Emily's POV
"Hello, everyone." Damon said, with a cup in his hand.
He'd been drinking too much wine since the previous night.
I barely got any sleep, mulling over everything Dathan and Damon had told me.
I just needed the day to come and go, I needed things to be sorted.
I couldn't wait to feel a role I know I was highly incapable of.
"I want to thank every single one of you, who took out the time to honour my wife and me." Damon looked at me, sweetly. He had such an expensive tux on, I was scared to touch him.
The ambience of the city hall was unmatched, not like I had anything to compare it with. It was just pure luxury.
He looked sharper than ever. Damon's team of stylists that arrived at exactly 6am, six hours before the wedding, were just as much as mine, and I saw why.
He got a trim, a manicure, in fact, it was a total makeover.
The crown went 'awwwn', and 'oooh'. The women looked dreamily at me, as Damon clasped my hand tightly.
"This experience wouldn't be the same if any of you were absent." He continued. "We," Damon looked in my eyes, so genuinely sweet, "do not take it for granted. The palace has experienced a couple of down turns. While it's not to say that the storm is over, I can assure you all, ladies and gentlemen, the cooperate and the press, friends and well wishers, family, that you are yet to see this pack in its full glory." The crowd roared, and applauded.
We even had guests from other packs, a friend Damon introduced me to earlier, the one he called Adrian, was Damon's best man.
As Damon rapped his speech so eloquently, swaying the crowd with every word, every breath, every pause, I couldn't help but notice the absence of the one person who's really supposed to be witness to our union. Dathan.
The wedding was set in the city hall, with a capacity of about five thousand, and while the seats were all occupied, and the hall filled to capacity, the absence of Dathan struck hard still.
I got lost in my thoughts, wandering off into different corners of my head. After all, Damon needed me as nothing more than a pretty thing on his hand to make him look capable and mature enough to lead a sinking pack. Well, not in the entirety of it, but there was threat from every corner, and I knew it.
Dathan was unhappy with the turn of events. The servants had hushed conversations, whispers, about Zathen's disappearance.
Nala even once tried to pry the truth out of me, but I had sworn to Damon to be quiet about it.
"Thank you once again, for coming." Damon said.
The party was brief, just like the rites the night before. And it was no wonder. Both the bride and groom needed to be apart from each other. Someone was on my mind, and it wasn't Damon.
"We leave in twenty minutes." Damon whispered in my ears.
My hair stylists did a good job of making me near-deaf in one ear with the volume of hair they packed there, but I still heard Damon clearly through it.
"Okay." I agreed.
"Smile." Damon commanded, through opened teeth and a smiley face.
I looked at Damon in shock. How do people pretend? I've always been one who's face mirrored their expressions.
"Stop looking at me so dumbly." Damon said.
"Smile." He instructed again, and like his puppet which I was growing to be, I flashed my most brilliant smile.
As I involuntarily wore my face muscles out, trying to fake a smile that wasn't even as deep as my throat, I wondered if I could really sustain that kinda life.
"Twenty minutes is up." A hefty man whispered into Damon's ear. Well, at least he thinks he did, because I could hear really clearly from the other side.
"Let's go." Damon said and took my hand.
We left the dining and merrying guests to the MC, and made an exit through the door just behind the couples seat.
"Farh, take my wife home." Damon said, addressing Mr Big Guy who shadowed him.
He didn't even look at me.
I entered the ride that took me from the palace to the city hall, and Damon entered some other car, with 'Damon', as the plate number.
"Welcome home, Luna." Dathan was the first person I saw as soon as the doors to my 'home' were thrown open.
"Can you leave us?" I asked Farh, who was right behind me,
"He knows where I will be." Farh said, referring to Dathan.
Dathan gave him a playful punch, to which he grunted good heartedly.
"How was it?" He asked me.
"Well, it went." I said, sighing.
I must've looked so stupid in the exaggerated wedding dress Damon handpicked for me.
"Change out of this stuff, man." Dathan said, taking my veil off my face
I quickly looked around to see if we didn't have company, thankfully, we didn't.
Everyone was still at the city hall.
"You didn't have to do that." I said to Dathan, laughing.
"I feel bad enough knowing where you were and what you've done. I feel worse seeing you in this disgusting dress." Dathan said
"No it isn't." I replied to him. "It's pretty, you just don't like it." I said.
"Alright, alright, you got me." Dathan surrendered.
"What next?" I asked him.
"Well, you've been inaugurated into a very miserable life." Dathan said.
"That's not what I was expecting." I said in a sing-song voice.
Since Dathan was in a good mood, I wanted to exploit it.
"I'm happy that you're happy." I said stopping in my tracks. "All three of us are going to be here for a while, and we need to know how to coexist. I need you to promise me that you'd try." I added.
"You might not be a bad fit for Luna after all." Dathan laughed. "And, I'm not happy. It's the drugs." He said again, laughing. "That's the whole point of using them anyway."
"That is something I would like us to discuss as soon as I get out of this heavy dress." I said.
"And why are you back from your own wedding so early? Don't those things end at night?" He asked.
"Not if you're in a contract marriage with Damon, no." I replied to him.
Dathan gave me a knowing smile, and put his hand on the small of my back.