The Wolf's Bride

The music was too sweet, an expensive symphony designed to mask the scent of ambition. Crystal sparkled on every surface of the ballroom, and the air shimmered with perfume, politics, and the scent of burning futures.

My smile was a weapon, honed by obedience, perfected by silence. And tonight, it was slicing deep into my own skin.

I stood beneath the chandelier, an empire of diamonds overhead, at my own engagement party, dressed in white gold, corseted breathless, my hands trembling beneath velvet gloves. Every man in the room had blood beneath his fingernails, and every woman knew better than to ask whose.

At my side, Viktor Sokolov, heir to a pharmaceutical fortune and a rumored arms pipeline, held my hand like I was merchandise he intended to mark up and resell. He hadn't looked at me once.

"You look beautiful," he said, voice absent of warmth, scanning the crowd. "Like property done right."

My fingers froze inside his. I didn't speak. There was nothing to say. I'd practiced this moment: the tilt of my chin, the practiced blink, the careful curve of a smile meant to say I was honored, not sold.

But watching my father across the room, laughing with men who'd once tried to kill him, now clinking flutes like brothers, I couldn't find the breath to fake gratitude.

"I need air," I murmured, my voice a thread of silk.

Viktor didn't stop me. He released my hand like he was setting down an empty glass.

I walked alone across the ballroom floor, the applause behind me like false thunder. Each step echoed too loud. Too sharp. My heels cracked against the marble as though firing into silence. Gold-trimmed columns rose around me like prison bars.

Then I heard it.

Not meant for me. A voice half-shrouded by distance, arrogance, and power.

"the cost of the pact was her. Don't pretend you didn't know that when we signed."

My father's voice. I knew it the way a child knows thunder before the storm hits.

Another voice followed, deeper, unfamiliar. "She's your daughter."

"She's leverage," my father snapped.

I stopped moving. The air shifted. The hall was empty but for the mirror beside me. My reflection stared back, green eyes too sharp, lips too red, betrayal unfurling like frostbite down my spine.

"Damien Volkov will take what's his."

I didn't turn. Didn't blink. I walked away, the sound of that name detonating in my chest like a buried mine.

Outside, the air hit me like water, sharp and cold. I gasped it in. The wind tugged at my hair, kissed my bare shoulders, and mocked the diamonds weighing down my ears.

Then I heard it.

The soft hum of an engine dying.

I turned just in time to see a black van roll to a silent stop at the edge of the drive.

Too smooth. Too slow.

My body knew before my mind caught up.

I ran.

The garden swallowed me whole, hedges tall, manicured like blades, roses blooming in sacrificial red. The party lights couldn't follow me here. Only the moonlight danced on stone pathways as I stumbled deeper into the cold night.

Damien Volkov.

The Black Wolf of the Carpathians. Whispers of him drifted through underworld corridors like ghosts, efficient, ruthless, untraceable. A man who didn't trade in money or information.

He traded in loyalty and fear. And now, apparently, me.

I reached the gate.

A rustle behind the hedge.

"Who's there?"

No answer.

My heart twisted into my throat. I took one step back, then another.

The crunch of gravel beneath a boot.

Then movement. Quick. A shadow lunging. I turned,

And felt the pierce of a needle in my neck.

I opened my mouth, but the scream never came.

Hands caught me as I fell. Arms too strong, grip too calm.

"Don't fight it," a voice whispered.

My fingers clawed for air, my vision dissolving.

The last thing I saw was a hedge of roses, thorns like knives, and the first star bleeding through the dark.

Then silence.

Darkness.

And one word chasing me into it:

"Delivered."

Somewhere beyond the dark, a door slammed.

I surfaced slowly, as if from underwater. My limbs were sandbags, my eyelids nailed shut. Every sound reached me through cotton.

Leather.

The sharp stench of antiseptic.

I wasn't moving.

The car was.

Men's voices filtered through the fog. Low. Casual.

"She's smaller than expected."

"She'll break fast."

"Not this one. Look at her bloodline."

I tried to move. Nothing responded.

Terror scraped against the inside of my chest. My mind screamed, but my body refused to follow.

"She's his now. The price is paid."

A hand touched my cheek. Cold. Gloved.

I flinched. Somewhere deep in my body, instinct still fought.

A voice chuckled near my ear. "Sweet dreams, principessa."

Another sting, this time in my arm. Heat. Then ice. Then nothing.

I didn't scream.

I couldn't.

My mind sank again.

But it didn't drown.

It waited.

The sound of stone breathing.

That was the first thing I felt when I woke.

Stone doesn't breathe. But somehow, the walls around me exhaled.

I sat up, too fast. The world spun.

Grey. Steel. Shadows.

A room with no windows. No door handle. Just stone, steel, and the faint smell of bleach and chains.

My throat was raw. My dress was gone, replaced with soft black cotton that clung to my skin like smoke.

I stood, swaying.

A camera sat in the top corner of the room, red light blinking once every few seconds.

They were watching.

And whoever "they" were, I wasn't the daughter of a king anymore.

I was the collateral.

I pressed my palm against the wall. It was cool. Unyielding.

Like the hand that had signed me away.

A hiss of air.

A panel slid open.

And a voice, low, smooth, lethal, poured into the room like oil.

"Welcome home, Valeria."

I didn't answer.

But inside me, something old cracked open.

Not fear.

Not sorrow.

Something colder.

And hungrier.

The kind of silence that waits for blood.

And always gets it.