His Villainess,His Luna,His Mistake3 / 3

Chapter 3 The Touch

The wedding dress felt heavier than it looked.

I had been standing in front of the mirror for several minutes, staring at the woman reflected in it, and I still couldn't decide whether I was more frightened by the dress or by the fact that I was wearing it.

The woman in the mirror was beautiful. That much was undeniable. Dark hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders, framing a face that seemed too delicate to belong to someone whose reputation could make an entire room go silent.

But the eyes were mine.

Or at least, they looked like mine.

"My lady?"

I turned.

The maid stood near the door, her hands folded neatly in front of her. She had been watching me with the sort of careful patience people reserved for unpredictable animals.

I couldn't entirely blame her.

"How long have I been standing here?" I asked.

She hesitated. "Almost ten minutes, my lady."

Ten minutes.

I looked back at the mirror.

"And you didn't think to ask if I was all right?"

Her expression tightened. "Forgive me. You instructed me not to disturb you."

Of course I had.

Apparently, the original Zabeth had been as unpleasant as the book suggested.

I sighed and reached for the small bouquet on the dressing table. The flowers were white, delicate things tied together with a silver ribbon. I wondered whether they had been chosen to represent purity or whether someone had simply thought they would look good against the red of my dress.

Either way, the irony wasn't lost on me.

I was about to marry a man who had no desire to marry me, in a world where I was destined to die.

What could possibly go wrong?

"Is the Duke waiting?" I asked.

"Yes, my lady. His Grace is at the chapel."

Naturally.

I had imagined a groom might at least pretend to be nervous on his wedding day. Jacob Draven, however, seemed capable of treating his own wedding like an inconvenient meeting he had been forced to attend.

I lifted my chin.

Thirty days.

That was all the time I had.

Thirty days to discover how the original Zabeth had earned her execution, why the people around her seemed to hate her, and whether there was any way to escape the ending I remembered.

I was not going to die because a book said I should.

"Let's go."

The maid opened the door.

As I stepped into the corridor, a familiar voice stirred at the back of my mind.

"How brave."

My fingers tightened around the bouquet.

Marrow.

"Not now," I thought.

"You say that as though I have ever been particularly concerned with your convenience."

"You could try it sometime."

I felt rather than heard his amusement.

"Careful, little bride. There are things in this place far more dangerous than a voice in your head."

I kept walking.

"You keep saying things like that. If you know something, tell me."

"And spoil the fun?"

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I smiled at a passing servant, who immediately lowered his gaze and hurried away.

This place was exhausting.

By the time we reached the main hall, I could hear the low murmur of voices coming from the chapel beyond it. Servants moved quickly along the corridors, and guards stood at intervals beside the tall windows.

One of them turned his head before I had even reached the end of the passage.

His nostrils flared slightly.

I stopped.

He looked directly at me, his expression sharpening as though he had detected something unusual.

Then his eyes dropped to the floor.

"My lady."

I nodded uncertainly and continued walking.

Perhaps he had smelled my perfume.

That was the only explanation I could think of, and I was beginning to suspect that explanations were in short supply in this world.

The chapel doors stood open.

Inside, the air smelled of polished wood, fresh flowers, and something darker beneath it. Something earthy, almost wild, that I couldn't quite identify.

The room was filled with nobles dressed in shades of black, silver, and deep red. Their conversations softened as I entered.

I could feel their eyes following me.

Some looked curious. Others looked openly displeased.

One woman near the front stared at me with such concentrated dislike that I wondered whether I had personally ruined her life.

Then I saw Jacob.

He stood before the altar in a black formal coat embroidered with silver thread. His dark hair was neatly arranged, and his expression was as cold as I remembered.

He was annoyingly handsome.

That was my first thought.

My second was that the man looked as though he could have the entire chapel emptied with a single sentence.

His gaze found mine.

For one brief moment, his eyes appeared almost golden.

Then the colour disappeared, leaving them dark again.

I blinked.

Perhaps the light had caught them strangely.

"You are late," he said when I reached him.

I glanced at the enormous windows behind him.

"By less than a minute."

"A minute is still a minute."

"And good morning to you too, Your Grace."

