Page 115 of In Knots

Chapter 31

They drive me to a small church a few streets away from the house. I’ve never been here before but I can see from the outside how tiny it is. It will seat hardly any guests. It’s not the colossal cathedral that the rich alphas, omegas and their families hire out for the weddings of the season. It’s plain and small and hidden among large oak trees, a little graveyard standing by its side, the gravestones chipped and wonky and covered in thick green moss.

The sun blazes as usual and even the grass around the church is parched and singed. White roses decorate the church porch, but in the heat they’ve drooped and petals litter the pathway.

The car pulls up by the gate and my father opens his door and then walks around to mine. I watch as the door swings back, and his hand appears in the doorway.

“Alexa,” he commands. And as if I’m dreaming, I see my own hand reach into the space and rest on his. He grips my fingers and hauls me out of the car, my satin shoes hitting the pavement with a clack.

The heat is so intense I can hardly breathe, the sun fierce on the top of my head. My father threads my arm through his and squeezes my knuckles so hard I wince.

“Remember what we talked about. Remember your promise and I will remember mine.”

“And you will have to live with the fact that you have made your only daughter miserable. That you have forced her to marry a bad man.”

“Bad man,” my father scoffs. “Maybe he will be tougher on you than I have been. Maybe that is what you need, maybe it’s what you deserve. You’d be wise to remember that alphas were put on this earth to be obeyed and omegas to obey them.”

He starts to walk. I have too much pride to let him drag me, so I walk too. Any passerby will look at us now and see a perfect father and daughter, sharing a special moment before a wedding.

In the distance, I hear the purr of an engine and above us the brittle leaves rustle. Underfoot, the ground is hard, sharp stones digging into the thin soles of my shoes.

We step inside the church porch and I can smell the mixture of scents from within combined with the heavy musk of incense. The door creaks open, the first notes of an organ strike, and heads swivel round to look at me. Despite the small size of the church, it’s half empty. Only the first few pews filled. My mother at the front sitting with my aunt, a couple of cousins behind them, then several of the men who work for my father, men I recognise from the night they stole me away. None of my friends. Simon’s pews are no fuller, apart from his parents, I recognise a couple of his friends, but no one else.

The notes from the organ are light and cheery and yet they chime round my head and make my feet heavy. I force myself to lift each foot. I force a neutral expression on my face. I force myself not to turn and run. I force myself. I force myself.

We draw closer and closer. Simon stands at the altar leering at me like a tiger that’s just caught its prey. He seems so satisfied. He’s won this game and will make me, the loser, suffer for it.

We step closer and closer still. Closer and closer. Then finally I stop right next to him and that sinister scent curdles in my mouth. My father offers him my hand and he snatches it greedily, squeezing so tightly his fingernails dig into my flesh. It’s a promise, I know it is. A promise of what’s to come. I glare back at him, showing him I’m not afraid. He can’t hurt me more than they already have. My heart is already broken and so is my soul, he can do what he wants to my body. It doesn’t matter to me.

The vicar, a young beta man, pushes his spectacles up the bridge of his nose nervously, and clears his throat as the organ ceases its tune. I wonder if my father paid him to marry us. I’m sure there must be protocols we have to pass. Should he have checked that I wanted to do this? With a considerable donation to his church, he’s probably been persuaded to look the other way.

His mouth moves and I know he is addressing us all, but the words are meaningless. I just want this over. I don’t care what he has to say. I want us to exchange vows and have this done with.

The congregation chuckle, and I look up at the young vicar smiling, realising he must’ve made a joke.

“But now to the serious business of the day,” he says, nodding at me and Simon. “If anyone objects to this marriage, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I open my mouth, my tongue moves, but I make no sound. As much as I want to, I can’t. I can’t. I care about the pack too much to let my father destroy them.

I realise I’m holding my breath. Hoping someone else will object instead, that someone else will speak up for me, that someone else will save me.

The vicar’s words are met with silence, however.

Simon wipes his brow in an exaggerated fashion, peering at the congregation who all laugh good heartedly. I stare at the stained-glass window behind the vicar’s head. Light streams in coloured beams and the dust swirls in its midst.

“Now let’s get to the good bit,” the vicar jokes. He turns slightly towards me. “Alexa,” he says, “please repeat after me. I, Alexa, take thee, Simon, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

I watch the swirling dust. I open my mouth. I feel the pinch of Simon’s nails deep in my palm. “I, Alexa, take thee–”

A rumble.

I pause.

I’m just imagining it; my mind hearing what it wants to.

“Take thee, Simon …” the vicar prompts.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other. Someone coughs. The glittering dust hangs suspended.

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