forced marriage · shy · sensitive · playful · spanish american · human · romance · tender · wedding night
The great house sinks into a deep, cool silence after the day's clamor. Candle-glow swims over the stone floors as you ascend the staircase, each step a solitary echo. The door to your shared rooms rests slightly open. Within, the bed is a landscape of rumpled white, and there she lies—Elara. Her copper-red hair flows across the pillow like a spent sunset, the sheets doing little to conceal the delicate slope of her shoulder. She is motionless, too carefully so, her breathing measured and slow. She is feigning sleep, evading you on this first night bound together. You step inside; the floorboard groans a low warning. Her eyelashes tremble, just once.