll look so beautiful in the photos, Darling.
Now, be a good bride and say your vows. The city is waiting. ”
I yank the gold chains upward, the metal jarring against my bones, a frantic, rhythmic clinking that sounds like a death knell against the silence of the chapel.
The lace of the gown—this beautiful, cursed shroud—bunches around my legs as I try to stumble back, but the weight of the tulle is a trap.
“I won’t fucking marry you!” I scream, the words tearing out of my throat, raw and jagged. I don’t care about the Council. I don’t care about the grey-faced men in the pews who are watching my unraveling like it’s a piece of performance art. “I don’t fucking want this! I don’t want you!”
The air in the room goes still. It’s the kind of silence that precedes a lightning strike—pressurised, ozone-heavy, and lethal.
Peter doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t beg. The warmth that had been in his eyes when I woke up—that lingering trace of the man who held me under the stars—evaporates.
His features shift, the bone structure of his face hardening into something granite-hewn and terrifying.
He looks like the King of a graveyard again.
He steps into my space, his massive frame eclipsing the light of the chandeliers. He grabs the centre of the gold chain between my wrists, his knuckles white, and jerks me toward him until our chests collide.
“Well, isn’t that a fucking shame,” he snarls, his voice a low, guttural vibration that I feel in my teeth.
“Because I’m not asking for your permission, Wendy.
I’m telling you how this ends. You can do this with your head held high, or I can have Vane hold you upright while I slide the ring onto a finger I’ll break if I have to.
But you will be a Hale before the sun touches the horizon. ”
“You’re a monster,” I sob, the word a broken, pathetic thing.
“I’m the monster you let into your bed,” he corrects, his eyes dark and bottomless, devoid of any mercy. “I’m the monster you tasted wine from. You don’t get to retreat into the light now that you’ve seen the view from the bottom of the pit.”
He lets go of the chain and looks over my shoulder, nodding once to the back of the room.
The organ erupts.
It’s not a soft, bridal march. It’s a thunderous, aggressive Wagnerian crescendo that shakes the very foundation of the chapel. The pipes roar, a wall of sound that swallows my screams, making the white lilies tremble in their vases. It sounds like a war march. It sounds like a conquest.
The Council stands as one, a sea of black silk and cold intentions.
“Walk,” Peter commands, his hand clamping onto my waist with a grip that will leave bruises beneath the lace. “Smile for the cameras, Darling. Show them how much you love the leash.”
My legs feel like lead, my heart a frantic bird hitting the bars of my ribs.
As he forces me forward, step by agonising step toward the trembling priest, the glittering light of the chandeliers reflects off my gold shackles, casting dancing, mocking shadows across the white marble aisle.
I am being marched to my own execution, dressed in the finest silk money can buy, while the man I thought I loved holds the blade to my back.
The music is a physical weight, a symphony of conquest that vibrates through the soles of my feet. I look at the priest, his eyes darting between me and the gold-cuffed wrists I’m clutching to my chest, and a sudden, jagged bolt of pure survival instinct overrides the sedative.
I don’t think. I bolt.
I spin away from Peter, my heavy skirts flaring out like a dying star. I lunge for the side aisle, my heels skidding on the polished marble. I just need to reach the shadows behind the silk-draped pillars. I just need to find a door, a window, a crack in this gilded nightmare.
I don’t even make it three steps.
The gold chain between my wrists snaps taut with a violent, metallic clack.
Peter hasn’t moved his feet; he’s simply reached out and caught the centre of my shackles in one fist. The momentum of my flight jerks me backward, my spine slamming into his chest with a force that knocks the air from my lungs in a strangled gasp.
He wraps his other arm around my waist, hauling me flush against him, his grip so tight I feel the delicate lace of the bodice groan. He leans down, his mouth pressing hard against my ear, his breath a hot, viral contrast to the cold gold at my wrists.
“Oh, Darling,” he purrs, and the sound is a terrifying mix of amusement and absolute, lethal authority. “What in that pretty, fractured head of yours made you think you get a fucking choice?”
“Let me go!” I hiss, thrashing in his hold, the gold cuffs biting into my skin until I feel the warm slide of blood. “You can’t do this! You can’t force me!”
He turns me around in his arms, his hands moving to my throat—not to choke me, but to cradle my jaw in a grip of iron.
He forces my head back, making me look at the Council, at the black-clad soldiers lining the walls, at the terrifying reality that I am the only thing in this room not made of stone.
“Look at them, Wendy,” he growls, his eyes dark and blown out, reflecting the predatory shimmer of the chandeliers.
“They didn’t come for a wedding. They came to see me take what’s mine.
You think I’m going to let you embarrass me?
You think I’m going to let you walk out that door after I’ve already burned the map to your old life? ”
His face hardens, his lips pulling back in a snarl that is pure Peter Hale.
“You will fucking marry me today,” he whispers, the words dropping like lead weights into the silence between the organ’s roars.
“You will stand there, you will say the words, and you will wear my name like a brand. And if you try to run again, I’ll skip the ceremony and skip the party and take you right here on the altar in front of every man I employ, just to remind you who owns the air in your lungs. ”
He jerks the chain again, forcing my hands up to his chest.
“Now,” he says, his voice smoothing out into that terrifying, calm silk. “The priest is waiting. Don’t make me ask again.”
The organ reaches a deafening, dissonant peak, and Peter begins to walk, dragging me with him toward the altar.
I’m stumbling, my white skirts catching on his boots, my soul screaming in the silence of my own head.
The luxury is a chokehold. The light is a cage.
And as the priest opens his mouth to begin the rites of my captivity, I realise the fire twelve years ago was mercy compared to this.