my sister stole my fiancé so I married the devil Chapter 04

The lock turned again at 6:04 p.m.

Sienna filled the doorway holding a garment bag and a smile like a

scalpel.

“Congratulations, Ivy. You’re getting married tonight.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“A groom has been secured. Daddy’s thrilled. Mother’s already crying.” She dropped the bag on my bed. “It’s Damien Volkov.”

The floor dropped out from under me.

“No.”

“Oh, yes.” She sat down and crossed her legs. “He walked into the hall an hour ago and said, and I quote, ‘I don’t care which one. Any of them will do.’ Father panicked. So I told him about you. My poor sick sister who admires the Alpha of the north so terribly much.” She beamed. “You’re welcome.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“He’ll kill me, Sienna.”

“Probably.”

“He’ll see this.” I pressed my hand over the bruise on my throat. “He’s marrying into the family to seal a truce, and I’ll be standing in front of two hundred people wearing another man’s teeth. He’ll take it as an insult to his name. He’ll-”

“Cut you open on the ballroom floor?” Sienna sighed happily. “God, I hope so. Although-” she held up one finger, “-here’s the delicious part. He announced in front of everyone that he’ll marry, but he will never touch his wife. Never share a bed. Never give her a child. Because there’s a woman he’s already claimed, and he’s been tearing the north apart looking for her.”

Something strange happened in my chest. A single, insane flicker.

Then it died.

“So you’ll be a wife in name,” Sienna said, “living in a house with a ghost, waiting for the day he finds her and stops needing a decoration.” She unzipped the garment bag. “Honestly, sister, it’s more than you’ve ever deserved. Now get dressed. He does not look like a patient man.”

The dress was black, backless, ridiculous. Heavy beading, a stiff high collar that stood away from my throat like armor.

She twisted my hair up and pinned it. She wiped the blood off my split lip with her thumb.

“There,” she said, turning me toward the mirror. “No one will mistake who you belong to.”

I didn’t recognize the woman looking back.

I slid my mother’s chain into my palm-except it wasn’t my mother’s chain anymore. It was a plain silver chain from my dresser, threaded through a heavy man’s ring. I fastened it around my neck and let the ring fall low, hidden between my breasts, under the beading, where nobody would look.

If you ever need me, he’d said, show anyone this ring.

I needed him. I had no idea where he was. And in four hours I’d be

married to a monster.

The walk to the ceremony hall was lined with people.

The whole compound had come out to watch the bastard girl be handed over. I heard the whispering start before I reached the fountain. That’s her. That’s the one. Volkov’s taking her. God have

mercy.

“Ivy!” Lena broke out of the crowd and grabbed my wrist. Lena, who brought me news of my mother, who’d never once called me what everyone else called me. “Ivy, you can’t-there has to be another way, you can run, I have a car-”

I hugged her so hard my ribs shrieked.

“Don’t,” I whispered into her hair. “Don’t help me. They’ll hurt you too.”

I let go and kept walking, and I didn’t look back, because if I looked

back I’d fall apart.

“Smart girl,” Sienna murmured beside me. “Keep your mouth shut. Let the real people talk.”

And then Julian stepped into our path.

He’d shaved. He was wearing the suit I’d picked out for him last spring. Seeing him still hurt, and I hated my own body for it.

“That didn’t take long,” he said coldly. “One day, Ivy. One day, and you’re crawling into a bigger man’s bed.”

Something in me finally, finally caught fire.

“You’d know all about crawling,” I said. “You did it into my sister’s.”

His nostrils flared.

Sienna laughed and slid her fingers under the lapel of his jacket, leaning in to whisper loud enough for me to hear.

“Don’t let the tragic act fool you, darling. She was so desperate to get back at you, she let a stranger bite her in the woods.”

Julian’s head snapped toward me.

“You what?”

“Julian-”

He grabbed the collar of my dress and ripped.

Beads scattered across the stones like teeth. The silk tore to my collarbone. Cold air hit my throat and the bruise-dark, deliberate, unmistakable-was suddenly out in the open in front of forty people.

Sienna’s mouth fell open in pure joy.

“Look at it,” she breathed. “Everyone, look at it—”

And then the entire courtyard went silent so fast it felt like the air had been sucked out of the world.

ΑΙ

sed around Julian’s wrist.

ne creak. Julian made a sound I’d never heard a man make.

ne enormous stepped past me, shoved Julian and Sienna like they were furniture, and stood between me and everyone

with his back to me.

The crowd was already on its knees.

He turned around.

He was-God, Black suit, black hair, a jaw like a blade, and eyes so pale they looked lit from behind. Younger than the stories. Infinitely

worse.

Something about him made my skin hum.

“I-thank you,” I stammered. “Thank-”

“So.” Damien Volkov’s gaze dropped from my face to my bare,

bruised throat, and stopped there. Everything in his body went utterly still. “You’re the bride they’re selling me.”

He took one step closer.

“Then explain to me,” he said softly, “why there are another man’s

teeth in my wife’s neck.”