Chapter 3: The Interrupted Wedding Night
The four days passed in a blur of forced ceremony, a waking dream of incense, heavy velvet, and the taste of wedding wine that lingered, sour and metallic, at the back of her throat. Catherine moved through it all like a figure in a tapestry, speaking the required words, enduring the grasping hands of well-wishers she did not know, feeling the weight of the new crown—lighter than her father’s, but cold as ice against her brow.
Now, in the royal bedchamber, the silence was a physical presence.
It was a room meant to inspire awe. Dark mahogany panels absorbed the firelight. The bed was a vast expanse of black silk, its silver embroidery crawling across the fabric like frozen spiders’ webs. The air smelled of lavender from the rushes, undercut by something muskier, something waiting. She stood by the fireplace, still in her ivory wedding gown, her hands clasped tightly before her. She was not afraid, she told herself. She was resigned. It was a transaction. Her body for her kingdom’s peace. A simple, brutal equation.
The door opened.
Prince Michael entered, having shed his ceremonial armor for a dark tunic and trousers. He carried two goblets, his expression one of focused intent. He handed one to her. “To union,” he said, his voice flat.
“To peace,” she corrected softly, meeting his eyes as she took the sip. The wine was strong.
He set his goblet down, untouched. His gaze traveled over her, and she saw the assumption in it, the certainty of possession. He had chosen the quiet, bookish one. The compliant one. He stepped close, the heat of his body pushing against the cool air between them. His fingers went to the laces at the back of her gown. They were deft, practiced. She held her breath, her spine rigid.
“You are tense,” he murmured, his breath hot against the shell of her ear.
“It is a tense occasion.”
He gave a low chuckle, mistaking her literal truth for maidenly nerves. The gown loosened, pooling at her feet in a whisper of fabric. The cool air touched her skin, raising gooseflesh. She stood in her thin linen shift, her arms crossing instinctively over her chest. He looked at her, his eyes darkening. She was not wispy like her sisters. She was fuller, large-breasted. His gaze was a clinical assessment. She saw a flicker of something—not disappointment, but a recalibration. He had not chosen her for this. He had chosen her to spite her father. This was just the claiming of the prize.
“Lie down,” he said, no longer murmuring. It was a command.
She obeyed, moving to the immense bed. The silk was shockingly cold beneath her back. He stripped off his tunic, revealing the hard, scarred map of a warrior’s torso. He was beautifully made, she noted dispassionately. All power and disciplined force. He knelt over her, his weight dipping the mattress, his knees caging her hips. He pushed her shift up to her waist, his hands rough, impatient. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t touch her face. His focus was lower, singular.
She turned her head to the side, staring at the dancing firelight on the wall, distancing herself. She felt his fingers between her legs, a blunt, probing intrusion. She was dry. He grunted, a sound of irritation.
“Relax,” he ordered, his voice gritted.
“I am trying,” she lied, her own voice thin.
He spat into his palm, a crude, wet sound, and smeared the moisture between her legs. The clinical efficiency of it was more shocking than violence. She shut her eyes. He positioned himself, the thick, hot head of his cock nudging insistently at her entrance. This was it. The moment of surrender. She braced, her nails digging into her own palms.
A fist hammered on the chamber door. Three sharp, urgent raps.
Michael froze, a growl of pure frustration tearing from his throat. “What?”
“My prince!” A guardsman’s voice, strained. “Your father demands your presence. The eastern scouts have returned. It is urgent.”
Catherine felt the tension in his body, a coiled spring about to snap. For a suspended second, she thought he might ignore it, might drive into her just to prove he could. But duty, that cold master, won. He shoved himself off her with a curse, grabbing his tunic. “Do not move,” he snarled at her, as if she were a disobedient hound. He yanked the door open. “This had better be a fucking invasion.”
The door slammed shut.
The sudden silence was deafening. Catherine lay still for a long moment, then slowly sat up. Her shift was rucked around her waist. The cold air, the ghost of his hands, the vulgar wetness between her thighs—it all coalesced into a humiliating, burning clarity. He would be back. And it would happen again. The painful, impersonal act.
A strange, reckless energy buzzed in her veins. It was not desire. It was defiance. If her body was to be a territory to be taken, let it not be a barren, frigid landscape. Let it know its own contours before the conqueror returned.
Her heart began to pound for a different reason. She looked at the door. Listened. Only distant, receding shouts echoed from the stone corridor.
Her hand, moving almost of its own volition, slid down her stomach, beneath the linen. Her fingers found the place he had so roughly handled. She flinched at her own touch, then pressed. A different kind of heat bloomed there, one that was hers alone. She closed her eyes, not to escape, but to focus.
She thought not of him, but of a passage from a forbidden text she’d once found, a frank anatomical discussion. She thought of her own hidden power, the secret life of her own flesh. Her fingers began to move, exploring, learning. She found a spot that made her breath catch, a small, hard nub that sent a jolt through her when she circled it. It was clinical at first, a rebellion of biology. Then it became something else.
A low, shuddering sigh escaped her lips. Her hips moved slightly against her own hand. The cool silk beneath her, the fire’s warmth on her face, the utter solitude—it twisted into a secret, thrilling sensuality. This was hers. This sensation, this building tightness deep in her belly, was a discovery no treaty could grant him. Her other hand crept up to cup her own breast, her thumb brushing over the nipple, which tightened into a sharp peak. The duality of it—the self-knowledge and the rebellion—fed the fire.
She bit her lip, her movements becoming less exploratory, more urgent. The tension built, a coil winding tighter and tighter within her core. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps. The world narrowed to the feeling between her legs, to the approaching, unknown crest. She was almost there, teetering on the edge of a precipice she had only ever read about. Her back arched. A soft, desperate sound was torn from her throat.
The door opened.
She didn’t hear it. Her senses were turned entirely inward, hurtling toward release.
A shadow fell across the bed. She froze, her eyes flying open.
Prince Michael stood there, his expression unreadable. He had returned silently. His eyes were not on her face. They were fixed on the place where her hand was buried beneath her shift, on the frantic rise and fall of her chest. He had seen everything.
Slowly, he stepped forward. The fire cast his face in grotesque, shifting angles. He said nothing. The air crackled with a new, dangerous charge.
Catherine’s hand went still, but she did not pull it away. She was caught, exposed, poised on the very brink. Shame flooded her, hot and sickening, but beneath it, smothered but not extinguished, was a stubborn, defiant ember.
He reached out, his movement deliberate. His hand, large and calloused, closed not around her throat, but around her wrist. His grip was like iron. He pulled her hand from beneath the linen, exposing her glistening fingers to the cool air.
He looked from her wet fingers to her face. His eyes were no longer those of a triumphant conqueror. They were dark with a confusion that bordered on fury, and something else—a raw, hungry fascination that he clearly despised.
Catherine’s breath was ragged. The desperate need still throbbed insistently within her, unmet, a scream frozen in her nerves. She stared back at him, her cheeks flaming, but her chin lifted.
A long, silent moment stretched between them, broken only by the pop of the fire.