Chapter 6: The Wedding Night (No kiss)

Lyra

The new chambers were larger than my old room, but they felt smaller.

I stood in the center of the space, my single bag still clutched against my chest. A fire crackled in the hearth. A large bed draped in dark furs dominated one wall. A window looked out onto the moonlit courtyard.

I had not asked for any of this.

Corvin had left me here an hour ago with a single instruction: Wait for the king.

So I waited.

The minutes crawled. I paced. I sat on the edge of the bed. I stood again. My hands had stopped trembling, but my heart had not slowed. Every creak of the old keep made me flinch.

Then I heard footsteps.

Heavy. Deliberate. Coming down the corridor.

I backed away from the door until my shoulders hit the wall.

The footsteps stopped.

Silence.

Then the door opened.

Caspian filled the frame.

He was still in his dark tunic, his black hair loose around his shoulders. The firelight caught his silver eyes, making them glow like coins at the bottom of a well. He looked at me—pressed against the wall, bag still in my arms—and something crossed his face.

Not anger. Not hunger.

Sadness.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

The latch fell with a soft click. We were alone.

I opened my mouth to speak. To ask what he wanted. To beg. To demand. But no words came.

Caspian walked toward me.

Not fast. Not slow. Each step measured, as if he were approaching a wounded animal. I pressed harder against the wall. There was nowhere to run.

He stopped a foot away.

Towered over me.

Then, without a word, he lowered himself to his knees.

I stared.

The Ruthless King. The monster who had killed his first wife. The ancient wolf who had ruled for three centuries. On his knees. Before me.

His hands rose slowly. I flinched, expecting a blow. Instead, his fingers found my waist—gentle, almost hesitant. He gripped the fabric of my dress and pulled me closer.

I did not resist. I could not.

He buried his face in my neck.

I felt his nose press against my throat. His breath—warm, uneven—skated across my skin. His shoulders shook. His entire massive frame trembled against mine.

Then he spoke.

One word. Low. Rough. Broken.

“Breathe.”

I didn't understand.

He said it again, his lips brushing my pulse point. “Breathe, Lyra.”

My name in his mouth sounded like a prayer.

I realized then that my lungs had stopped. I had been holding my breath since he entered the room. I sucked in air—a ragged, desperate gasp.

Caspian inhaled at the same time.

He was not kissing my neck. He was scenting me. Drawing my absence of scent into his lungs like a drowning man pulling air. His fingers tightened on my waist. A low sound rumbled from his chest—not a growl. Something softer. Needier.

“Again,” he murmured. “Breathe again.”

I did.

My chest rose and fell. His followed, syncing to my rhythm. In. Out. In. Out.

He pressed his forehead into the curve of my neck. His hair brushed my jaw. He was so close I could feel the heat of his skin, the tremor in his hands, the rapid beat of his heart against my stomach.

Minutes passed. Or hours. I lost track.

He did not kiss me. His lips never touched my skin. He simply knelt there, face buried in my neck, breathing with me.

Slowly, my fear began to quiet.

Not because I trusted him. Not because I understood. But because his body—this ancient, powerful, terrifying body—was shaking against mine. And shaking things could break.

“Why?” I whispered.

He didn't answer.

His hands loosened on my waist. He pulled back just enough to look up at me. The firelight caught the wetness on his cheeks.

He had been crying.

I had never seen a wolf cry.

Caspian rose to his feet in one smooth motion. He did not wipe his face. He did not speak. He simply looked at me—silver eyes raw and red-rimmed—then turned and walked to the door.

He paused with his hand on the latch.

“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice hoarse, “we begin.”

Then he was gone.

The door closed. The latch clicked.

I slid down the wall until I sat on the cold stone floor, my bag still clutched to my chest, my neck still warm where his breath had been.

I did not understand what had just happened.

But I understood one thing.

The Ruthless King had knelt.

And he had asked me to breathe.

---

Caspian

I did not make it to my chamber.

I leaned against the corridor wall, my forehead pressed to the cold stone, and let the darkness swallow me.

My hands were still shaking.

Fool, my wolf snarled. Weakness. You showed her weakness.

I did not care.

For the first time in three hundred years, the beast inside me was quiet. Not sedated. Not restrained. Quiet. As if her nothingness had reached into my chest and placed a hand over its mouth.

Her neck.

I had buried my face in her neck and breathed.

No scent. No wolf. No magic. Just emptiness. A void where the constant roar of my own nature should have been. It was like standing in a soundless room after centuries of screaming.

I had almost wept.

I had wept. She had seen it.

I pressed my palm against my chest. My heart was still racing, but not from violence. From something else. Something I had not felt since before my first wife.

Hope.

She is a tool, I reminded myself. A contract. A year.

But when she had whispered why, her voice trembling, her dark eyes wide, I had wanted to tell her the truth.

Because you are the only silence I have ever known.

I pushed off the wall and walked.

The corridors were empty. The torches burned low. The smell of old blood followed me, as it always did.

I stopped outside her door.

I could hear her breathing inside. Still fast. Still afraid. But steady.

She had not screamed. She had not run. She had let me kneel before her, let me press my face to her throat, let me breathe her in like a madman.

And she had asked why.

Not what are you doing? Not get off me.

Why.

I raised my hand to the door. Almost touched the wood.

Then I lowered it.

Tomorrow, I told myself. We begin.

I walked away.

Behind me, I heard her slide down the wall. Heard her bag thump against the floor. Heard her exhale—long and shaky.

I kept walking.

But I carried her breath with me.

And for the first night in three centuries, when I lay down in my cold, empty bed, the beast did not scream.

It listened.

Waiting for her next breath.