Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ADDIE
The dress was not the virginal white of a bride who hadn't seen the world. Nor was it the funeral black of a woman displaying her grief at a life lost. It was red. A deep, arterial crimson that looked like expensive wine and bone-breaking power.
I looked exhausted. My eyes felt heavy, the skin beneath them tight from a night spent tossing against high-thread-count sheets that felt like the bars of a prison.
After the encounter at my cage's door with my jailer, I’d gone to bed feeling frayed and unsatisfied.
Every brush of the duvet made my nerves jump; my body was over-sensitized.
Still vibrating from the run. Still humming from the scent of Vidar Blackwood in the hall.
As I pulled the dress over my head, the silk hissed against my skin.
Of course, it fit like a glove. Or a second skin.
It hugged the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts with precision.
I stood before the mirror and tried to pull off what I had spent the first eighteen years of my life perfecting: I tried to make myself quiet.
I tried to pull my shoulders in, to dim the light in my eyes, to shrink until I was small enough to fit back into the box Adolphus Vane had built for me.
But the box was too small now.
Last night, I’d let the wolf breathe. I’d tasted raw meat and ran until my lungs burned. I'd felt the weight of a pack at my back. Shoving that version of myself back into a "submissive daughter" mold was like trying to fit an ocean into a glass. It was uncomfortable. It was agonizing.
Yet, as I smoothed the red silk over my stomach, the woman in the mirror didn't look small. She looked like a warning.
A sharp knock echoed through the room. My heart banged against the bone cage of my ribs. I wasn't ready to face those dark, intelligent eyes again. Not after the "fertile or horny" ultimatum.
Breath held tight in my throat, I opened the door. It wasn't Vidar.
Mei Ling stood in the hallway. She was dressed in gold, her expression radiating a warmth that felt like a physical heat. She looked at me, her eyes sweeping over the red dress. Her face softened into pure pride and joy.
A lump formed in my throat. For one heartbeat, I let myself imagine this was what it would feel like if my mother were here looking at her daughter on the happiest day of her life.
But that had never been in Elisia O'Shea's future.
Not when she was forced to marry the Vane alpha.
The thought passed as quickly as it came, leaving a bitter taste behind.
Mei Ling wasn't my mother. She was an accomplice in my sentence. She was the interior decorator of my cage.
"You look like a queen, Addie." Reaching out, she tucked a stray lock of red hair behind my ear. I didn't flinch. "Are you ready?"
“As ready as a debt coming due.”
"Atta girl. You keep those claws sharp for my boy. Make him earn it."
I did not understand this family.
We walked down the stairs in silence. The house felt strangely still, as if the stones were holding their breath.
"Are you walking me down the aisle?" I asked as we reached the bottom floor.
Mei Ling stopped, turning to face me. "No, dear. A bride should be brought to the Alpha by someone from her familial pack."
The blood drained from my face, a cold, icy dread drenching my limbs. I looked toward the heavy oak doors leading to the garden, expecting to see my father’s sneering face, his hand waiting to hand me over like an asset he could finally liquidate.
The doors opened. The man standing there wasn't a monster.
My breath left me in a ragged sob I couldn't contain. Standing in the light of the setting sun, dressed in a suit that looked slightly too big for his frame, was Elias. My baby brother. My reason for this deal.
Elias looked healthy and whole, but he carried the same exhaustion I felt.
Two days had been enough for his shifter blood to knit his skin back together and heal whatever the Blackwoods had done to him.
It was the bruises on his spirit that were still fresh.
He looked beaten in the way his shoulders slumped, as if the air around him was too heavy to hold inside.
He reached for my hand, his fingers trembling slightly as they closed around mine. "I’m so sorry, Addie."
I couldn't answer. I was standing here in a dress the color of a fresh kill. The Blackwood men were everywhere, a silent, predatory audience to our grief.
Ivar stepped forward, his boyish face split by a wide, guileless grin.
He handed me a bouquet of dark, velvety roses that smelled of earth and ending.
Behind him, Gunnar leaned against a stone pillar, winking at me before shifting his gaze to Elias.
Elias winced, his entire body flinching at the sight of the man.
That was all the confirmation I needed. It was Gunnar who had done the dirty work.
Gunnar was the fist of the family, and my brother was the bag he’d used for sport.
I looked toward the altar, and my body forgot which instinct to obey—run or step closer.
No man had the right to look as good as Vidar when he was the villain of the story.
He was dressed in a dark, charcoal suit that made the gold in his eyes burn with a terrifying intensity.
When I should have been thinking of the escape Elias had just promised, all I could think about was the heat of Vidar's hand on my scruff last night.
I wanted to run away on two legs, but my wolf wanted to crawl on all fours into his strength and hide from the very world he had stolen from me.
Elias and I began the slow walk toward the altar.
Fenrir stood at the head, his silver-backed presence presiding over the ceremony like a judge delivering a sentence.
Vidar didn't take his eyes off me for a single second.
