1 Chapter 1: The Day Cecil Mulberry Died
Even in the darkness of the bedroom, I didn’t dare move a muscle. I tried to keep my breathing even, but my shoulders were so tense they ached, and it felt like needles were stuffed into my heels.
Every breath ended in a small rasp, as if my new bedroom was slowly choking me.
*Tick, tock, tick, tock.*
I don’t know how long I stood there after my maid, Wendy, left me. My mind stopped working when I saw *his* door. There’s a...clock? I could hear it so vividly. Hear its tick, tock, tick, tock rhythm.
I blinked into the darkness. My night vision was terrible compared to other wolf shifters. It took me a moment to refocus and see the clock on a coffee table. It was small and round-faced with silver hands and was still ticking...tocking...
I don’t remember running to the bathroom. I barely remember tripping out of my heels and falling to my knees at the toilet seat. Part of my veil fell inside, almost touching the water.
I sat there, crouched and uncomfortable, for what felt like hours.
I couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard I tried, my throat kept making gasping sounds into the bowl. An inner force was pressing its way against my chest. Goosebumps were all over my arms and legs. A roaring was filling my ears.
I was changing. My wolf was going to break through because I was losing control. Gripping my chest, I finally noticed the real culprit behind it all: my dress.
My damn wedding dress.
Quickly, I scratched at the back of the bodice, feeling my claws elongate in desperation. There was a tear, I tugged at the string of the back…and finally took both hands and tore the back apart.
It peeled off my body in two halves of expensive cream-colored fabric. I arched my back and breathed in and out several times in relief.
My wolf was still bubbling beneath my skin, and I was still burning hot. I crawled out of the bathroom on hands and knees and went back into the bedroom. It was an en-suite with a large bathroom and walk-in closet. The bed was in the upper middle of the room, against two tall windows.
The carpet was soft beneath me as I crawled to the bed. I didn’t have the strength to climb up and simply placed my head and arms on the mattress surface.
Anything. I need to focus on anything else to calm down, or I’ll shift. I tried to focus on the softness of the bed, on how warm the room was, on how the veil—which I tore off my head—was so pretty. It looked like millions of glittering stars were used to make it.
*Tick, tock, tick, tock.*
I blinked again, enhancing my night vision to observe the room. It was full of white and silver furniture with blue accents. There was a desk and bookshelf in one corner, couches and table in the middle, and windows covered in blue curtains.
At the foot of the bed were two trunks. Both had a crimson red wolf surrounded by hollyhocks and gladiolus on the lid.
The St. Belmont crest.
I reached out before pulling back and wiping my hand on the veil. I felt myself scowl at the habit and clicked a trunk open…immediately dropping a leather bag.
*Stu-, tick, -pid, tock.*
I pulled the leather bag up and peered inside to discover it was full of loose gems. Emeralds, garnet, topaz, turquoise. They were a glittering rainbow pile.
The weight of them in my hands, however, was less than the weight that settled in my stomach at the sight of them.
The trunk was full of jewelry, accessories, makeup and more. The other trunk was filled with fabric for clothes; there were a few clothes in there but not in my size.
Well, I was thicker around the chest and stomach than—
*Knock, knock!*
“Who is it?” I yelled by mistake. I quickly closed the trunk and faced the door on wobbly feet. “Please don’t enter. I’m not decent right now,” I added. My dress and hair were ruined, and only now did the guilt sink in that I ruined such an expensive gown.
“I wanted to know if you’d like dinner, Lady Melania.” It was Wendy again. She sounded apathetic in her supposed concern.
“What do you have?”
“Your favorite: venison.” My stomach squelched at the name. Of course, they must have heard that from the coachmen who escorted her carriage.
No, *my* carriage. Mine. I must remember that.
“No, thank you. I’m tired, so I’ll be going to bed now.”
“If you say so.” And she was gone.
I slid down against the bedframe and hugged my knees to my chest. I was too afraid and tired to eat. A true noble wolf would eat venison.
