026 - Patience

026 - Patience
|||ZEIRIK|||

I knew it was out of character, yet, I was tense...nervous one might say. 
I wasn't sure if it was the wedding...or what came before. 
Or perhaps...it was just her. 
Yasmin. 

She looked as breathtaking as the first time I'd laid eyes on her years ago, months before she was brought to the kingdom of Elysium. 
Back then, she was the simple girl on the streets of Ysgradil--the largest continent-- who didn't mind helping a hooded stranger with a few coins when he clearly needed it. 
She wore red, just like the dress she had on currently, a lighter shade with black bows on either side of her waist.

Her eyes were brighter then than they are now...still, they carried the same heaviness...the same light. 
The same shade. 

I wasn't nervous because I'd just gotten married to a woman I barely knew just to spite my brother and step-mother, that being one of the reasons, I'm nervous because it's her...because we'll have to share a room for the rest of the night. 
We'll have to share a room tonight. 

That evening I watched Yasmin's shoulders as they remained stiff, her smiles never reaching her eyes, her usual calculating expression more wary than it was cautious. 
I like to think that sometimes, Yasmin and I are somewhat alike...but then again, she wasn't nervous for the same reason I was. 
She feared me. 

I have to lead her to my room once all is said and done and everyone leaves for their respective chambers. It's just me and her in the hallways and then it's just me and her stepping into the bedroom. 

The door closes, and I’m alone with her. Finally. After hours of having to share her attention with others, she's here with me alone now. 
My wife.

Yasmin stands by the window, her posture too perfect. I’ve spent over a decade reading soldiers before battle—I know fear when I see it. She’s waiting for me to claim what’s “mine.”

Typical werewolf tradition that Cassien and his mother must've ingrained in her during all her years here. 

The realization settles cold in my chest. Not because I don’t want her—gods, I do—but because she expects it. Expects me to be like every other man who’s taken from her.

I move to the sofa instead, deliberately casual. “I haven’t slept on a proper bed in over a decade. Battlefields don’t offer such luxuries.”

She turns, confusion breaking through her mask. “What?”
Her full lips are parted slightly, the moon behind her highlight faint shimmers of gold in her hair, and it takes everything in me to not close the distance between us...to not bury my fingers in those silky strands. 

“The bed’s yours.” I stretch out on the sofa that I'd intentionally placed a few more feet farther from the bed, testing it. Too soft, but I’ve slept on worse. “I’ll take this.”

Silence. I can hear her heartbeat from across the room—racing, then slowing as confusion replaces fear. I watch with heated intensity as her fingers wrap around the sleeves of her dress, as though the dress would give way in the next second. 

“You don’t want to…?” She doesn’t finish the question. Her lips still parted, and damn my fucking heightened senses for hearing every breath that leaves those parted lips. 
Every hitch in her throat as she waited for a response. 

“Talk about our plan? Eventually. But it’s been a long day.” I keep my tone light, deliberately misunderstanding. “We can discuss our arrangement tomorrow. When we’re both clearheaded.”

More silence. Then the rustle of fabric as she moves to the bed, still wary.

I close my eyes, but sleep won’t come. I’m hyperaware of every sound she makes—the soft sigh as she settles into the pillows, the way her breathing takes too long to even out.

Patience. I tell myself. She’s been hurt. She needs time. 
I witnessed firsthand what she had to experience, what Cassien did to her. 

I can't let her think I'm just like him. A man who's nothing but a selfish whore and a slave to his desires.

But gods, the wanting is a physical ache. Years of watching Cassien waste what I would have treasured if I had acted sooner. And now she’s here, ten feet away, and I can’t touch her.
I pull the bedding over my head, not sure why. Perhaps to help with the sound of her unsteady heartbeat, or the slow sighs that leave her lips. 

“Thank you,” she whispers into the darkness.

My eyes open. “For what?”

“For not…” She trails off but I know exactly what she means. 

“I’m not Cassien,” I say quietly. “Whatever deal we’ve made, it doesn’t include forcing you into anything you don’t want,” I explain in the the most honest voice I can, though I know it's partially a lie. 

I'm not touching her for selfish reasons. 
I'm not touching her because I don't want her to hate me. 
Because I don't want to feel like shit, more than I already do. 

I hear her shift in the bed. When she speaks again, her voice is smaller. “Why did you agree to marry me? Really?”

The truth sits on my tongue—eager to be freed—but I fucking swallow it and have to grit my teeth to keep it down.

“Because you offered me something no one else has. A real chance at being more than the bastard sent to die.” I spoke when I was certain I wouldn't say any bullshit that would send her running for the hills, I settled for partial truth. It was safer. “And because I think we could be useful to each other.”

"I will do my best to make you Crown Prince," She avows with a determination that has me grinning like a fool into my pillow. 

"I trust you, little viper."

Another long pause. Then, “Goodnight, Zeirik.”

“Goodnight, wife.”

I lie awake for hours, listening to her breathe, wondering if she can feel me watching her in the darkness. Wondering if she knows that everything I said was true—and also a complete lie.