unholy matrimony

Valther's first memory of Eleanor was the beginning of the end of his innocence. He remembered the excitement bubbling up, making his awkwardly large paws scratch the ground and the swish of his little tail. Stay still, came the firm command from one of the Calyx servants. The young lady was arriving soon and she was going to choose from one of the young pups they had gathered. He hadn't really understood that his father had sold him off to pay his debts and he wasn't just meeting the young lady. All of the children gathered were Calyx assets collected because the debtors had failed to pay up.

When Lord Calyx arrived silence dropped upon the room in a sudden hush. At his heels was the young Lady Eleanor, fur like gold spun into silk and eyes like amethysts. She looked over the crowd briefly and her gaze landed on him. I want that one. Four words that sealed his fate. The clumsy pup had stumbled over himself trying to say hello, but all he saw was a blonde tail tip disappearing behind a door. She was gone.
—
The next time they met he wasn't under any illusions that they would be friends. Lord Calyx had crushed that foolishness. Never forget your place, dog.

Months of training and serving the young lady had twisted Valther's heart. Resentment and greed bore holes in his withering heart. Why her? Why not me? The calculated plan to take over the Calyx household began. Years of preparations. The old wolf declined and the young dog ascended. Everyone began to answer to him.
—
The crux of his mastermind was his marriage to Eleanor. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine a day when he would be saying I do to a woman he loathed. Nor did he imagine waking up next to her the following morning on the hard ground. They hadn't shared the bed that night so why were they together now and where were they?

“Wakey wakey, dear wife,” he called to her, large paw reaching over to prod her in the cheek with a claw. There was a smug smile touching his muzzle, still feeling a buzz from their wedding day. The wheres or the hows of their current predicament seemed to matter less now that he was focused on Eleanor. His imaginary devil horns sprouted and he was intent on his mischief. “Don't keep me waiting or I might bite you, reginetta,” he whispered in her ear, a rumble in his voice rolling the r of reginetta.

@Eleanor
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This life, it comes with expectations, Eleanor. Words that a younger version of herself could not grasp, not when her mind was so addled by confusion and grief. “Where are my parents?” was her only question, the eternal question, but Cecil brushed right past it and her. Come, Eleanor, it's time to make your decision.

He led her to a room as impressive as the rest of his home. In it and stood at attention were several males around her age, all primed by the palace staff to be presented for the young lady and sole heir to the Calyx name and empire. Her eyes swept across their faces but there was no recognition, no interest, in any single one. Indecision was unacceptable in her uncle's eyes, however, which meant she must choose one. “Him,” she said numbly, gesturing with her muzzle at the one that kept fidgeting on his paws. “I want that one.”

Very well. Valther you may come forward and... But Cecil's voice faded away as Eleanor turned and drifted from the room. She had no reason to believe that a random decision would seal her fate, her uncle's fate, or that Valther would one day become her husband, lifeline, and greatest enemy.

---

His plots went undetected by the golden girl. She had distanced from Cecil and the great machinations he had planned for her life, swept up in a whirlwind romance that consumed her mind, body, and soul day in and day out. Just say when, El, and we're gone. It'll be just you and me and the open road. Frey sealed this promise, of course, with a kiss. Eleanor found no deceit in his pristine blue eyes.

Or maybe it was just another thing that slipped under her radar.

Valther became the sounding board for her heart's desire. To Eleanor it didn't matter that he was bound to her service; he was the closest thing she had to a friend. That meant he was subjected to her tittering about the foreign prince and their intentions to abscond together. The family fortune meant little to her, this dreamy youth who clung to the notion of true love as if it would connect her to her missing parents. As if by replicating their great love story they would reappear out of the ether that had consumed all but their memory. 

And it was Valther's shoulder she cried on when Frey, too, disappeared into that ether, and Valther's voice in her ear that consoled her, weaving together an even more intoxicating image of a little boy who spent his days pining for a girl out of his reach from the frayed threads of her unraveled heart. It was all too easy for him to coax the piece of her yearning for love to suggest “We should get married.”

---

Wakey wakey, dear wife. Eleanor's lips pulled into a frown, the previous day's dizzying effect having worn off. “Get your grubby paw off me, cucciolo. — puppy What are you doing in my room?” Attempting to roll over made it painfully obvious that it wasn't divine comfort embracing her body but actually hard, somewhat itchy ground. 

Amethyst eyes flared to life, assessing the area but taking in none of the details before they landed an accusatory glare on her darling husband's face. “Where am I? How did you get me out here?” It didn't quite make sense, but then again, she did have a tendency to sleep like the dead.

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Won't you stay with me always, Valther? Adoringly, with only the silvery stars sharing this secret, Eleanor pressed herself into his side and tilted her muzzle so it rested upon his broad chest. Even as children, he was this sturdy fixture she could rely on, no matter if that was only due to the chains shackling them together. These stolen moments were ones where her resentful mask could slip off and the vulnerable, desperate reality would surface in Eleanor's attempts to keep Valther all to herself. She never called him by his name, always cucciolo, unless they were alone like this. Her love for him was a dirty, despicable thing that would ruin her if it ever came into the light.

You have to, her voice a whispered sigh reminding him that he had no choice, fearing that one day he might, because you belong to me. My cucciolo. 

She had been assured by Cecil that he was her little puppy and hers alone but she must always keep him in control. Never let him off his leash. Along the way those warnings had twisted Eleanor and Valther's symbiosis into toxic codependency borne out of equal parts loathing and lust. 

You are mine.