Remembering how fake I truly was, I put my head against the trunk.
*Stu-,-pid, Ce-,-cil.*
As I closed my eyes, I swore I heard the clock say my name...
xxx
I woke in my broken bed at home. It was stuffed underneath the creaky staircase, so every morning, I would wake up with dust in my hair, smelling like mold.
Cooking breakfast would start when some of my siblings would run down the stairs. One of the kids would yank my ear and yell inside it, but I was already awake and would swat them away. I hated sleeping so close to the kitchen, but I was always forced in there.
I started cooking like normal. I sliced up the stale bread, stirred the grits in the pot...forgot the meat. As everything grew louder and more crowded, I pushed past one of my older brothers, earning a growl, to open the fridge and grabbed the ham and—no.
Only ham?
That’s when I heard my father’s footsteps.
He’d be here in thirty steps. I spent every day since I was eleven memorizing how long it would take him to stomp down the road and into our house.
“There’s no eggs?” I asked, trying not to sound afraid. My many siblings, some of which I didn’t care to know the names of, were running amok. Shouting, shoving, taking up space and food, all too many in one small house. My nerves were frayed like always when I saw them all. Or any at all.
Mom was breastfeeding a baby and threw a shoe at two shifted pups fighting over an old couch pillow.
“You brats will tear that up! It’s good quality! Shoo! Go!” she shouted.
Twenty steps.
“Eggs?” I tried again.
“Ate them all,” the brother I shoved grunted and smirked. “Next time, wake up earlier and cook so I won’t have to.”
“You dirty mutt!” My mother shouted at him. “Next time starve! And you!” She wheeled on me and tugged off the child latched to her chest before shoving him to me.
“Stop waking up late! I’m sick of it! You’re not a child anymore!”
Ten. Steps.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I mumbled, but between balancing a screaming baby and frying ham, I didn’t mean it. I was tired from cleaning last night, and every morning was the same sorry routine. My heart wasn’t in it.
“Are you lying to me?”
“N-No! Never.”
“Yes, you are, you little–”
*BANG!*
The door opened with a slam hard enough to shake the house, causing dust to rain down from the ceiling. I covered the baby’s face but coughed up a storm along with others. Mom went completely mute and moved away.
“Where’s my breakfast?” Dad lumbered inside and shoved two of my brothers, earning growls and snaps, but his focus was on me. “Cecil?”
Knowing his temper, I placed the baby down and plated the ham, bread and grits. I turned to deliver, but my two wrestling siblings were right in my path and my foot caught.
I tripped and the plate slipped, right through my dirty fingers, and crashed on the grimy floor. I looked up and tried to explain myself—
But the slap I got shut me right up. I didn’t even hit the ground before a stomp came down on my chest.
“You stupid, bratty, clumsy b*tch! What the hell do you think you’re doing!?”
I couldn’t refute his words as pain made me silent. He ranted, saying how much the plate cost. How much meat cost. Why was I so worthless? So useless? He should drag me by the hair and toss me out. Actually, why not?
He grabbed my knotted hair and began dragging me through the broken plate and towards the door, earning yells from Mom, who needed me to watch the pups. They kept shouting, and soon another baby was crying while my brothers started fighting in the laundry room.
I wanted to say, “Maybe if you didn’t gamble so much, we would have money. And if you always need someone to watch your children, maybe you shouldn’t have so many.”
But Cecil Mulberry can’t say that. I can only close my eyes.
Hoping it went away…
Begging to get away…
xxx
When I opened my eyes again, I was still leaning on the trunk. The clean air smelled like freshly-watered flowers. I looked down at my clean fingers before running them over all the fine things in the trunk.
All the riches and comfort I could imagine at my fingertips…all for the price of marriage.
It was such a risky deal becoming Melania St. Belmont, fiancé to the Alpha of Nox, but being Cecil Mulberry was a thousand times worse.
