Octavia’s POV
The journey to Mystcrest had taken three days of bone-jarring travel through increasingly desolate countryside. When we finally crested the hill overlooking the fortress, my breath caught in my throat.
Mystcrest Castle rose from black stone like something carved from a nightmare, sharp towers and jagged battlements silhouetted against a gray sky that swallowed light rather than reflected it.
By the time I was shown to my chambers, I felt less like a visiting princess and more like a prisoner.
The room was large and cold, its velvet drapes and high ceilings unable to hide the weight pressing down on me. Servants moved around me in silence, pulling laces tight and smoothing unfamiliar silk across my frame.
No one spoke unless spoken to, no one offered comfort.
The gown was beautiful and I hated it. I stared at my reflection as they fastened the final clasp, struggling to recognize the girl in the mirror.
I looked like a bride and felt like whore.
The ceremony was held in a small stone chapel nestled within the inner courtyard.
Candles lined the aisle, their flames flickering beneath vaulted arches. The air smelled of wax and damp stone, and every step I took made my pulse thunder louder in my ears.
At the far end of the aisle, he waited. Prince Darius.
I had imagined him a dozen different ways during the long journey here, cruel, and arrogant, but nothing had prepared me for the reality.
He stood tall and still, dressed in dark ceremonial robes trimmed with silver, his face unreadable, his eyes fixed on me as I approached.
He didn’t smile or flinch. He simply watched me with the quiet intensity of someone studying a storm from a distance.
I kept my chin high, refusing to let my nerves show. My steps were steady, rehearsed, but my hands trembled inside my gloves.
I had no words for him. None were expected.
The vows were spoken in solemn tones, recited from memory by a priest I barely saw.
I repeated each line as though they belonged to someone else, each word wrapping tighter around my chest like a second corset.
"By the power vested in me by the crown, I pronounce you husband and wife," the priest intoned. "You may kiss your bride, Your Highness."
Darius turned to me, his dark eyes searching my face for a moment before he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was brief, formal, but I felt an unexpected jolt of awareness at the contact.
When he pulled away, his expression was still carefully neutral.
"It's done," he said quietly, and I wasn't sure if he was speaking to me or himself.
The wedding party dispersed with the same efficiency with which it had assembled. No rice was thrown, no congratulations offered.
I was simply escorted to a new set of chambers, his chambers, and left to wait for what came next.
The room was larger than any I'd ever occupied, with windows that looked out over the castle's inner courtyard. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows on walls hung with dark tapestries.
Everything was rich, expensive, and utterly foreign.
I stood by the window, still wearing the wedding gown, when Prince Darius entered. He had removed his formal jacket and rolled up his sleeves, making him look less like a prince and more like a man.
A dangerous man, I reminded myself, remembering the rumors of his beast character.
"Are you frightened?" he asked, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
The honest answer was yes, but I lifted my chin. "Should I be?"
Something flickered in his dark eyes, amusement, perhaps, or approval. "That depends entirely on you."
He moved to a side table and poured two goblets of wine, offering one to me. I accepted it with trembling fingers, grateful for something to do with my hands.
"Before we proceed," he said, his voice carefully neutral, "I need to ask you something."
My heart hammered against my ribs. Did he somehow know about Leon? Could he sense that I wasn't the untouched bride he required?
"Are you a virgin?" The question was direct, without pretense or diplomacy.
My throat tightened. The lie sat on my tongue, ready to be spoken, but something in his steady gaze made me hesitate. In the end, I nodded, the gesture small and uncertain.
Darius studied my face for a long moment, then set down his wine without drinking. "We should get this over with, then."
There was no romance in his words, no attempt at seduction. This was duty, pure and simple, as much for him as for me. I had expected claws at my throat, fangs at my neck, the savage brutality the rumors promised.
Instead, when I flinched at his approach, Darius paused entirely.
"You're trembling," he observed quietly.
"I'm not afraid," I lied.
His lips curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "The stories about me have gotten quite elaborate, haven't they? What did they tell you I would do to you?" I couldn't answer, couldn't voice the terrible images that had plagued my journey here.
"I see," he said simply, and there was something almost sad in his tone.
We undressed in silence, our movements careful and deliberate. When I stood before him in nothing but my chemise, he paused.
"You don't have to be afraid, my wife," he said, his voice gentler than before. "I won't hurt you."
I wanted to tell him that I wasn't afraid of pain, I was afraid of feeling nothing at all. But I simply nodded and let him guide me to the bed. This wasn’t like my night with Leon.
Leon had devoured me, kissed like he was drowning, touched like he needed to memorize me with his skin, to claim me like it was the last thing he’d ever do.
Darius was the opposite.
There was no rush in him, no frantic hunger. He stripped me slowly, piece by piece, eyes dark with something unreadable as his fingers slid over my skin like he was deciphering a language only he understood.
Every movement was deliberate, restrained. When he laid me back, he didn’t pounce. He hovered and studied me.
His hands trailed from collarbone to hip with maddening control, tracing every curve, every scar, every unspoken ache. My breath hitched when his palm cupped my breast, thumb brushing across its peak until it hardened beneath his touch.
His mouth followed his hands, hot, slow kisses that skimmed across my chest, my stomach, my thighs, until I was squirming, impatient and confused.
Where Leon had worshipped, Darius dissected.
His tongue dipped between my legs with the same infuriating calm, lapping at me in languid circles that had my hips twitching off the bed.
My now husband didn’t speak until he moved over me, the tip of his hard length nudging against my entrance.
“You’re sore,” he said quietly. Not a question, a statement.
I nodded, tense as he carefully and slowly slid inside me. The sting was immediate, my body was not quite ready for how big he was even as I was soaked and trembling.
“Breathe,” he murmured against my ear. “Just breathe for me.”
His voice grounded me. I inhaled shakily, exhaled slowly.
He waited hovering above me like a mountain of muscles, barely pressed past the edge, until he felt me soften. Then he slid deeper, inch by careful inch, until I was full. So full I whimpered.
He didn’t move yet. Just stayed there, letting my body adjust, his thumb stroking circles into my hip like I wasn’t already shaking.
When he finally began to move, it was with a rhythm that felt nothing like Leon’s. No frantic thrusts and tangled desperation. Darius moved with control, dragging himself out slow, then pushing back in with a force that made my toes curl.
I moaned without meaning to, my nails digging into his back.
The stretch still hurt, but beneath the ache was heat, rising, and blooming. He rolled his hips in a rhythm that dragged against every nerve, every spot that made me twitch and gasp and arch. He was relentless in his pace.
Not fast, but deep. Deep enough I felt every stroke in my spine.
“Look at me,” he ordered and I did.
His eyes were locked on mine, dark and unreadable, and that eye contact made it worse, made everything sharper.
My body betrayed me, clenching around him, pulling him deeper.
I hated it. Hated that I was coming alive under him, that my legs were wrapping around his waist like I needed him closer.
That I was panting now, eyes rolling back, heat coiling low and tight inside me.
“You don’t want to enjoy this,” he said, voice low and knowing. “But you are.”
“Be silent…” I gasped, but the words fell apart on a moan as he angled his hips and hit a spot that made stars explode behind my eyes.
“Come for me, little sacrifice,” he growled against my throat. “Show me what your body really wants.”
I shattered without warning, pleasure ripping through me like fire, back arching off the floor as a cry tore from my throat. He cursed and thrust once, twice more before he stilled, pulsing deep inside me as he spilled himself with a low, guttural groan that sounded like it was wrenched from the deepest part of him.