The Demon King's Bride

Choosing a Side

Phoenyx

With a shudder, Phoenyx watched her husband-to-be leave the room and with him, all the air that she had been holding in. Turning to look back out the window, her eyes focused on the scene below. In a few short hours, she would be married to The Demon King and this would be her new home. A home that would soon be under attack from her father and his band of miscreants.

In the last week before the wedding, her father and the rest of the pack had eased up on their normal treatment of her. Not that it made much of a difference. Phoenyx had gone to extreme lengths to keep her secrets hidden for a while longer. Victor, the rest of his pack, and the Shifters of the heirarchy all assumed that she was wolfless. In order to aid that belief, she had always slowed down her rate of healing to make them unaware of the truth.

There had been much she had learned to hide from her Pack. Always in the hope that one day she would find a way to leave without facing their wrath and being tracked back down. Never, had she imagined they would barter her away, even if it was a false deal on their part, Phoenyx was sure she could make the most of it.

That last week, Victor had kept her in sight to be sure that she 'healed' enough to get to the wedding with nothing seeming amiss. Of course, with Phoenyx supressing her ability, the healing had been far slower than any of them would have liked. Admittedly, it also gave her a chance to listen in on the conversations her father had with the royal families among the shifter kingdom. Being without a wolf made a person a non-entity in the shifter kingdom, so no one paid her any mind.

One of the downfalls of shifters was their blind belief that those that were wolfless were unable to understand the comings and goings of those around them. The wolfless lived at the edges of their society, unseen and unheard, so it was no surprise that Victor had kept her close that last week and everyone had spoken as if she were not even there. Especially when her father believed that he could use his alpha commands to bar her from repeating anything. Yet another thing that she kept secret which no one in the Shifter world was aware of.

Phoenyx had been the punching bag of her father's pack for years. All of them assuming that she had no worth or abilities since she did not manifest the traits they normally found among their kind. It had been difficult not to let her true abilities show, but she had known if she had done so they would have made sure to kill her in order to bleed out the anomaly to their belief system. Phoenyx was aware that her very existence broke all the rules that their kind had been brought up to adhere to.

It had been a series of trial and errors that had given her an idea of any of her abilities. It was entirely likely that she would discover more abilities with time, dependent on how much freedom her new husband would allow her. Of course, that was not looking promising considering her time here thus far.

Upon their arrival, Phoenyx had noticed that she had been whisked away to a whole separate part of the castle and left there to wait out the ceremony. Of course, she could not be entirely sure that wasn't her father's doing. Victor likely did not want to incur the Demon King's wrath at seeing Phoenyx marked with bruises and wounds from her beatings right after the deal had been struck. So he would have wanted to buy more time for the wounds to fade, especially since they had ceased their attacks a week ago. Victor had forgotten that Phoenyx healed slower without a wolf, well... he thought that was the truth, and it was one she fed into by keeping her healing slow.

The Elder of the Demons had summoned her to this room, and she had to admit, that man had shown more kindness than she expected. If anything, he had seemed concerned about her especially when his eyes moved over the spots where her bruises were still fading. It seemed as if, even using clever clothing and make-up he was still able to pinpoint the spots where each of those wounds resided.

Still, she only had to keep them for another day, once she slept tonight they would be gone by morning. Something she would be able to allow if her groom kept his word and had the shifters leave the kingdom as soon as the ceremony was completed. For a week, she had been a silent witness to the plans forming amongst her father and the other shifters. They planned to marry her into the Dark Kingdom and then use the alliance to begin settling their people within the lands.

Within a few weeks, they wanted to start a coup, unseating the King and calling for a new leader of those lands. Someone they planned to put on the throne by marrying her to their new choice. They had been in discussions with several of the Demons that were nobility of the kingdom who sought the throne for their own lineage. Apparently, many of them believed that their King had sat on the throne too long and with no bride had gone too far in his policing of the border that held the supernatural world from the mortal world. As such, he had started to attack, and punish his own kind.

The problem was, Phoenyx had heard each of them and could sense a tone of dishonesty. Whether intentional or planned, she was uncertain. Considering her own kind were throwing out lie after lie, it was hard to discern the source. Of course, her father and the Shifter King had continued with their meetings, assuming their Alpha Command that she say nothing was in full effect. Which was why, Phoenyx was privy to it all.

The fact that they were using her as chattel to legitimize their hold on the Demon King's throne, and then gift it to someone else, through marriage to her, only to take it for themselves and expand the influence of their kind across more kingdoms. It was appalling, and disgusting. Yet, it gave Phoenyx time to plan for herself.

Wanting to be free of her father's influence and that of the Shifter kingdom, this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. If her groom was even half of what she believed him to be. What she had not expected was the feeling she had experienced when she had met her intended bridegroom earlier.

It had seemed as if the whole world stilled. The tension which resided in her as she struggled to keep her secrets and avoid pain from her father and his pack day to day, had started to lighten. For the first time that Phoenyx could remember, she had started to experience a feeling of safety. Something she had never known.

His every movement had been mesmerizing to her. The scent of sage and spice cleaning to the air around him, making her want to close her eyes and indulge in that scent as long as she possibly could. Her heart had tripped, speeding up in it's rhythm, something that was uncommon, even for her. When he had addressed her, she had felt breathless, her throat frozen as if words would be impossible to form.

Of all the things that she had thought about her existence, she had believed that because of her differences, she would not have a mate. Yet, when he left the room, there was an ache left behind that was crippling to her.

Now, unsure what she should do, Phoenyx stood watching the courtyard below. She had asked her groom to clear out the shifters after the ceremony in order to buy time, to let her weigh whether or not, she should intervene in the plans that the Shifter's had for his kingdom. Now, with the reaction she was having to her groom, it seemed there was no choice at all.

Phoenyx's best chance at surviving what was to come and in gaining an ounce of freedom, would be to have faith. In the groom she was sold to as a bride, and hope he was her mate. Perhaps, that would be enough to help her find the answers she sought. In the end, her choice had been made, now she had to make sure the wedding went off without a hitch if she had a chance in hell of making any of this right.