Tradition said the groom should kiss the bride, but Konflict didn’t. As soon as the priest said the words, he stepped back and walked straight down the aisle without looking at me. Gasps and murmurs filled the room as I stood there, ring still warm on my finger, my husband already walking away. The priest forced a smile, people clapped to fill the silence, and I kept my head high even as my heart quietly broke.
I had imagined once, in a version of my life that could never exist, that if I ever stood in front of Konflict Korven in a wedding dress, it would be because he wanted me. Instead, I watched his back as he left, burdened by a union meant to end a war he still carried inside him.
I waited in the honeymoon suite, my afro hair pulled up into a tight bun, a few soft coils slipping free to frame my face. My honey-brown complexion with a subtle bronze sheen caught the lamplight, glowing smooth every time I moved. Sweat slicked over my palms as I adjusted the silk straps of my nightdress again and again. My chest tightened and my nerves burned. I stared at myself in the mirror for a long moment, telling myself this was the night I had been shaped for, even if fate had twistedit into something no one could have predicted.
The room was huge, but nothing about it felt welcoming. I sat on the edge of the bed, hands in my lap, heart racing as the night dragged on. I kept glancing at the door, hoping to hear his footsteps.
The hours crawled. My eyelids grew heavier. A part of me began to wonder if he would come at all. I was letting sleep pull me under when the door finally creaked open. I shot upright, breath caught in my throat.
Konflict stepped inside.
He didn’t say a word. His stare did all the talking.
He closed the door behind him without looking away from me, his gaze locked so fiercely onto mine that heat rushed through my veins, straight down to the place pulsing between my thighs. He moved slowly, his presence hitting hard enough to make my breath falter, and for a moment I forgot every warning that had ever been spoken to me about this man.
He stopped in front of me, close enough that I felt his warmth wrap around me before he even touched me. My lips parted without permission.
His hand rose, fingers brushing the side of my face, tracing my cheek with a tenderness that stole the air from my lungs. His thumb followed the curve of my jaw, then slid lower until it rested on my lips. My breath trembled against his skin. His gaze never dropped, never shifted, never released me.
And in that moment, everything inside me lit like a fuse.
Need curled deep inside me as my body leaned into him without thought, pulled by something stronger than fear. I craved his hands everywhere, his mouth on mine, his weight and heat pressing into places no one else had touched.
I wanted everything.
I wantedhim.
“Konflict…”
His name fell out of me, breathless, raw, and full of want.
He dipped his head, bringing his mouth close to mine, close enough that I felt the heat of his breath tremble against my lips. My eyes fluttered shut, waiting, needing, ready to give him everything I had been saving for him.
But his lips didn’t touch mine.
They shifted. Lower. Past my mouth.
Until his warm breath slid against my ear.
“You want me to fuck you?” he murmured, his voice rough and filled with a desire that curled around every nerve in my body.
“Yes…” The word cracked out of me. “Please…”
“It will never happen.”
He straightened abruptly, stepping back just enough for the cold to swallow the space he had filled. When I opened my eyes, the warmth was gone. His face had hardened into stone, his stare stripped of everything I thought I had seen earlier.
His next words cut through me with the precision of a blade.
“The world would stop before I ever laid a finger on you. I will never touch you, Serenity. This marriage will stay unconsummated until the day the law dissolves it. And when that day comes, I will kill you.”
He held my gaze long enough to make sure the threat carved itself into every corner of my heartbeat. Then he turned away from me, walked to the door with the same brutal finality he brought into the council chamber, and left without glancing back.
The silence collapsed around me.
My chest tightened. My throat burned. The tears came hot and slow, falling onto the silk draped across my lap as I curled in on myself.
“He really hates me,” I whispered. “And he wants me dead.”
