(AMARI'S POV)
"My husband is dead?!" The words burst out of me, but they didn't sound like mine.
"Please come to the Capital General Hospital and present your identification and proof of marriage."
Click.
The line had gone dead. The only sounds I could hear were the bacon grease still popping on the stove and my fast-beating heart.
"No," I whispered to myself. My small phone suddenly felt heavier, and I quickly dropped it so my hand could grip the table for support.
My eyes landed on the simple modest ring on my finger. Luc had slipped it on before pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles. Just yesterday.
And today, he is dead.
No.
No, this was wrong. He'd kissed me goodbye yesterday at the front door. He said he would be back on Saturday.
"No," I whispered again, feeling lightheaded.
"Ari? Are you okay?" My younger brother Tyron's voice pulled me back to the kitchen where I was supposed to be making lunch.
Now three pairs of eyes—two bright green and one dark—stared at me in concern. My three siblings, Tyron, Rudina and little Al, the reason why I had accepted the arranged marriage in the first place. I stared back at them, my vision now blurred with tears.
I wanted to speak, but my tongue felt numb. I tried to move but swayed, and Tyron quickly held me in his protective arms.
"Ari? What happened? Talk to me." It was Tyron. He sounded more like an older brother now.
"He's dead." The words tumbled out. "Luc is dead."
I felt Tyron's hold weaken, just as I heard my sister Rudina let out a scream. I tried to walk away on wobbling legs, but my knees hit the kitchen floor before I felt them buckle.
My siblings circled me, concern on their faces. I could hear Al crying too.
Then the door swung open so hard it smacked the wall.
My stepmother, Elara, filled the kitchen doorway, disgust and irritation clearly written on her face. Her eyes swept the room and then landed on me.
"What in the name of the bloody moon is going on here?" Her voice sounded like it could break ice.
"Oh mother!" Rudina cried. "They said Uncle Luc died. In a fatal accident."
I could see the shock on Elara's face, but it disappeared almost immediately.
I struggled to my feet even with the floor tilting. Tyron didn't let me go.
"I have to go," I said with a voice that sounded too tiny to be mine. "I have to see him."
Elara laughed sharply. "Whatever for? He's dead, Amari."
The room fell silent, like everyone stopped breathing.
"He was my… my husband," I croaked, fighting the lump of tears.
"I arranged that marriage," she reminded me coolly as she stepped forward. My siblings parted like water around stone, but Tyron stayed beside me. "You knew him for three months. Three months doesn't make you a wife. It makes you a transaction."
She was close to me now, her deep emerald eyes boring into me. "Now the transaction is void. So stop performing grief and start thinking of how you will pay our debts! Or do I need to remind you how hard it is for a sludge to get married?!"
My stepmother was right. I was a sludge, and she had arranged this marriage. Forced it, actually.
"He's a truck driver in the city, and he'll pay off our debts. Do you know how lucky it is for a wolfless, worthless sludge at twenty-two to find someone like this?" She had told me.
Yes, it had been a transaction. But Luc had not treated it like one.
We met three times in three months.
I remember when he came to see me the night before our wedding, two nights ago and with a gorgeous necklace.
"It's beautiful," I croaked at it.
"Not nearly as beautiful as you."
I blushed at that. He was handsome, sounded well-educated. He was ready to take care of my family. A wolfless person like me.
I felt lucky.
And I felt special when he put the necklace around my neck. "I don't know much about you, but I want to learn everything, Amari," he said.
He had been so polite. So kind to me.
I needed to see him. To pay my final respect.
"I'm going." The words came out stronger this time. Harder. "I was his wife. I'm going."
Elara's smile was slow and mean. "And how exactly do you plan to get there? Have you forgotten that our village is very far? Tickets to the capital cost more than everything you own. Which is nothing." She let that land. "Nothing but a rented dress and a dead man's promises."
Tyron's hand tightened on my arm, and he stepped forward.
"I have some savings," he announced and then turned to me with a sad smile. "You should go pay your respects to him. Luc was a kind man, even though we didn't know him for long."
"I have some savings too," Rudina said, coming forward with her tear-stained face. "If it's enough, then Tyron can go with you."
Tears started to stream down my face as I shook my head.
"No, I can't do that. I shouldn't—"
"No," Tyron insisted sternly, and then his voice softened. "You should. You give up everything for us. This is the least we can do."
My body trembled with so much emotion. Tyron turned to Rudina.
"You've always wanted to visit the city, Ru. This isn't a good time, but you should go with Amari" he said.
Rudina smiled slowly.
"Oh wow!" Elara cackled and clapped her hands loudly. "You all have money for a dead man, but no one said anything when the loan sharks came."
"The debt we owe is too hefty, Elara," my brother said, his tone cold. I was scared, sensing the tension. But Tyron was being careful today. He added softly, "You should let Amari go, or they will suspect we had something to do with this seeing as we were probably among the last to see him alive."
My eyes widened as I looked up at Tyron, but the smirk in his eyes told me he knew what he was doing.
And he did.
My stepmother let Rudina and I go. Before she did, she warned me: "I don't care what happens to you, but my daughter must come back alive. Don't rub your curse on her."
Cursed.
That's what Elara called me. That's what the whole village called me. And what part of me believed.
Mother, Father and Grandma. All dead. And now Luc. A day after our wedding.
My chest felt heavy throughout the journey. Rudina slept on my shoulder for most of the nine-hour train ride. I didn't blink. Images of Luc's face kept flashing in my head.
Rudina was too tired to admire the large city when we arrived, and I was too devastated. We
took a bus straight to the large hospital which welcomed us with bright lights and sterile halls.
"Our health care center could fit into this place ten thousand times, Ari," Rudina said, looking around with her sleepy eyes now widened in amazement.
If I were in a better mood, I would have suggested fifty thousand times, but I offered my younger sister a light smile.
The receptionist looked us over like we walked in with two heads each. I clutched my veil tighter around myself, hoping my hair had not shown.
"I'm here for my husband, Luc Black. Here is my identification and marriage certificate." I hurriedly dropped the documents on the front desk.
The receptionist looked down at the certificate and then up at us. I could tell something was wrong, but then she spoke,
"Only you are allowed to go ahead, Mrs. Blackwood. Take this card and your document and go to the third floor."
Black, not Blackwood, I corrected internally as I hurriedly retook the file.
"Wait right here, please," I begged Rudina.
"Of course," she assured me. "I won't move an inch."
I hugged her and hurried to the third floor.
It was quieter and my footsteps echoed. I had just turned a corner when I saw him.
I stopped breathing.
Luc. Alive. And walking towards me. Same lanky frame. Same honey brown hair. But his dark eyes—they were different. Empty. Sterner.
My heart drummed in my chest, and the file trembled in my grasp.
What's this? A ghost? Or some sort of city sorcery?
I was frozen, unable to move. Then he got close enough to me and relief washed over me. He was Luc. He was alive. I lunged forward sobbing.
But he caught my wrists, stopping me and then he pushed me back.
I stared back, confused.
"Luc?" I reached for him again.
His hand shot out and gripped my wrist so tight that it felt like my bones ground.
"I am not Luc, so listen carefully you local whore!" He leaned in, his breath hot against my ear. "You will do what I say or I will kill your entire wretched family."
Weakly, I looked at him. Those eyes. Completely different from the man I married.