Chapter 115

“Oh my!”

A few voices cracked into startled exclamations, sharp and involuntary, like arrows loosed too soon. Others, too stricken for words, clapped both hands over their mouths to cage the sound rising in their throats.

The silence that followed lasted no longer than a heartbeat.

“Her hair—it’s red.”

“Did you see her eyes?”

“She can’t be of the wolf tribe.”

“Surely His Grace the Grand Duke would not take a wife from another race.”

“But look at her. Look at those features. Do we have anyone like that among our kind?”

“Exactly. If such a striking face had been born here, the gossip would have spread long ago. Even her pheromones… they don’t feel like those of the wolf tribe.”

“Then what in heaven’s name is she?”

The whispers multiplied, cresting like waves, their swell passing through the assembled crowd until every voice joined the tide.

Among them stood the man Cura had identified for her—Duke Benzef. Unlike the rest, he did not mutter, did not seek to blend with the others. One brow arched, his sharp gaze fixed on Elena as if weighing her against some private measure.

Elena forced her body to move despite the arrows of sound lodging in her ears. Each whisper pierced clean through, yet she feigned deafness, holding herself upright though her spine screamed with tension. She locked her shoulders, lifted her chin, and pressed her jaw tight so her head would not bow beneath their stares.

Her legs trembled, quaking with each step, threatening to fold beneath her and leave her sprawled on the marble. Every ounce of will went into placing one foot in front of the other.

Can I go through with this? Can I stand there and let the vows be spoken? Or must I stop—stop now before it’s too late?

Dozens of eyes bored into her, weight enough to crush her lungs, while a swarm of jagged thoughts circled her skull like bees trapped in glass.

“Do not be afraid. I am here beside you.”

Kennard’s voice, low and steady, reached her like a hand breaking through the haze. His fingers tightened around hers.

She dared not look at him. Her heart thudded as if caught in a snare—had he heard her thoughts? Had he seen the weakness she could not show?

A hush, heavy and absolute, descended over the garden. Wonder, outrage, awe—they all collided, and the impact shattered into silence.

“Your Grace…” Elena breathed, her voice trembling.

So quiet it seemed meant for him alone, a thread of sound easily lost. But Kennard stopped in his tracks and looked down at her.

The sudden pause startled the nobles, and their whispers rose again, filling the gap. Yet Kennard ignored them utterly, his gaze fastened only on her.

“What troubles you?” he asked.

“My name…” Her eyes slipped away from his, focusing anywhere but that steady gaze.

“If they ask what I am called—if they ask my family’s name—what am I supposed to say?”

“That is what weighs on you?”

Kennard lifted her chin with two fingers, compelling her to meet his eyes. For a heartbeat she resisted, but the insistence in his touch was gentle, impossible to escape.

She saw it then: affection, laid bare in the deep darkness of his eyes.

“From this moment, you are my wife. That is answer enough. Bear my name, as I bear you.”

The words themselves were simple, but what arrested her was the shift—the title, the claim. She was no longer merely Elena. She was his.

Kennard turned again, leading her forward. His hand remained firm on hers, pulling her onward though the ground felt like a mire sucking at her every step. The marble was solid beneath her feet, but her body moved as though trapped in mud.

At the end of the path, stairs descended toward a broad dais.

The platform gleamed, decked in flowers, silken hangings, and jewels that caught the sun. At its center stood an old man clad in snowy robes and a towering mitre. His long hair, silver washed to gray, fell past his shoulders. A crescent-shaped pendant with a single star rested on his breast, and great rings gleamed on his fingers.

As Elena mounted the dais at Kennard’s side, the high priest’s eyes flicked to her—and faltered. His composure wavered, his gaze trembling with shock. Though Kennard stood beside her, a wall of presence in his own right, the priest could not look away from her.

“High Priest,” Kennard said, his voice steady and edged with command.

The title jolted the man; he blinked rapidly, coughed, and finally stirred himself back into ritual.

The nobles, meanwhile, said nothing. Their gazes, barbed with hostility, fell heavy on Elena’s skin. She need not turn to know it—the air itself prickled, her flesh aflame beneath the weight of their disdain.

