THE WEDDING NIGHT
The cheering and music from the banquet still echoed in Elara's ears when the great doors closed behind her. The laughter of nobles disappear to a hush, leaving only the steady thud of her heartbeat and the click of her slippers against the polished stone floor.
The guards bowed and moved aside. Then, for the first time all day, she was alone with Adrien Valemont.
The king's chambers were nothing like the village cottages of her youth. They stretched vast and cavernous, lit by tall sconces of golden flame. Heavy velvet curtains framed windows that overlooked the sprawling beautiful city, while carpets of foreign weave cushioned her steps. A great bed dominated the room, its canopy draped with silken folds the color of midnight.
It was not the luxury that made her chest strained. It was the silence. No crowd to distract, no priest to shield her with ritual, no banquet hall to dull the intensity of his gaze.
Adrien unfastened his crown, setting it upon a gilded stand with deliberate calm. Then he turned, shrugging out of his ceremonial cloak. Beneath, he wore only a black tunic, simple compared to the finery he had displayed before, yet somehow more dangerous. His broad shoulders and the ease of his movements radiated power stripped of ornament.
"You are quiet," he observed, his voice low, a blade drawn across velvet.
Elara forced her chin high. "What should I say, Your Majesty? Should I thank you for turning my life into a spectacle? For binding me to you without choice?"
His lips curved, not in mockery, but in something sharper. "I did not bind you, Elara. Destiny did. I merely obeyed it."
She stepped back, as though distance could weaken the strange pull that hummed between them. "I don't believe in destiny."
Adrien closed the space she had gained with unhurried steps, like a predator who knows its prey cannot flee. "And yet here you are. Chosen not by me, but by blood older than either of us. You can fight me, if you wish. But not fate."
Her breath caught when he stopped before her, close enough that the heat of his body touched her skin. Her defiance trembled under the weight of his presence, but she clung to it fiercely.
"I am not yours to claim," she whispered, though her voice wavered.
His eyes darkened, studying her not as a king studied his subject, but as a man studied a challenge he craved to master. "Not mine?" His hand rose slowly, not to seize, not to force, but to trace a single strand of hair that had escaped her braid. His fingers brushed her cheek with deliberate care, igniting a trail of fire across her skin. "Tell me, then why does your pulse betray you?"
Elara's chest rose sharply, her breaths unsteady. She wanted to turn away, to deny him, to shield herself. But her body betrayed her as surely as he had said. Heat coiled low in her belly, foreign and terrifying.
"You mistake fear for anything else," she said, though her voice was too hushed, too raw.
Adrien leaned closer, his breath brushing her ear, sending a shiver spiraling down her spine. "Fear and desire are not so different. Both quicken the blood. Both make us feel much more alive."
Her hands snatched at her sides, nails biting her palms. She had sworn to resist him, to keep her fire from being consumed by his. Yet here, in the flickering glow of the chamber, she felt herself loosening thread by thread.
He drew back slightly, his gaze steady on hers. "You think I am a monster," he said softly, not a question but a certainty.
"You are ruthless," she replied, summoning strength into her tone. "A king who takes what he wants."
"And you," he countered, "are a woman who has never been told no. Your spirit is too wild for the village you came from. You resent me because I see it, don't you? That hunger in you, buried under all that defiance."
Her lips parted, outrage sparking, but no words came. Because some part of her small, traitorous recognized truth in his claim.
He stepped back, giving her space as suddenly as he had taken it, his restraint more unsettling than any force could have been. "Rest, Elara," he said, his voice hushed but edged with something unreadable. "Tonight, I will not take what is not freely given."
The words stunned her. She had braced for a cage, for force, for a culmination she did not choose. Instead, he turned away, loosening the ties at his tunic as though she were no longer a conquest, but something… more dangerous.
Confusion roiled inside her chest, coupled with the heat that lingered where he had touched her. Did he mean to disarm her with patience ? Did he intend to let desire do the work chains could not?
Her body trembled as she moved toward the bed. She sat at its edge, hands clasped tight in her lap, trying to steady her breath. Adrien stretched out on the opposite side, propped on one arm, his gaze still fixed on her.
The silence was unbearable. Every flicker of candlelight seemed to magnify the distance between them and the electricity strung taut across it.
"You expect me to yield," she said finally, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"No," Adrien murmured. His eyes, shadowed by flame, glinted with something between warning and promise. "I expect you to fight me. And I expect to enjoy every moment of it."
Her pulse hammered wildly, the admission both terrifying and intoxicating. For the first time, Elara wondered if pushing him away would only draw her deeper into the fire.
She lay back against the pillows, not in surrender, but in defiance meeting his gaze, daring him to look away first.
But Adrien only smiled, slow and dangerous, as though her defiance was exactly what he craved.
The night was a very long one for them, heavy with unspoken words, unclaimed touches, and the promise of a battle neither of them would win.