Chapter 19
WEDDING
Dani's parents had spoken with an uncle who owned a small cottage for rent. It wasn't as large as their own but compared to the place I had shared with Buna, it felt almost luxurious. A clay oven stood outside, shared with the neighbors, and a little outhouse crouched behind the garden patch.
My dowry was meager—only a set of beautifully embroidered blankets and linens that had been my mother's, carefully kept in Buna’s trunk for the day I would wed.
Before the ceremony, Buna and Dani's mother went door to door through the village, asking after unwanted pots and pans, plates and utensils.
The villagers offered their hand-me-downs readily, and soon our kitchen was full.
The gift from Dani's parents was the finest of all—a new bed, wide enough for the two of us, waiting in that small cottage that would be our home.
Buna had worked for days, and long into the nights, to sew me a new dress of pale linen, her needle pulling bright threads of red, pink, and deep blue into patterns that circled the neckline, sleeves, and hem.
My only other fine dress had already begun to grow tight as my breasts swelled, betraying the secret I carried.
For the veil, I wore my mother's lace—the same she had worn at her own wedding—carefully folded away with the bed linens in Buna’s old trunk, waiting all these years for this day.
The ceremony was held on the steps of the church by the village square.
When it ended, the guests—Dani's sprawling family, Buna, and the neighbors from beside our little cottage—crowded into his parents' home.
We feasted on pit-roasted pig, cornmeal porridge, warm bread still steaming from the oven, bowls of fresh fruit, and sweet cheese pastries layered with sour cream and preserves.
After the meal came the toasts, the laughter, the dancing that spilled out into the yard as twilight settled over the rooftops.
It was a good wedding. And yet, as I moved among the well-wishers, smiling when I was expected to smile, lifting my face for kisses and blessings, I could not quiet the strange sensation that I was inhabiting a life slightly out of alignment with my own—as though I had stepped into the place of another bride while the future I had once imagined quietly closed its doors behind me.
At some point, Dani drew me aside. He slipped his arms around me from behind—still unfamiliar, his size overwhelming, his body dwarfing mine.
But the warmth of his embrace wrapped around me, and with several cups of honey mead in me, I was not immune to its comfort.
I hated myself for wanting it, that comfort.
“It's time for us to slip away…to our home,” he whispered against my ear, his voice meant for me alone.
My heart hammered, dread curling tight in my chest—not just for what tonight would bring, but for what it meant that I'd chosen the only path left to me.
I knew, with a quiet certainty that hurt more than fear ever could, that I didn't love Dani.
Not in the way he wanted. Not in the way he deserved.
But the guests noticed, mistaking my anxiety for typical wedding night jitters, and they began to cheer, shouting their encouragement, their laughter turning bawdy with jokes about the wedding night and crude remarks about Dani's size.
He blushed scarlet, while I stood caught between excitement and dread, my heart racing with both.
We said our goodbyes and slipped out, hand in hand, Dani carrying a candle to light the short walk to our new home.
The revelers' laughter and music faded behind us, swallowed by the night.
At the door, Dani swung it open and stepped inside.
This threshold, at least, required only the smallest bow of his tall frame.
He turned back, his hand extended to me, waiting.
I lingered there, my breath caught. To step inside was to accept the life I had fought against so fiercely, the life I had sworn I would never surrender to—yet here it was, waiting, claiming me all the same.
For a heartbeat, I wanted to run. Then I thought of Dani—his kindness, his goodness that I had never truly earned.
I forced the smile to my lips, pressed down the rebellion deep inside me, and placed my hand in his and crossed the threshold—into the cottage, into the marriage bed, into the life that had chosen me.
He passed the candle to me and I carried it into the bedroom, the small space separated from the main room by nothing more than a curtain, and set it on the bedside table.
Its flame wavered and snapped, casting erratic shafts of light that made the shadows seem alive.
For once, I was grateful for the near darkness.
My waist had begun to thicken—it wasn't yet obvious, but I knew—and I whispered a silent prayer of thanks that Dani had never seen me bare before tonight.
