His Unwanted Bride, Another Man's Queen

Ella Farmer POV The sound of tearing paper screamed through the silence of the guest room. I shredded the sketchbook in half, destroying the charcoal portrait of Arthur I had spent months perfecting. His eyes in the drawing were full of love-a lie I could no longer stand to witness. I threw the pieces into the fireplace and watched the flames lick the edges of his face, curling the paper into black flakes before turning him to ash. Just like he had done to me. The door opened without a knock. Arthur stood there, dressed in a tuxedo that cost more than my father made in a year. He looked impeccable, the lethal prince of the city, but the soul was missing from his gaze. His eyes were glassy, vacant. "Stop being dramatic, Ella," he said, his voice flat as he adjusted his cufflinks. "Grandfather is expecting us. It's his seventy-fifth birthday." "I'm not going," I said, refusing to look away from the fire. "You are going." He stepped into the room, his presence sucking the oxygen right out of the air. "You are my fiancée. You will stand by my side." Diana walked in behind him, wearing a couture red gown that I knew Arthur had paid for. It was backless, daring, and around her throat, she wore my mother's necklace. It rested against her skin like a trophy of war. "Arthur wants me to come too," Diana said, her voice saccharine and poisonous. "He thinks it's important for the Family to see that he honors the donor's memory." Arthur nodded, as if this insanity made perfect sense. We arrived at the Plaza Hotel an hour later. The ballroom was filled with the city's elite-judges, politicians, and the Capos who ran the underworld. Don Cornelius sat at the head table, looking frail but sharp as a hawk. I took my seat next to Arthur, keeping my head high, my face a mask of porcelain indifference. Diana sat on his other side. The whispers started immediately. Arthur stood up to make a toast, tapping his glass with a silver knife. The room went silent. "To family," he said, raising his glass. "And to new beginnings." He looked down at Diana, smiling a hollow, rehearsed smile. "To the woman who gave me a second chance at life by connecting me to the man who saved me." He didn't mention me. He didn't mention the nights I slept in a chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand while he screamed in pain. He forced me to raise my glass. "To Diana," he commanded, looking directly at me. My hand trembled. I drank the champagne, and it tasted like vinegar and ash. A sharp pain ripped through my stomach, my stress-induced ulcers flaring up violently. I excused myself, rushing to the restroom, coughing blood into the sink. When I wiped my mouth and stepped out onto the balcony for air, I heard voices. "She's still wearing your ring, Arthur," Diana's voice drifted through the open doors. "It confuses the blood. My lover... the donor... he hates that you're bound to her." I froze in the shadows. I saw Arthur leaning against the stone railing, looking confused, heavily sedated. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Prove it," she said. "Prove that the new blood is stronger than the old promises." She pointed to his chest, right over his heart, where he had tattooed my initial, 'E', three years ago. "Remove it." Arthur hesitated for only a second. He grabbed a champagne flute from a passing waiter's tray and smashed it against the railing. The glass shattered into a jagged, lethal shard. "Arthur, no," I whispered, but the wind carried my voice away. He unbuttoned his shirt, exposing the tattoo. With a grimace of pain that looked disturbingly like pleasure, he drove the glass into his own skin. Blood welled up, dark and thick, running down his chest ruining the pristine white shirt. He carved the skin away, slicing through the ink, slicing through my name. Diana watched, breathless, her hand clutching my mother's necklace in ecstasy. "There," Arthur panted, dropping the bloody glass. "It's gone." He looked at the bloody mess on his chest and smiled at her. I backed away, stumbling into the darkness. The man I loved didn't just die in that hospital bed. He had been replaced by a monster.