Ryan
The entire village is quiet and dark, which is strange. All of the lights and fires have been put out in the individual homes, and even the main fire in the large, open pit at the center of the village has burned down to embers that glow like stars. Andrew, Jacob, and I walk side by side into the village after taking the afternoon to rest and prepare for tonight, unsure of what’s to come.
I only managed to lie on my sleeping bag for a while staring at the roof of my tent, my mind whirling. Married. I’m getting married. And it doesn’t mean anything but unity between my pack and my bride’s people.
I have a lot of business to take care of tonight other than bind myself to a woman I barely know. I was able to talk to Jerrod briefly this morning while showing him Aviva’s goat hide, but he’s a busy man and promised he’d find me after the ceremony before he walked off with Mercy to discuss the feast and celebration to follow.
So, I’ve been sitting around our camp with my head in my hands wondering how the fuck I got here and what my future holds. I’m not sure how I’m going to explain this to my family. Thankfully, after Sydney’s royal mess with Sarah two years ago, I’m sure my parents will look at this situation and shrug. It could be worse. I don’t think Aviva has powers. She’s strong, yes, but so am I. We’re alike in that way, but that might be the only way.
But she also doesn’t have bad guys creeping through the shadows around her. She didn’t wipe my memory. She isn’t mated to an enemy.
The thought of her mate, a man she hasn’t met yet and who likely doesn’t know she yet exists, rocks me to my core, but I shove those emotions deep down where the rest reside, trying to keep my head clear.
Andrew and Jacob lead me along a path woven between the earthen structures and up a slight hill where the full moon, distant and pure silver, is casting long strings of light all over the rolling landscape and forests beyond.
No one speaks as we near the temple which is another building built into the hillside. Light pours from the circular windows cut into the side of the hill, and shadows move inside. Soft conversations and murmurs follow as we close in on the temple, and my heart is starting to beat erratically. I stop walking, tucking my hands in my pockets.
“What’s up?” Jacob whispers, eyeing the people standing near the entrance of the temple. The whole village showed up for this ceremony. Our guys, too, are standing around outside, mostly excited about the feast and party to follow. Not everyone can fit inside the temple, I guess. Dozens of people line the path leading to the entrance, watching us, as I turn to Jacob and Andrew. “I just didn’t–I didn’t see this for myself.”
“You want me to take your place?” Jacob asks in all seriousness. He would. Not because he wants my soon-to-be-wife for himself but because he’s loyal and willing to do what needs to be done for our pack, for his Alpha. For me.
“No, I just need a minute.” I need a minute to scrub Hadley’s memory from my mind. I don’t know if I ever imagined myself marrying her, but after I realized we were mates, I did think about a future with her in it.
This wedding doesn’t feel wrong. I know I’m doing the right thing for my pack. I know this is a sacrifice I have to make. My bride is making the biggest sacrifice of all, however. It’s killing me that she can’t marry her own mate, or even marry for love, but that doesn’t seem to matter in her culture.
And, it’s not like I can marry for love or as my mate because I gave that up to save Sarah and Dahlia, the mates of the two most important men in my life, other than my father and uncle.
I have nothing to lose. But my bride is losing everything and gaining me. That’s not a fair trade off, in my opinion.
Andrew and Jacob start tugging on my shirt and adjusting my hair. I stand there and take it, my mind reeling over what's about to happen next. Mom’s going to be heartbroken she missed this, regardless of the circumstances of how this wedding came to be. I scratch my naked, freshly shaved, jaw, feeling a little exposed without the beard I’ve let grow out over the past two years.
“He looks fine,” Andrew rasps to Jacob. Both of them are equally as nervous. We all tried to get some information about what this ceremony entails, but none of us are totally sure what’s about to happen next. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to strip naked, or walk over coals with bare feet or something else of the like.
“They’re waiting for us to begin,” Jacob says, squeezing my shoulder. “It’s time. After this, we can all go home.”
Home. I am looking forward to returning to Silverhide. I’m sure James is wondering where the hell we are, given that we were supposed to return tonight.
Before I know it, I’m inside the temple standing at the back of the singular room. Jerrod and two of the other elders stand behind me, and soft conversations ripple through the crowd standing along the walls and outside the temple. There isn’t a priestess in attendance, which I find strange. It strikes me that this fall, during the festival, I’ll have to do this all over again with everyone from all three packs in attendance.
That’s the goal, at least.
I rock on my heels. If I was wearing a watch, I’d check it because I’ve been standing here for ten minutes, and my bride is nowhere to be seen. My gaze slides to the left where a group of children stand, poking each other and generally goofing off out of boredom. Shoshannah and Lora are with them, and while Lora is twirling around in what I assume is a new dress she’s rather fond of, Shoshannah is giving me the same kind of glare her sister has given me on several different occasions. I smile at her. She promptly sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her arms over her chest, turning away.
I can’t win over every sister in this family, I guess.
A hush suddenly falls over the crowd. Jerrod sighs with relief.
And then she’s there. Mercy and Aviva walk down the aisle. Aviva’s dark eyes shine in the light of the full moon illuminating the room through a hole in the ceiling overhead as I take her in.
Candles at my back cast shadows on Aviva’s face as she keeps her head lowered. Her hair is intricately woven into an updo at the base of her slender neck, dusted with pearl beads that gleam in the moonlight, her curls unusually tame. Mercy steps up to me wearing a dress of blue, bowing her head slightly to her father as she hands him a length of white fabric. She says something in a language I’m not familiar with before turning to face me.
