When the church doors opened, I saw her, and the world seemed to hold its breath. Her presence was a jolt of pure color in a world of muted stone. Her hair was not just red; it was the flash of a cardinal's wing, the licking flame of a bonfire against the cold gray. Her eyes were not just green; they were the intense, unblinking color of a forest pool or a new spring leaf after rain.
The dress, a crimson second skin, clung to her curves, a walking temptation. Red, my favorite color, felt like a deliberate taunt, a fire meant to burn away my control. My demon stirred beneath my skin, a low, possessive growl in my chest. She was going to be my ruin, a beautiful, devastating downfall. I had known it the moment I saw her again, but seeing her here, as my bride, solidified the prophecy.
It had been decades since I had seen her, but she was unchanged, a ghost from my past made real. The same lips, the same cascade of fiery hair, the same rare, piercing green eyes. This was the woman who haunted my dreams and nightmares, the one who had occupied my thoughts since she was a little girl. The thought of it made a cold shiver run down my spine.
I could hear her heart beating fast, A cold, prickling sweat broke out on her neck, but she didn't dare lift a hand to wipe it away. Her eyes, fixed on the scuff mark on the wooden floor, refused to rise, to meet a single face among the blur of people. All she could focus on was placing one heavy foot in front of the other, as if her entire world depended on not tripping .The whispers of the courtiers buzzed around her like flies. The whispers about her being unlucky, a curse. And they were right. Because I was the monster she had married, and monsters do not bring luck.
I stretched out my hand, a silent command for her to look at me. When her gaze finally met mine, a shock of pure, raw electricity coursed through me. It was a familiar feeling, a pull that was both physical and emotional, a current that only one woman had ever been able to generate. I had known her effect on me, yet it still caught me by surprise. I had to fight it. I could not let history repeat itself.
We stared at each other, the world blurring into a silent tableau of our private war. I saw only her, and in her eyes, I saw my own reflection—a monster in a king's skin. I wanted her. But I couldn't have her, not in the way a man should want his wife. It was forbidden, a dangerous fire I should have stayed away from.
The priest's words made it official. She was my wife. She was mine. The thought of her belonging to me, even in this hollow union, filled me with a primal, suffocating sense of possession. She was mine to protect. She was mine to break.
I watched her say goodbye to her parents, her face a mask of tragedy. She was a lamb being led to slaughter, and I was the butcher. But her sorrow was a small price for the safety of both our kingdoms. I knew what lay ahead for her, a life of misery and loneliness. All I could do was give her this small moment of grace, a chance to say her final goodbyes before the cage door clanged shut.
Now she sat beside me in the carriage, lost in a world of her own sorrow. I watched her, intrigued and infuriated. I couldn't read her mind, couldn't see past her carefully constructed walls. That was what made her so mysterious, so dangerous. She was a queen without a crown, a puzzle without a solution.
The ten-day journey stretched before us, an eternity of silence and secrets. Finally, I decided to break the suffocating quiet.