ALAYA
I had always assumed the worst that could go wrong for me on my twenty-third birthday was my dress tearing or the cake arriving late. Never in a million years did I imagine it would be blood. My very own blood.
"Smile, Alaya," my father's voice cut through the music, commanding and stern. His hand slapped me on the back as we faced the hundreds seated in sparkly gowns and pointed suits. "They came to see a queen, not a sulking child."
I smiled. I always smiled. For him. For them. For the man sitting next to me who would be my husband soon enough, the one who had inserted himself into my world until I hardly knew where I left off and he began.
"Beautiful," he gasped in my ear. His lips stretching out into that smile that had won me time and again, the one that had hooked me and made me think he loved me, not my father's money.
But then,there's a sudden shattering noise of shattered glass, a scream tearing through the orchestra and a chill stab piercing through my chest.
I didn't know initially. I thought there had been a champagne spill. I thought the scream gave way to deafening laughter. Then I looked down.
Red. A lot of red. Seeping over the ivory lace of my dress, dripping onto the marble floor, staining my fingers as I flattened them against the bloom erupting under my collarbone.
"Alaya!" my mother's shriek tore the air.
I couldn't breathe. My knees buckled, my world spun, and bulb crystals exploded in spots of light above me like a plummeting star cluster.
"Stay with me, baby," my husband—is my husband?—held me as I staggered. His hands were hot, solid, commanding. "Don't you dare close your eyes. Don't you dare."
"W-what…" My lips trembled. My lungs burned. I couldn't even form the word.
The room erupted into chaos—guards sprinting, guests sprinting out, my father yelling orders, my mother screaming. I caught a glimpse of a shadow breaking for the glass doors, dark and determined. The killer. My killer.
My last thought, in my mind, before blackness fell, was not of my family, nor the empire that had been mine. It was for him. The man I clung to. The man I surrendered to and the hollow terror that maybe, maybe, he let this happen.
I came to expecting fire, pain, vengeance. What I found was roses.
I woke up with a jolt, panting, my hands flying to my chest—but no injury. No blood. Just the smooth sheets of my bride-to-be boudoir, prior to the empire beginning to fall into my lap.
My dresser calendar showed: March 12th.
One year ago.
My heart was pounding. "No… no, this can't be happening."
The door burst open. "Alaya! You're going to be late for dinner!" My mother's voice, sharp but affectionate, filled the room. She looked younger. Softer. The lines of grief that had carved themselves into her face in the last year were gone.
"Mama?" My voice cracked.
She frowned. "What? Don't tell me you're sulking again."
I climbed out of bed, toes folded over the carpet's edge. I stared into the mirror and hesitated. My eyes… brighter. Glowing. As if they reflected light in a different manner. Glowing, as if my skin glowed, health that I hadn't had since childhood and under it all—something more. Humming within me. Power churning just under my skin like fire with a spark just waiting to be lit.
"Alaya," my mother's voice softened. "Are you okay?"
I turned to her, my throat closing up. "I… I must have had the most strange dream."
Her brow furrowed. "Dreams are for children. Splash some water on your face and go down. Your father is waiting for you."
She left, and I stood hugging the vanity so hard that it groaned. Nails dug into it. I have never been stronger.
"What is the matter with me now?"
Sleep overwhelmed me that night with violent force. And in sleep, he came.
Not my husband. Not the man I thought I'd loved. No. This was not the same man.
A stranger with molten gold-colored eyes and a sinuous mouth. He towered above me in the blackness of my dream, his hand on my jaw, his thumb on the curve of my lower lip as if he had done so a thousand times before.
"My little wolf," he whispered, low and husky, "I lost you."
I should have flirted. I should have insisted on knowing who he was. But instead, when his head dropped and he kissed me, I parted my lips to him as if I had starved all my life and had been offered food at last.
The kiss burned. Owned. Was his. My body arced, needy for more, even while my brain screamed out that I didn't know him.
When I awoke gasping, body slick with sweat, I touched up to my lips as if his kiss still tingled and it dawned on me for the first time that I was no longer human.
In my past life I had been a singer, model and actress. In this life I am not even human and I feel like I've lived a thousand years but who is the man who continuously intrudes on my dream? Why do I feel so attracted to him? Why do I feel so strong? Why do I look even more beautiful and can feel and smell everything? Why did my own husband kill me? What went wrong?
I go into the bathroom and soak in the tub filled with roses. I keep having memories that do not belong to me, almost like I'm living another person's reality yet my reality at the same time. I slip into a dream state " Calm down little wolf, you'd remember everything in due time and in this life, I finally found you, I am never going to let you leave me". I suddenly gasp and step out of the tub but as I face the mirror, there are puncture marks by my neck.