She bows her head and steps back, allowing my bride to take her place before me.
Aviva is wearing a dress of white wool with white fur accents. She looks like a moon beam as her eyes raise to meet mine. Her cheeks are flushed, and I have to admit I’m a little disappointed she’s not the feral, untamed version of herself right now. Instead, she’s quiet and unsure. She’s radiant, however. The soft glow of her skin and the fiery red of her hair contrast with the white dress, like a warming fire dancing against a backdrop of silver-white snow. But her expression is withdrawn and nervous, which guts me.
I want to take her hand and tell her it’s okay. I want to tell her we don’t have to do this. But when I asked her who I’d be marrying tonight, whether I’d be taking her home to Silverhide, or Mercy, she made her choice.
“You’re stuck with me,” she said, giving me that devious smile that makes my blood simmer.
In reality, she’sstuck with me, and I feel awful for it. She deserves so much more than I can give her. She deserves someone who can love her–because I can’t.
“I look around this village and see the hurt in my people’s eyes at the loss of our daughter, our sister, and our friend, Aviva,” Jerrod says, his voice booming through the room and out into the night, where the rest of the villagers are straining for a view of the ceremony. “Our Aviva, who has trained our best hunters, protected our village from the rogues that plague these sacred lands of our ancestors. Tonight, she leaves our village to start a new journey within the pack Silverhide, to become the wife of an Alpha.” Jerrod looks at me then, smiling softly. “No man has come to me thus far that has been more worthy of her than this Alpha. Together, they shall usher in a new era of peace and prosperity to our lands.”
I barely know this man. He can’t know whether or not I’m worthy of her. But I’m watching her face as he continues to rain compliments on her character and achievements, things I know she did without needing or wanting recognition and thanks in return. Her eyes are on my chest, blank and unseeing, like she’s stuck in her head, processing everything her father is saying.
I steal at glance at the onlookers, watching as they nod along. Jerrod shifts into a different language, and soon he’s asking us to join hands.
I haven’t touched Aviva other than steadying her at the meeting hall when this betrothal was announced. Her hands are warm and so much smaller than mine. I run my thumbs along her calluses on impulse, imagining her holding her bow as I paced beneath her at those ruins in the forest.
I tighten my grip, curling my hands around hers, and her eyes lift to meet mine.
I hold her gaze. The rest of the room around us fades like it’s just the two of us, and I’m… feeling a little lost. A little hot, all of the sudden. Her touch is not what I expected. I don’t feel the way I expected.
I expected to feel… nothing.
I’m tempted to let go, but then another elder takes my left hand and slides an incredibly sharp blade across my palm. I don’t even have time to process what’s happening. I almost lunge at the elder when he takes Aviva’s right hand and slices across it. I watch pain play across her face and it hurts me.
“Together, you are joined. Our people are now your people, and your people, our people,” the elder says, clasping our hands together.
The sensation is like fireworks exploding through my chest. She feels it too but tamps down her surprise as the length of white fabric is wound around our aching hands, keeping them firmly clasped together.
I hold her gaze, shocked. Is this… I’ve heard of imprinting, but this is different. This feels…
Lora’s soft voice cuts through my profound confusion, lifted in an off-key song in that same strange, ancient language half of the ceremony was in. My gaze is still on Aviva’s face as more children join in, and the song is bright and joyous, cutting through the more serious notes weighing us down. Jerrod turns us to face the elated crowd, who are all singing now and clapping as he gives me a little shove, and I start leading my wife out of the temple and into the open, night air.
The children run ahead of us with lanterns swinging at the end of sticks longer than most of them are tall. The rest of the village follows behind, their song following us back into the village proper. The children run toward the fire pit, twirling around excitedly. I look at Aviva, and she’s smiling, tears in her eyes as she watches her little sisters jump around with their lanterns.
I find myself squeezing my hand around hers and feeling… good. Good, for the first time in over two years.
Shoshannah is given a torch which she promptly throws into the fire pit, igniting the flames once again.
“What are we supposed to do?” I ask Aviva over the song, “Jump into the flames?”
Aviva laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. She tugs on our joined hands and leads me around the fire once, then twice, then three times. It’s a madhouse, everyone dancing and beating on drums. After the third rotation, she brings us to a stop, and Mercy comes to our side, carefully unwinding the fabric.
But I look at my wife–my wife–and wonder how the hell I got here and what I did to deserve this after everything that I’ve done.
Andrew saddles up to us carrying goblets of wine which he hands to us. “So,” he says smoothly as the celebration begins with riotous enthusiasm all around us, “I guess a first kiss isn’t part of your culture?”
Freya skips to a stop at Aviva’s side. “No, it’s not. That’s between the couple and the Goddess, you uncultured heathen.”
Andrew gasps at the insult, but Freya and Aviva are both snickering at his expense.
“What do we do instead?” I ask Aviva, my voice slightly raspy. Maybe it’s from the shock or the strange sensations echoing through my body, through our… our bond, something forged by blood, I realize, curling my fingers into the palm of the hand that was joined with Aviva’s.
She looks up at me, her eyes softer than usual, but playful and… happy. “We dance,” she says, and takes my hand.