Bethroted to the ruthless alpha

Dinner ended the way it started - stiff and polite on the surface, tense underneath. Dregor said goodnight first, patting my shoulder like I was a niece he felt sorry for. Then Parker, who nodded at me like I was a decision he hadn't finished making yet. Phiona left without looking at me at all, her heels clicking hard against the stone floor, like she wanted the whole hallway to know she was leaving angry. Scott was the last to go, and he leaned close on his way out. "Don't let this place turn you cold," he said, quiet enough that only I could hear it. "It's done that to better people than you." Then he was gone, footsteps fading down the corridor, and it was just me and Raulph, standing in a hallway that suddenly felt way too quiet. "That was fun," I said, mostly to fill the silence. "That was Tuesday." Raulph didn't look at me. He was already walking, and I guessed I was supposed to follow. I followed anyway. There wasn't much else to do. My feet hurt from standing all evening, and the shoes I'd been given for the wedding weren't made for walking, only for looking pretty while I sat still and let people stare at me. We walked without talking for a while. The halls here were cold, all stone and old portraits of Silver Moon alphas, generation after generation, all wearing the same unbothered face. I studied them as we passed. Not one of them looked like they'd ever lost anything. Not one of them looked like they'd ever had to. I wondered if Raulph would look like that too, someday. Carved into a painting, staring down at some other girl who'd been handed to his family like a peace offering. I wondered if he already did. "You didn't have to do that," I said finally. "Back there. With Phiona." "I know." "Then why did you?" He stopped walking. Turned to look at me for the first time since dinner started. In the dim light of the hallway, his face looked less like stone and more like something tired underneath it. "Because she was disrespecting this house," he said. "Not because of you." "Right." It shouldn't have stung. It did anyway, a little, more than I wanted to admit. "Good to know where I stand." Something in his face shifted, just slightly. Like he wanted to say something else and decided against it at the last second. "You held your own with her before I said anything," he said instead. "You didn't need me." "No," I said. "I didn't." "Then we're clear." He started walking again, like that settled it. "We're not clear on anything," I said, catching up, my shoes clicking too fast against the floor to keep pace with him. "You killed the person I loved. You married me because it was convenient for everyone but me. Your family looks at me like I'm something that got tracked in on someone's boots. So no, Raulph, we are very much not clear." He didn't answer right away. We kept walking, past more doors, more portraits, more of this house that wasn't mine and never would be, no matter how many rooms it had. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before. "I never said this was easy for either of us." "You didn't say much of anything," I said. "That's kind of the problem. You want me to just accept all this - the wedding, the family, the way your brother looks at me like I'm a bug he hasn't decided whether to squash - and you won't even talk to me." "What do you want me to say?" "I don't know. Something. Anything that isn't three words and a closed door." He didn't answer that either. I decided I hated the silence more than I hated anything he could have actually said. We reached a set of double doors near the end of the hall, carved dark wood with a silver crescent moon worked into the center. He pushed them open, and I realized this was it - my new room. Our room, probably, though the thought made my stomach twist in a way I didn't want to look at too closely. "This is you," he said. I stepped inside. The room was bigger than my entire home back in Crimson - bigger than the house I'd grown up in, bigger than the house Raphael and I used to talk about building someday, back when someday still felt like something we were allowed to have. There was a huge bed with dark covers, tall windows looking out over land that belonged to a family that didn't want me, and a fireplace already lit, like someone had known I was coming and prepared for it without asking what I actually wanted. It didn't feel like mine at all. It felt like a very expensive cage. "Raulph." I turned back before he could leave. He stopped in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, waiting. "Did you know? That Raphael backed down. That you didn't have to kill him." The question hung there between us, heavier than anything that had been said all night. For a second I thought he wasn't going to answer. I almost hoped he wouldn't - some small, cowardly part of me didn't actually want to hear it out loud. "Yes," he said finally. "I knew." "Then why?" "Because backing down doesn't win wars," he said. "It just delays them. I made a choice that day. I'm not going to pretend I didn't, and I'm not going to apologize for it just because it's inconvenient for you now." "He was going to be my husband." "I know that too." "Do you feel anything about it? At all? Or is it really that simple for you - a choice, a war, nothing else?" His jaw tightened. For a second, something moved behind his eyes - something that looked almost like the thing I'd been hoping to find earlier at dinner, something that looked almost human. Then it was gone, locked back up behind that same wall he wore like armor. "Goodnight, Evelyn," he said, and shut the door before I could answer. I stood there a long moment, staring at the space where he'd been, listening to his footsteps fade the same way Scott's had, the same way this whole night had - everyone leaving, no one staying long enough to actually say what they meant. I hated that I wanted him to feel something. I hated even more that some part of me had been waiting, hoping, for the answer to be yes. I sat down on the edge of the bed that wasn't mine, in the room that wasn't mine, in the life that wasn't mine, and let myself cry for exactly as long as it took the fire to burn low. Then I wiped my face, because there was no one left to see it, and because crying wouldn't bring Raphael back, and it definitely wouldn't make Raulph into someone he wasn't. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I'd figure out how to survive this. Tonight, I just wanted to stop feeling so much.