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Defeated, I went back into the little girl bedroom and sat on the princess bed.
“Now, now—don’t you worry, dearie,” Crenshella came to sit beside me. “I can see you’re fretting, but once that lovely tea I gave you starts to work, you won’t be worried about anything but your wedding night!”
“What? What does that mean?” I asked, looking at her suspiciously.
“Why, just that the herbal mixture I gave you is meant to bring on your Heat Cycle.”
“What?” I jumped up from the bed. “But…but you said the main ingredient was rose hips!”
“Why, so it is, so it is!” She nodded eagerly. “But there’s also a special mixture of herbs in there that are guaranteed to bring your Heat Cycle.” She frowned at the white lace stretched over my breasts critically. It wasn’t new and she’d had to let it out to make it fit me in the first place. “I’m afraid it’s going to make your breasts swell up with nectar and the Master won’t much like that, since they’re already so big, but it can’t be helped. Having your Heat Cycle on your honeymoon is very important for conceiving an heir.”
“But…but I don’t want to go into my Heat Cycle!” I exclaimed, feeling horrified. I well remembered how Gabriel and Christopher had gotten me over my last, partial Heat Cycle—I didn’t want Moncrieff touching me the way they had. Or doing anything else to me, for that matter.
Crenshella just shook her head.
“Just you wait, dearie—you’ll see. When you’re fully on your Heat Cycle, you won’t care who’s breeding you, as long as you’re getting your itch scratched.” She lowered her voice, as though giving me confidential information. “Between you and me, I give it to all the Master’s brides. It helps them get over the age gap a bit and makes them more pliant for the Master.”
“I don’t want to be ‘pliant’ for him—I don’t want anything to do with him! He’s an ugly, nasty old man who’s old enough to be my grandfather!” I exclaimed, too upset to hide the truth anymore.
Crenshella frowned.
“Now, I know you don’t mean that, so I’ll pretend I never heard it and we’ll keep it between us.”
I wanted to shout that I did too mean it and that she never should have drugged me but at that moment Colonel Brazier stuck his head in the door and told us the ceremony was starting.
“I’ll escort you to the top of the stairs and then your father will take over,” he said to me.
Which meant there was going to be someone holding my arm at all times, right up until I had to stand across from Moncrieff under the arch of fake flowers and say “I do” even if I didn’t want to.
I was trapped with no way out.
THIRTY-THREE
The ceremony passed in a blur. My stepfather walked me down the long staircase and when I tried to make a last-ditch plea to him to call off the deal he only said,
“Shut up and smile, you little bitch. You’re getting Joined to Moncrieff today whether you like it or not.”
After that, I went silent. I let him lead me to the altar, but I couldn’t help catching Gabriel and Christopher’s eyes as I walked down the white carpet between the rows of chairs. Gabriel was scowling unhappily and Christopher looked worried and upset but neither of them did a thing to stop the ceremony.
Before I knew it, I found myself facing Moncrieff under the arch of fake flowers. I had an idea about begging the priest for help, but the person officiating the wedding was none other than the Alpha, Garen—the same one who had sniffed me my first night to see if I’d been with any other men. So there was no help there.
I wondered if he was ordained by a church or if he’d just gotten some kind of credentials on the internet. I was betting on the latter. He’d probably done it just so he could officiate at all his boss’s weddings and sidestep any pesky questions about why an old man was marrying and then burying so many young girls.
When we got to the exchange of vows part, Moncrieff took my hands in his cold grip. Just the feeling of holding his hand sent a shiver of pure disgust down my spine. I couldn’t imagine letting him touch the rest of my body too. I wondered when the tea Crenshella had given me was supposed to kick in because so far, it wasn’t working—I felt nothing but loathing when I looked into his hateful face.
“Do you, Zoe, take Harlan Moncrieff to be your lawfully wedding husband? Do you swear to honor and obey him, submitting your body to his command for breeding that you may give him a male heir?” Garen asked.
This was it—my very last chance to get out of this! I wasn’t going to let it pass me by.