She drew a slow, deep breath, willing her chest to rise without betraying how ragged it felt.

From then on, the passage of time lost shape. She scarcely heard the litany of words the priest chanted, nor followed the long prayer spilling from his lips. She stood, rigid, while Kennard slid a ring heavy with ruby onto her finger and kissed the hand he had adorned.

Warm oil touched her hair, dripping from the priest’s blessing fingers. Words of benediction followed, but to Elena they were muffled echoes.

Someone—Lassino—stepped forward and offered them goblets of wine. Elena received hers without thinking, staring into its dark surface. Kennard guided her hand upward, lifting the cup to shoulder height. She mirrored him blindly, only dimly aware when he let his slip from his fingers to shatter on the ground.

She did the same. Their white garments bloomed red as wine splashed and spread like spilled blood.

It looks like blood, she thought numbly. We are drenched in blood.

Then a chill ran her spine.

Kennard’s face had hardened, frozen into a mask of cold fury. His eyes raked over the nobles, and the garden seemed to flinch beneath the weight of his glare.

She did not know the customs here, had no measure by which to judge. But she glimpsed a handful of nobles who had shattered their goblets as well, crimson spreading at their feet. The vast majority still clutched theirs intact, unwilling.

“Those who will not break their cups,” Kennard said, voice deep and rolling like thunder, “announce before all that they will not honor my union.”

Music stilled. The strings fell silent, and in their place came only suffocating quiet.

The nobles shifted uneasily, faces stiff, eyes flickering between Kennard’s wrath and their own reluctance.

At last Duke Benzef stepped forward.

“Who here,” he began smoothly, “would dare to withhold congratulations on Your Grace’s marriage? None, surely. Yet…” His gaze flicked to Elena. “Your Grace is the strongest of the Black Wolves, the very pinnacle of pure blood. It is only regret that words cannot express the awe we feel.”

Kennard’s eyes narrowed. “Say what you mean, without such waste.”

“Pure blood must be met with blood of its kind. And yet… the one you call your mate bears neither our features nor our scent. Is it not natural that we are unsettled?”

The nobles’ whispers resumed, sharper now, and rose around him.

“If not her lineage, at least the name of her house should be known to us,” Benzef pressed.

Kennard’s voice dropped to ice. “Do you suggest I must beg your leave to choose my mate?”

“No, Your Grace. Never would I presume such insolence.”

“Then what name do you give to this display before me and before her?”

“We meant only that your partner should be one who could carry forward the sanctity of your bloodline—”

“Absurd,” Kennard cut him short with a laugh bereft of humor.

He took Elena’s hand deliberately, lacing his fingers with hers before wrapping an arm around her waist.

“I have already told you—I am imprinted upon her.”

Elena froze. Imprinted? With me?

She had never heard him say it aloud. When she had once asked what would happen if, after their union, he found the one marked for him, he had only told her it could wait until her memory returned. But this—this declaration—whether truth or shield, left her reeling.

“Among us,” Benzef continued carefully, “few wed their imprinted mate. We wed for legacy, for blood, as is our duty.”

“Then you suggest I do the same.”

“That is—”

“I will not abandon Elena. Nor will I abandon our child.”

The words struck like a hammer. The nobles gasped.

“Your child?”

“She carries your heir?”

“Then the bloodline will be diluted—”

Dozens of eyes shifted as one, stabbing toward Elena’s belly. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around herself, shielding the fragile life within from their gaze. Cold fear gripped her—what if their stares could reach the child?

“No more words,” Kennard said flatly. “I will not compel you to celebrate our bond. You may oppose it if you choose. But know this—”

At his signal, armored knights stepped from the edges of the garden, blades bared. Steel glinted, circling the nobles in a tightening ring.

Gasps and cries burst from the crowd. The nobles stumbled backward, their once-proud gathering collapsing into a frightened cluster at the garden’s center.

Elena stood upon the dais, staring down at the mass of them, her mind strangely blank. The sight of dozens pressed together, hemmed in by shining steel, struck her like a dream too vivid to escape.

Kennard’s voice cut through the chaos, low and merciless.

“Defy me if you must. But those who do will pay the price.”