Something shifted in his expression. It wasn't quite amusement, but it came close enough to make me wonder whether he had expected me to arrive trembling.

I was trembling, admittedly.

I simply preferred not to give him the satisfaction of knowing it.

A man standing beside Jacob made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh.

He was younger than Jacob, with dark, slightly unruly hair and an easy expression that seemed entirely out of place among all the stiff, watchful nobles.

Vamin.

I recognised him immediately.

In the original story, he had been Jacob's closest friend. He was also the man who would eventually fall in love with Zabeth and die because of it.

My stomach tightened.

He was standing right in front of me, alive and smiling, completely unaware of the future I remembered.

"I see the stories about you were exaggerated," he said.

I looked at him cautiously.

"What stories?"

"That you bite."

I stared.

He grinned.

"Although, judging by the way you are looking at me, perhaps I should keep my distance."

"That would be wise."

His smile widened.

Jacob looked at him.

"Vamin."

One word.

That was all it took.

Vamin's amusement faded, though the corners of his mouth still twitched. He stepped aside and gave a small bow toward the altar.

I watched the exchange carefully.

There was something different about the way these two interacted. Vamin could tease Jacob in front of a room full of nobles, but the instant Jacob's voice changed, he paid attention.

Not because he was frightened of being reprimanded.

It was more instinctive than that.

As though he recognised something in Jacob that the rest of us couldn't see.

The priest began the ceremony.

I tried to listen.

I really did.

But my attention kept drifting to the strange details around me. The way the guards seemed to notice every movement in the chapel. The way a man several rows behind me turned his head toward a whisper I could barely hear. The way the woman who had been staring at me lowered her eyes when Jacob glanced in her direction.

And Jacob himself.

He stood perfectly still, yet there was something restless about him, something held tightly beneath the surface. His gaze moved over the room with the precision of a hunting animal.

For a moment, I wondered whether he could hear my heartbeat.

Then I remembered the book.

Werewolves.

This was a world of werewolves, Alphas, and packs. I had known that, of course, but knowing something from a novel was different from standing in front of a man whose presence made the air feel charged.

Jacob wasn't simply a duke with a terrible personality.

He was an Alpha.

And I was marrying him.

Wonderful.

The priest continued speaking.

I caught only fragments of his words until he instructed Jacob and me to face each other.

Jacob turned.

Up close, his eyes were even more unsettling. There was a faint gold around his pupils, almost imperceptible unless I looked directly at it.

"You look frightened," he murmured.

"I'm standing in a chapel surrounded by people who appear to hate me, marrying a man who looks as though he would rather be anywhere else."

His expression didn't change.

"Then we understand each other."

I almost laughed.

Almost.

The priest asked Jacob to repeat his vows.

Jacob did so in a steady, controlled voice. There was no tenderness in his words, but neither was there hesitation. He spoke as though he were fulfilling an obligation, and perhaps that was exactly what he was doing.

Then it was my turn.

I repeated the words the priest gave me.

My voice sounded strangely distant.

I was halfway through the final line when Vamin stepped closer to help with the ceremonial exchange that followed. The priest gestured for us to join hands.

Vamin reached for mine.

His fingers closed around my hand.

And Marrow screamed inside my head.

"DON'T LET THEM HOLD YOU."

The words struck so violently that I forgot how to breathe.

I tried to pull away.

Vamin's fingers loosened at once, his smile disappearing.

"Lady Zabeth?"

But I could no longer hear him properly.

Heat surged through my wrist.

Not ordinary heat. It felt as though something beneath my skin had suddenly opened its eyes.

I stared at the place where Vamin's fingers touched me.

A thin silver line appeared beneath my skin.

My breath caught.

The line spread across my wrist, branching into delicate patterns that seemed to move like veins of light. For one impossible second, I could see something beneath the chapel floor-something vast and dark, something that made the air tremble.

Then the world lurched.

The chapel vanished.

I was standing in my bedroom.

Not the bedroom in this strange kingdom.

My bedroom.

My old, familiar bedroom, with its peeling patch of paint near the ceiling and the curtain that never quite covered the window. My phone lay on the bedside table. Sunlight fell across the floor.

I could hear a vehicle honking outside.

