The Royal Alpha's Destined Bride

The wedding was in four days... On this day in particular, there were snow flakes slowly wafting through the atmosphere to the ground where the rest had covered it in a foot of a blanket of whiteness. Another blanket was the gray clouds that concealed the blue sky from my sight; a sky I hadn't had the fortune of setting my eyes on in almost a month. I was gazing out of the window in the dressing room at the scenery outside. Maribel's face with its usually rosy cheeks was on the verge of converging from the blue hue it took on to a purple one. She couldn't hold in her breath for too long and used her right index finger and left thumb to pinch at the wrist of the sleeve of the cream, satin slip dress she was wearing to make her situation easier for her and for me. I was standing behind her pulling, on the laces of the corset wrapped around her torso. Each pull forced out a short exhalation from her and with every second that passed, her face changed color. "Stop! Let's see how it looks now," when I heard those words coming from my future mother-in-law who was seated behind me across the room on a sofa that looked as elegant as she did, Mari exhaled heavily, feeling relieved that she finally had a moment of reprieve. I tied the lace behind her back and she turned around to face the queen. She didn't need to express it to anyone that she was uncomfortable, and I wasn't as well for more than one reason. The queen, my future mother-in-law who went by the name Iris Von Lykaner, made it a point to not hide the fact that she despised me whenever I was in her presence. The same could be same for the princess, Maribel, who was the oldest maiden child of the queen and king. You would think that I would be the one being fitted for the wedding dress, but I wasn't the top priority even though I was to be married to the prince, Venkert Von Lykaner. The princess wanted to look presentable by being in the best shape at the wedding, however, wolf-folk were typically large in stature and after seeing my weak and petite figure, Mari envied me even though she was already slim compared to the other werewolf females. She glared at my body as though she were contemplating between devouring my every flesh or consuming my soul out of its shell; or both. But I was used to it at that point and didn't take offense by it despite her evidently not liking me. "This isn't right! It needs to be tighter!" The queen said and I heard Mari heave a sigh next to me. She was not the only one who wanted her to look presentable before all of the nobles. Maribel was 27 years old and was still a maiden. It was shameful that her younger brother was the one who was to be married first and she wanted the handsome nobles who would attend the wedding to pursue her love. That was one of the reasons that she wasn't so fond of me. Venkert being the one to marry first meant that I would become the queen and her chance would vanish on the wedding day. Once again, Mari held in her breath so that she could comfortably tuck in her stomach for me to be able to tighten the corset a little more. "All those years of hungrily feasting like a pig have finally caught up to you," Iris' words to her own daughter were so harsh that I accidentally loosened that laces I was holding on to. I tried to pull on them again as carefully as I could, but the lace snapped. This did not sit well with the queen or the princess. Mari was standing before a full length mirror and when she saw the torn lace in my hand, she abruptly turned around and used a significant amount of her supernatural strength to slap me across the face. The sharp, painful sting and the force of the hit pushed back to land on my side, and my right elbow struck the cold, hard floor. I winced and quickly brought my hand up to my cheek to help ease the pain. "Do you have any idea how much this corset costs? Let alone the laces! Mother, if she ever marries my brother, we'll loose all of our wealth with these incompetent hands of hers!" Mari was beyond infuriated. She called out to her mother who stood up from the sofa, tossing aside the hand fan she had been holding on to. She hurriedly made her way to my side. Even as she walked in a rush, she moved with elegance. It could have been attributed to the red gown with a green lapel that she wore, which made her unable to move in any different way that couldn't have been described as graceful. Her face, on the other hand, which was framed by her lengthy, snow-white hair, was less than lovely. She was near livid, further proven when she not so gently crouched down and grabbed my hand by the injured elbow and forced me to stand up on my feet. I didn't know if my elbow was fractured or not, but the pain that surged through my arm when she grabbed it made me groan in pain. Tears had welled up in my eyes but I had to hold them in to avoid getting into trouble. "Don't be so frugal. We have more than enough wealth to last us ten centuries over," Iris said calmy to her daughter before she turned her attention to me, "... As for you, you useless i***t! How difficult is it to tie some laces? To think that Ven would choose a foolish woman like you to make his queen!" She squeezed my elbow slightly and that prompted me to forcibly pull my arm away from her hold. Once I was free, I looked down at it to see that a purple bruise had formed on my skin. "Replace the laces and cover up that bruise before the welcoming ceremony. We can't have the outside kingdoms thinking that you're an incompetently clumsy queen. We'll loose their support and trust," Iris said, walking over to where Mari was standing to assess the damage done to the corset. I bowed forward slightly walked out of the dressing room to retrieve the replacement laces first and then put some ice on the wound. If it wasn't obvious already, the queen didn't like the notion of her son marrying a human woman, but Ven wanted to build a diverse kingdom where every living species was welcomed to reside. She wanted to keep the Von Lykaner Family's blood pure, which was ironic enough considering the fact that she was a foreign princess from an entirely different cultural background when she married the late king. She didn't like humans because they were seen as the weakest species and due to how strong the werewolves were, they feared them enough to want to stay away from them. I was grateful that Mari didn't utilize her full strength when she hit me, otherwise I would have been in a critical state, another reason why Iris didn't take a liking to me. I was too weak to ever be a queen to the wolves. The hidden bruises on my back and legs were from the injuries I received from the 'favors' they did for me. They always used the excuse of 'toughening me up' when they hit me after I made a mistake and I couldn't say I didn't agree with them. I really was a clumsy person and standing before a queen and princess didn't help to ease my anxiety. As a result, I made many mistakes that had to be punished in order to make me the perfect queen to run the kingdom alongside the king. Iris only had so much influence in the kingdom. Since her husband, the king, died, her son was put in charge of the kingdom because women were not allowed full reign, even if she was queen. Her influence over the kingdom was limited and she had no say over who the prince could or could not marry. Otherwise, I never would have set foot in the palace to begin with.