When I turned back, he was still in the main room, standing motionless, watching me through the framed opening. I couldn't read his expression. Maybe nerves. I was nervous too, but for a different reason—dreading the question that would inevitably come when he noticed I didn't bleed on the sheets.
Still, I forced myself forward, taking the lead. I kicked off my shoes, unbuckled the wide belt at my waist, and let it fall to the floor with a soft thud. I laughed, quick and nervous, and Dani seemed to take the cue, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of the bed to tug off his boots.
Turning my back to him, I pulled my dress over my head and laid it neatly across a chair, then slid free of my shift, suddenly shy in my own skin.
Naked, I drew in a steadying breath before turning to face him.
And like me, he wore not a single stitch of clothing.
At least I could give him this first—the first time to see a man completely naked, and be seen in the same way.
The sight of him stole my breath. Dani was nothing like Caius—nothing lean or sharp about him.
He was built of mass and weight, a wall of solid muscle from the thick curve of his calves and thighs to his broad chest, wide shoulders, and arms like great wooden beams. The reality of what was about to happen hit me all at once, rooting me in place as a cold rush of fear slid through my veins.
I did not know how much experience he had.
I had never seen him with other girls, though he often traveled with his father to markets in larger towns—places where a man might disappear into the crowd and return with secrets no one at home would question.
Perhaps he had been with someone there. Perhaps he had learned things I could not even name.
As for me, though Caius and I had spent long weeks stealing kisses and wandering hands beneath the oak tree, I had only given myself fully once—only once crossed that quiet, trembling threshold I now stood before again.
I could not decide whether that single surrender made me worldly…
or merely aware of how little I truly understood.
The worry must have shown on my face, because Dani reached for my hand.
With the other, he gently tipped my chin upward until my eyes met his.
There was no impatience there, no expectation—only tenderness.
His shy smile was so boyish that a laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
In that instant, the tension eased, and I was grateful for it.
“We can start with kissing,” he said, and the simple earnestness of it made me laugh again.
“Yes, that would be good,” I whispered, winding my arms around his neck and drawing him down to me.
His lips met mine—warm and soft—far gentler than I'd expected, achingly so.
The kiss wrapped around me; a warm cocoon I hadn't realized I'd been longing for.
When his tongue brushed mine, tentative at first, then surer when I welcomed him, a shiver ran through me.
He drew me closer, one of his large hands sliding over my body until it cupped my breast, and I gasped—caught between surprise and the slow, unsteady thrill unfurling beneath it.
I felt him hard against me, the difference in our height so stark that his cock pressed just beneath the curve of my breast. The awkwardness of it made me think it might be easier if we were lying down.
I pulled back slightly, lowering myself to sit on the edge of the bed, and patted the blankets beside me in invitation.
But instead of sitting, he surprised me.
Dani sank to his knees in front of me and gently parted my legs.
I gasped, heat rushing to my face, feeling suddenly exposed beneath his gaze, unsure of what he wanted from me in that position.
For a heartbeat, fear cut through me—was he trying to test me, to see if I was still untouched?
The thought made me freeze. Yet the look in his eyes was not suspicion, but something else entirely, and he mistook the fear on my face for another kind of hesitation.
“I just want to see you—touch you—taste you,” he said shyly, one hand rubbing my thigh, as much I think to steady himself as reassure me.
Words escaped me. I hadn't expected this, Caius had touched me between my legs, rubbed the sensitive spot that I touched when I was alone in my bed.
But our joining had been frantic, clothes pushed up, pulled down, no negative space between us echoing with yearning and vibrating with possibility. No, this was different.
I didn't want to deny Dani, and if this was what he needed from me, I couldn't turn away.
I eased back onto one elbow, still propped up enough to watch him.
There was a kind of wonder in the way his hand touched me—tentative at first, as if testing the reality of me.
His fingertips traced delicate paths, brushing warmth into places already trembling with anticipation, and when he lingered, my breath caught on a gasp I couldn't disguise.