---

But Frey made her feel safe and it was his love she could bask in in broad daylight, not Valther's. There was no longer any need to creep through the shadows for a drop of that affection she so craved when Frey spouted fondness like an endless fountain. His appearance in her life proved to Eleanor that her uncle's implications that her mixed blood was an ugly stain upon their family and should be veiled from the world were wrong. Frey looked into her soul and accepted everything that made her less than. His blue eyes captured the sea and the sky and offered everything above and between them to her. 

Being with him was the first time since her parents' disappearances that she felt confident in herself, her heritage, and not ashamed of it. 

Why did he leave me? It was Valther's chest that received the wails of desolation and disbelief Eleanor felt after waiting from dawn until stormy clouds gathered at dusk for her lover to show up and whisk her away as promised. It was Valther's arms that encircled her when Frey failed to catch her after taking that leap of faith with him. And it was Valther's lips that drank up her tears to nourish the barren wasteland Frey's incandescence created. 

---

What have you done? Finding out that Eleanor's love match had fallen through had enraged Cecil, who'd been anticipating what good fortune it would bring when his half-wolf half-coyote niece secured a pureblood prince. Eleanor winced away from the full force of his wrath. He was perfect for you and you ruined it. Who will love you now? Who will see past what you are?

Uncle and niece were never the same after that. Eleanor refused to be in his presence unless Valther was beside her and his constancy at her side prevented Cecil from warning her from the dark-furred danger lurking behind their emotional connection. How could it be that the one meant to protect the Calyx family would destroy it from within?

His last moments were spent in fear not just for himself but his beloved niece, and regret was the last emotion before the life drained from Cecil's eyes. 

And once again Eleanor was driven to Valther for comfort as the notion that he was the only one she could count on had already taken root in her mind. No matter what she did or said to him, he was always waiting to receive her with open arms and the perfect words. 

And always, always he was there to love her in the eternal dark. 

---

Present day - 

In the daylight, however, things looked different. The dawning sun burned away the protective embrace of shadows and low fog, exposing who and what they really were. There was no pretending that Valther was her perfect pureblood prince when those murky brown eyes remained after sunrise and the blue ones now forever relegated to her dreams evaporated like the morning dew. 

That objectionable delight was met with a deepening glower as the heiress found nothing amusing about the situation or her certainty that her newly wedded husband had something to do with it. “Cut it out, cucciolo. I'm not in the mood for your games,” she warned him, though she knew there was little that would deter him if he was intent on messing with her. 

Those filthy eyes boring into her dug through the layers of loathing that Eleanor buried her love for him beneath, threatening to bring it into the strengthening light. Her teeth appeared in a white flash of warning, and after briefly sparing the moment to channel feeling back into her toes, the golden girl approached the lakeside. Maybe the chilly water would shock her senses back into rightness.

Splashing her face, Eleanor hoped that the dream would shatter and she'd awaken in her room. Frey would be there. Cecil would still be alive. Everything would be as it should. Alas, the lake luxuriated with its lupine and mountain laurel attendants suffusing into the atmosphere, and Valther's breath still ruffled her tussled neck fur. Abruptly, she turned towards him. “Take me home. Now, cucciolo.”

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Valther wasn't a fool. He knew she dreamed of sapphires while she beheld the amber that only saw her. It didn't matter that Frey was rotting at the bottom of the ocean. To Eleanor he was a dream, one of sunshine and whispered promises. A man could be killed, but his memory lingered on. He was a substitute for what she really wanted, a surrogate lover to soothe the ache in her broken heart. A role that he refused to play along with.

The arch of his brow fell, all levity disappearing from the curves of his cheeks as his grin vanished. Once her words would have yanked his chains and him into submission. Now it was a bitter reminder of the lofty perch she looked down at him from. Even the childhood nickname was the equivalent of a collar around his throat. The puppy and his little queen.

His lips twisted into a splice of a snarl and a grin, canines on display. “Why would I do that?” he questioned, prowling towards her, letting his mask slip just enough to show her the beast beneath. “I’m not your cucciolotto anymore,” her husband warned her. “If you want something ask me nicely,” he challenged her. The subtle desire to have her beg him twisted within him. Tears in those amethyst eyes, pleading with him to save her. It would happen in time once he was done with her and he finally claimed her heart.

Only then could he be free of his filthy obsession. The useless emotion that stopped him from killing her. An impure ugly love for a woman that he despised and desired. Her pain was his joy and her hope was his despair.
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Some say that marriage can bring out one's worst self. As Eleanor turned to regard her husband, him pressing closer like a storm, clouds paced past the sun and erased the shadow that would have swallowed her whole. The boy she knew retreated from view and a monster took his place, but only for a moment. Peach-hued light returned to warm the shade of his eyes from malicious to mischievous.

Strangely, it was... disappointing.

Valther's appeal had always been that he lacked the qualities her storybook beaus had. He was who she was told never to want and that ultimately stoked the desire into a forbidden flame that was fanned by the thrill of their starlit affairs. It was the wildness in him, that untamed nature of his, that called to Eleanor from the start and that same wildness that enticed her now. 

The tension in her body eased enough that her motions became fluid, like a golden brook whispering over stones. “You will always be my cucciolo,” came the affirmation, Eleanor's muzzle trailing up his chest to his throat. As it did when she felt his devotion to her was at risk, that she could possibly lose him, her voice grew husky with possession.

“Please, cucciolo,” she recognized the challenge in his voice and the way he goaded her but not enough to obey entirely. It was her hope that by pulling on the strings of his heart he'd relent to her demands, but she didn't realize she was tightening her own noose with each tug.

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