I stood there watching myself in the mirror, the reflection staring back like a stranger dressed for someone else's story. The wedding was to happen in a few minutes. Any moment now, I would be married.
The Larkin attendants had worked their quiet magic. I already knew the shape of it – lace, silk, jewels, paint – but seeing myself finished, I barely recognized the doll in the glass.
I touched the black velvet collar at my throat, the single blood-red ruby warm from my skin. Alaric's claim, sent ahead of him. Chosen personally, they said, to match my fire. The word lingered, bitter-sweet. Fire. Perhaps the hair. Perhaps the stubborn refusal to break completely. Either way, it marked me before the vows were even spoken.
Larkin waited beyond today's ceremony. The frozen kingdom ruled by King Alaric Voss – the Black Wolf. His name alone summoned images of snow-choked passes, iron portcullises, banquet halls where rivals never left the table. Whispers carried across the border like plague winds – poisoned wine, vanished courtiers, a harem culled until only one omega remained. His consort, survivor by cunning or favor, mother to the heir who cemented her place. Only she had endured.
He was twice my age. Old enough that the mathematics of it twisted something low in my belly. Eyes like storm fronts, they said. A presence that emptied rooms of sound. Despised by his court, feared by every border lord, cursed in temple prayers.
And yet the fear refused to crest into panic. Leaving Valerion felt less like banishment and more like release. This palace had never been home. Its corridors echoed with mockery, its shadows hid the places where siblings and servants alike had cornered me, reminded me I was spare, worthless, expendable. My brother – the golden first omega – had charmed favor and won a gentle match. Me? I was the coin tossed to buy peace after decades of border blood.
Larkin promised marble warmed by roaring fires, feasts heavy with southern spices, silks instead of threadbare wool. Alpha pheromones thick enough to drown thought. A life of luxury, even if paid for in submission – in heats spent knotted and trembling, a will bent beneath iron regard.
"Are you scared, my lord?"
Caleb's voice was soft, almost lost beneath the crackle of the fire. He stood behind me, fingers deft as he adjusted the final sapphire pin in my hair. In the mirror our eyes met – his light green, framed by long lashes the color of ripe wheat.
I gripped the silk of my trousers. "Not of leaving this place," I whispered. "I want to go. It's you I'm scared of leaving behind."
He offered that small, crooked smile he always used when he was trying to be brave for me. "It's all right if the plan doesn't work."
"No." My voice cracked. "It's not all right. I can't leave you here."
Caleb set the last jewel in place and stepped around to face me. He took both my hands in his – callused from scrubbing floors and carrying trays, yet gentle.
"Saving yourself is the most important thing," he said quietly. "I should be the least of your worries."
I turned my palms up, lacing our fingers together. "You're not the least. You're everything. Both of us have to leave. I won't go without you."
He had not always been a servant. Once he was a peasant boy from the outer villages – beautiful in the way Valerion prized omegas. But he was nobody. No title. No lineage. No dowry.
We met by chance years ago, when I slipped away from a banquet to hide in the stables and he was there tending a lame mare. We talked until dawn. When he learned who I really was, he did not run. Instead he found ways to enter the palace as a servant. He scrubbed floors, carried messages, endured the sneers of higher-born staff – all so I would not be quite so alone.
If Caleb had never found me, if we had never become inseparable, the king would never have laid eyes on him. But that was a fear for another day.
"My lord…" Caleb's voice trembled. "One of us has to survive. Your freedom is my freedom."
"Ca—"
"It is time!" The maid burst through the door without knocking, her tone sharp with impatience. Even the lowest servants spoke to me as though I were already gone.
Caleb's hands tightened on mine for one heartbeat. Tears shimmered in his green eyes.
He leaned in quickly, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek. "Don't forget to be happy enough for both of us," he whispered against my skin.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
The maid seized my arm and pulled me toward the door. I looked back once. Caleb stood in the center of the room, blonde hair catching the candlelight, green eyes wide and glistening. He lifted a hand in silent farewell.
Then the corridor swallowed me.
The halls of Valerion passed in a blur of stone and torchlight. Tears poured down my face as I walked toward my husband. I didn't think I would ever miss this place – but Caleb made me.