Sweet nothings

The eyes of the king slid painfully slow from all over my face to all over my body. He did this each time he liked what he saw on me. But this time, instead of basking in the satisfaction that females felt when their lovers looked at them with so much longing in their eyes, his gesture just felt wrong on so many levels. I could not even begin to count them.

"The dress becomes you," he whispered sweet nothings to me.

I fought against every single butterfly that assaulted my stomach. This was a dress that another male was going to help me take off tonight, did that also mean nothing to this heartless king? I tried my best not to feel what I was feeling. I tried not to share the ache in my soul through our bond. But I knew I was failing miserably when he sighed disapprovingly.

He held my gaze in the mirror in front of both of us again. "Go ahead, ask me the question that has been eating you," he said coldly.

I searched and searched for any kind of strength that I could reach on the inside. That same strength that got me through the hardest week I ever faced in my life up to this moment. The one that allowed me not to see the king's face for seven full days. I wanted nothing more than to deny his true assumption. I wanted to be strong and tell him that nothing was eating me at all! However, there weren't any traces of any strength that I was able to keep hidden safely away from his bond. Giving up was the only option for me.

I decided to at least give up gracefully. "Why now," my voice came out harsher than how I intended for it to be.

"He graduated with a law degree and came back to Anchorage, then he came to claim you as his mate. I could testify to that myself after searching his head. He speaks the truth,"

He searched his head?

"...How very fatherly of you to look after my best interest to such a degree,"

We glared at each other.

His beautiful face didn't even slightly twitch, but I felt his fury in the pit of my stomach through our bond, when he registered that, his eyes turned crimson. I was crossing the line that he drew a long time ago, he had warned me not to provoke him by referring to the age gap between us. We talked about how matters were different for purebloods like us, and that I should not apply human logic to our complicated relationship. But I couldn't care less about any of this right now.

Right now, I wanted to hurt him.

And I knew that he recognized that I won't back down, that he saw the defiant look on my face. He looked away and fixed his gaze on my bed. His eyes lingered there for a long moment. And I couldn't stop my silly broken heart from beating embarrassingly loud.

It is the bond. This isn't you.

I had to remind myself of that over and over again. It was a healthy separation that I had vowed to practice going forward. Otherwise, my feelings were going to be the end of me.

I watched through the mirror as he took a few steps until he reached my bed, he shrugged out of his black cloak revealing the white shirt that he left unbuttoned at the top and had the sleeves pulled backward. It was also strange that he had left it untucked inside of his black pants, I had spent nineteen years in this mansion and not once had I seen him disheveled like this. The thought that assaulted me came uninvited. Could he possibly be grieving his decision?

No, he could annihilate the whole Turner's pack in a blink of an eye if he wanted to. The Alpha could in no way be bending the king's arm like that and pressuring him into agreeing with something that the king didn't want.

What did the king want?

What did he want out of this union? How was sending me into the arms of another mate beneficial for the king?

I placed three fingers on my temple and attempted to massage the pain away, knowing too well that a migraine was on its way.

The king bent over and picked up the long veil that the maid had finished working on and left on my bed, then he reached out for the tiara that was placed neatly next to it and grabbed it with his other hand. He turned around and slowly walked back to me.

"I will not be the one to take these off, so allow me the honor of being the one to put them on,"

.

.

.

Pain…

The pain was in the shape of a pointed object, penetrating its way mercilessly through my heart. I closed my eyes. It was the only consent that I would give him. My brain kept shouting questions at me, asking me why I was not able to deny him what he wanted to do after everything that he had done to us.

Maybe it was because of the pain that I kept feeling through the bond. It was so intense right now that it was an impossible task to distinguish whose pain it was. The wronged me? Or the him who was in the wrong...

I felt the soft see-through fabric of the wedding veil, and I felt how hard he was trying not to directly touch me with his fingers. Skin-to-skin friction would be too much to handle right now regardless of where it was that he would be touching. Then I felt the weight of the tiara over my head.

"Perfect," he breathed the compliment out.

I opened my eyes slowly, not the least bit interested in seeing the perfection he talked about. I clenched my hands together on my lap and looked down at them, fighting the urge to grab the tiara and throw it out of the window.

His big hand covered both of mine, startling me. I flinched back when he got down on one knee, he used to do that whenever I stumbled and fell on something as a little girl who ran around in the king's mansion. But he hadn't done so in years. I knew he was staring at me but I kept my gaze down, the wedding veil separated us apart in more than one way.

"You shall not understand right now for you are very young, but there is a time for everything," he lied expertly.

"There's no time for us anymore, Arthur," I spoke as calmly as I managed. My tongue caressed the letters of his name lovingly, it was the first time that I was calling his name out loud without adding honorifics.

Heat filled my stomach.

He placed a long finger under my chin and lifted my face up, a silent demand for me to meet his gaze with one touch and just a little pressure. The electrical current that began where his finger pressed went through my entire body. And it was nothing less than a tailormade form of torture.

"Come a day, I will call for you," he promised.

His words were sweet nothings again.