Chapter 84: IT WAS AN EMPTINESS FROM WITHIN

Alpha Dylan POV

After hours of unending torture standing beside a woman that I did not wish to marry, the ceremony came to an end. A rather hollow silence followed in its wake as the guests continued to merry late into the afternoon. I looked around continually for my rejected mate, somehow concerned for her.

When I had been able to sneak out of the hustle and bustle of the loud wedding party, I went into the palace and found Martha who informed me that my mate was in her bedroom resting because she was very much tired. The thought of another man's pregnancy doing that to her found a way to infuriate me again.

A few minutes later, I had taken a detour to my study where I had spent the rest of the afternoon till my bride came to find me. She coerced me to Co e out to dance. And after a short dance, my mother gave a short speech and a vote of thanks and then the party continued towards the evening when it finally ended.

My new wife and my mother were busy seeing guests off while receiving wedding gifts. I slipped away, back to my study. Drake followed me, just standing in the room like a piece of furniture, quiet and unmoving. I did not bother yo ask him to seat because I knew that he would not do so. But I was so restless, uneasy.

"Shall I get you some light liquor Alpha?" He asked me. I looked towards him while contemplating. And then I nodded desperately. He left and returned with a bottle of whiskey and a glass in his hands. He set both of them on the table afore me and poured me a glass.

"Thank you," I murmured after a small sip. "You may leave me now. I want to be alone," I told him, with my thoughts and feelings. He nodded and left me he study room.

I sat alone in the study room for about a quarter of an hour drinking the alcohol and wallowing in multiple kinds of disturbing emotions.

A knock at the door interrupted my mind and my multiple thoughts. I looked up at the door. "What is it?" I asked the intruder.

"Alpha, the ex Luna said to inform you that your bride is ready and awaits you in the bridal room," my Beta said to me.

"I have heard," I said as I realized once gain that tonight was my wedding night, and Stephanie was waiting for me in the room that was supposed to be ours.

As I stared at the remnants of the last glass of whiskey that I was yet to touch. I could almost feel her anticipation through the walls of the entire house. Her unseen presence was hanging in the air like a delicate thread that was about to snap. It was a fierce reminder of the vows that I had taken just hours before. The vows that I had thought would relieve me greatly from my mate's betrayal. Well, only that it had not done so.

And as each moment passed by, a strange but unyielding feeling, a certain emptiness gnawed at my soul, threatening to suffocate evry sense of marital duty out of me. I had thought my decisions before now we're well reasoned. But it turned out that they were not.

I sighed as I lifted the last glass of whiskey to my lips and allowed the sharp taste set the inside of my throat on fire. It was a momentary distraction from the turmoil that was raging inside of me. I knew that I should be with her now with the both of us sharing the night. I knew that it was now my duty to commit myself to her in every way.

She was now my wife and I definitely owed her that.

But yet…

Self-contained yet restless, I firmly tightened my tie and made ready my hands as I took a deep breath of relief, each breath had the weight of doubt which I was not sure of what my decision was. My heart was pounding heavily and a shuffling pain all on its own was hammering into my chest, no one here to console me-he, the guy who technically binds me even if I do not want him.

Kicking the door of our room open, I found Stephanie at the edge of the bed, her lesser fragile form was hinted by some part of the tender glow that was created from the lamp beside the bed. She looked at me with her sparkling and smiling eyes, an indication of her eagerness, and this just added more to my weight. Over the heat, there was a hint of another feeling. The warmth had underneath it an unsolved question and a dare. Would she know the depth of my problem?

Will she be able to comprehend that although I was present, physically, my heart was not with her but instead somewhere entrap in the tortures of my haunting desire that was standing against death?

As I walked further into the room, the thick air was crowded with tension and the night shadows seemed to close in around me, their whispers serving as a kind of unsaid confession of the things I couldn't dare speak out. That was the moment in which I saw that this night would not only be a presentation of love; it would, in fact, be the test for my real existence.


She was attractive, no doubt about it, and she hadn't done anything yet that would make me feel as if the coldness were spreading in my veins.

"Dylan," she muttered, her voice a soft tune as she put her hand on me.

As remembered, she was kissed on the mouth and then I leaned over and put my head down and kissed her. Her lips were hot and soft and the taste of her mouth was giving me an urgent feeling that I should be surprised by something inside of me. But while she was stroking my shoulders, I felt nothing—no spark, no pull. I might have moved my body, but deep inside, the absent heart is silent. The noise in my mind, my instinct, the part of me that feels alive, all were muted, as if my soul was in another place.

She touched my hair with one hand, trying to start a lively kiss, which simply didn't happen. I desired to sense something, anything. It was my wife who was mine; this was the reason for which I was indebted to her. Nevertheless, every brush, every little sound of hers, intensified the misery in my chest.

Her surprise was written all over her face when I pulled back, and her hand slipped as she looked at me.

"Dylan?" She was amazed then, asking what I had done to be so weird.

I opened my mouth, swallowing the saliva that was gathered in my mouth, but didn’t have the courage to raise my head. “I… I just need some air,” I said as I forced myself to turn my head away, not completely paying attention to the look of pain and the flicker of hurt in her eyes. She did not argue, but I could feel the silent question that was hanging in the air.

I turned on my heel, retreating from the room, leaving her there alone with her desires unmet. Shame twisted in my stomach, but I couldn’t stay—not when every instinct was pulling me in the opposite direction, toward something, someone else. The hollowness gnawed at me, demanding to be filled, but Stephanie wasn’t the one who could do it.