I could smell the faint scent of laundry detergent.

I was home.

Then I blinked, and the chapel returned.

Vamin was still holding my hand.

His face had changed completely.

He was staring at my wrist, his eyes no longer warm brown but bright amber, the colour spreading through them as though a flame had been lit behind his pupils.

He released me immediately.

"Jacob."

There was no teasing in his voice now.

Jacob moved before anyone else could react.

One moment he was beside the altar. The next, he was standing directly in front of me, his hand closing around my forearm as I staggered.

His grip was firm.

The silver pattern flared.

Pain shot through my arm.

I cried out.

Jacob's eyes turned fully gold.

A low sound rumbled in his chest, so deep I felt it in my bones. Several people in the chapel recoiled. Somewhere behind me, a woman gasped.

Jacob looked down at the mark on my skin.

For the first time since I had met him, his composure cracked.

"What are you?" he whispered.

I tried to answer.

I couldn't.

Marrow's voice tore through my mind again.

"I warned you."

"Make it stop!" I screamed at him silently.

"I can't stop what has already begun."

The silver lines climbed toward my elbow.

Jacob's fingers tightened around my arm, and I felt something answer his touch-something wild, furious, and impossibly familiar.

The chapel lights flickered.

Every candle went out.

Darkness swallowed the room.

A dozen voices erupted at once. I heard the scrape of chairs, the sharp commands of guards, and the sound of something heavy striking the floor.

Then a growl rolled through the darkness.

It was not human.

I felt Jacob's hand leave my arm.

Someone caught me before I could fall.

Vamin, perhaps. I couldn't tell.

The last thing I heard was Marrow's voice, suddenly quiet.

"Now you understand why I told you not to let them hold you."

And then everything went black.

A horn blared outside my window.

I jerked upright with a gasp.

My hands flew to my chest. My heart was beating so violently that I could feel each thud in my throat.

For several seconds, I couldn't move.

The ceiling above me was familiar. The water stain near the corner was still shaped like a crooked continent. My curtain was half open, letting in the harsh afternoon light.

My phone lay beside me.

My old, cracked phone.

I snatched it up.

Three missed calls from Mum.

Two messages from Daniel.

The time on the screen made my stomach drop.

I had been asleep for hours.

I stared at the messages without opening them. My fingers were shaking too badly to type.

It was a dream.

The words appeared in my mind with desperate certainty.

It had to be a dream.

The wedding, the castle, the cold duke, the man with amber eyes-my mind had simply taken a story and turned it into something elaborate and terrifying.

That was all.

Except I could still feel the pressure of fingers around my hand.

I looked down.

There was no silver mark on my wrist.

No burn.

Nothing.

I let out a shaky breath and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

My bedside glass was almost empty. I reached for it, intending to drink, but stopped when the glass slid several inches across the table.

I froze.

My hand was still in my lap.

The glass moved again.

Only slightly.

Enough.

I stared at it, unable to breathe.

Then it stopped.

I waited for it to happen again. I waited for the room to change, for the walls to dissolve into stone, for a voice to whisper inside my head.

Nothing happened.

I grabbed the glass and set it firmly in the middle of the table.

"No," I whispered.

My voice sounded small in the room.

"Absolutely not."

I pressed both hands against my face.

I needed sleep. Food. A doctor, perhaps. Maybe Daniel was right. Maybe something was genuinely wrong with me.

The thought frightened me more than I wanted to admit.

I picked up my phone and called Mum.

She answered almost immediately.

"Sofi? I've been calling you. Are you all right?"

The sound of her voice nearly broke me.

"Mum..."

"What's wrong?"

I swallowed.

How could I explain it? How could I tell her that I had spent what felt like days in another world, that I had almost married a man from a novel, and that a voice inside my head had warned me not to let someone hold my hand?

She would think I was losing my mind.

I was beginning to think the same thing.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I think something is wrong with me."

Her voice softened.

"What do you mean, darling?"

I looked at my wrist again.

For a fraction of a second, I thought I saw a faint silver line beneath the skin.

I blinked.

It was gone.

"I don't know how to explain it," I whispered.

Outside, another vehicle honked.

Inside my room, the glass remained perfectly still.