He drank me in, his gaze hungry, as if he were already peeling back the red silk to feast upon the woman underneath.
When we reached the altar, Vidar held out his hand.
Elias swallowed hard, his throat working as he looked from Vidar's hand to mine. He squeezed my fingers one last time—a desperate, silent apology—and then placed my hand into Vidar’s. The contact was a jolt of pure electricity.
"Good boy," Vidar murmured to Elias.
My brother’s teeth clenched so hard I thought they might shatter.
Tension radiated off him, a spike of Vane pride that was useless here.
The insult stung me as much as it did him.
But before I could speak, Vidar’s gaze was back on me.
The world narrowed until it was just the two of us, standing in the dying light of the sun, waiting for the words that would finish what the debt had started.
"We do not bring a Vane into this house to remain a Vane," Fenrir began, his eyes sweeping over me and then lingering on Elias.
"Family is not merely the blood that flows in your veins; it is the strength of the wall you build around those you claim.
Today, we do not just merge two holdings.
We welcome a son and a daughter into the Blackwood pack.
My protection is now yours. My sons are now your brothers. My home is your fortress."
I felt a treacherous tug in my chest. I wanted to scoff, to spit at the feet of the man who had authorized my brother's beating. A glance at Elias stopped me. He was pale, his eyes wide as he looked up at Fenrir. He looked… touched.
Our father had never spoken of protection as a gift. It was always a transaction, a debt to be repaid in obedience and silence. To hear the Alpha of the most feared pack in the Northeast insist we were his to protect—it was a seductive lie.
Elias’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his resistance flickering.
"Daughter, repeat your vows after me."
"I, Addie O’Shea, stand before the Pack and the Moon to bind my life to yours," I began.
My voice sounded foreign to my own ears—stripped of the corporate steel I usually wore—and tried not to trip over any of the words I repeated.
"I acknowledge you as my Alpha, my husband, and my guide.
I swear to obey your lead in times of peace and in times of war. "
The word obey tasted like poison on my tongue. My spine stiffened. A phantom growl scratched at my throat. I was a woman who had negotiated multi-million dollar mergers, yet here I was, promising to defer my very will to the man who had bought me.
I looked at Vidar, expecting to see a smirk of triumph.
He wasn't smirking. He was watching me with a clinical, predatory focus, his gaze narrowed as if he were measuring the weight of every syllable, searching for the slightest tremor of a lie. He was hunting for my sincerity.
"I yield my independence to your protection," I continued, the silk of the red dress feeling suddenly like a suit of armor.
"I will be the fire at your hearth and the blade in your hand.
I will remain a faithful shadow at your side until our bones return to the earth. I will earn your loyalty every day."
The silence that followed was heavy, viscous like honey. Then Vidar spoke. He didn't look at Fenrir. He didn't look at the gathered pack. He looked only at me. His voice was a vow in itself—dark, certain, and terrifyingly sincere.
"I, Vidar Blackwood, take you as my mate, my partner, and my prize. I vow to stoke the fire in your spirit and to honor the brilliance of your mind."
He squeezed my hand, his thumb grazing my knuckles in a way that made my breath hitch.
"I do not ask for your submission through fear, but through the proof of my worth," he promised, his eyes locking onto mine with a gravity that made the rest of the world fall away.
"I vow to lead you with strength that never falters and intelligence that never fails. I will earn your loyalty every day."
As he spoke the final words—promising I would never know lack as long as he drew breath—I realized with a jolt of pure terror that he wasn't performing. Every utterance was a brand. He meant it; he meant every single word.
"You may now kiss your bride."
In the haze of the vows and the weight of the debt, I had forgotten this part. I had forgotten that a contract of this magnitude required a seal.
Vidar clearly hadn’t.
He didn't ask for permission. He didn't ask if I was in heat or if I was horny.
He reached out and hauled me into his space.
His hands were large and warm, one anchoring the small of my back while the other cupped the side of my face.
His thumb grazed my jaw with a proprietary strength.
I had no choice but to follow his lead. I went to him as if drawn by a tide.
His lips crashed into mine. It wasn't a gentle brush of affection. It wasn't the chaste kiss of a society wedding. It was a conquest.
He took my mouth with a vicious hunger that made the world tilt on its axis. He consumed. He plundered. He used his lips and his tongue to map the territory he now owned.
I gripped his lapels, my fingers bunching the expensive fabric as I fought to stay upright.
My wolf, the one I had tried so hard to cage back into its box, surged against my ribs, recognizing the Alpha’s claim.
The red silk of my dress stopped feeling tight and felt like it was slipping off my body along with my skin as his scent—cedar, rain, and raw power—filled my lungs.
I couldn't fight him. I couldn't even think to try. There was nothing left to do but submit to the sheer force of his presence. He was drinking me in, making sure every wolf in attendance knew exactly who I belonged to.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes were molten gold. His breath came in short, jagged hitches that mirrored my own. I stood there, dazed and trembling in the dying light of the day as the moon began to rise, with the taste of my new husband burning on my lips.