Page 22 of Merciless Vow
"Goodnight, sweet Addie."
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 thefirst 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 smelledof 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. ItwasGunnar 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.
