Chapter 1
My name is Vivian Alexandra Dragonetti. At least, it was before I got married. That hasn't been my name in nearly twelve years, but the blood of a Dragonetti still runs through my veins. It keeps me strong in this time, in this marriage, where I am just a pretty face, and a money source when it suits my husband. I became Vivian Galavan on September 17th during a year I believed everything was beginning, but I was young. I had fallen hopelessly in love with Theodore Galavan. We had caught each other somehow when I was only eighteen and he just twenty-one and together we had stood side by side ever since. When I married him, I thought he was charming and sometimes, he could be sweet. He sunk himself into my heart like a lethal blade. I knew his desires and passions, he knew mine. I was baptized into the order of St. Dumas for him, not that that made them like me any better, but I was a naïve girl. I believed I could make them like me even love me. That they would see what Theo did, but that blindness only lasted so long.
"All her money makes up for little. She is of little consequence" Theo didn't know I'd heard them say that, but I had, it had pained me as their blatant hatred seemed to slap me in the face. Their opinion of me never changed and it caused my marriage to become what it is today. In the days before the ceremony, I'll admit my greatest fear was that he wouldn't show up, and that they would make him believe that I was his weakness. That I would be the greatest mistake he would make. When he married me all the same, I was still naïve, and I thought it meant everything was going to be okay. I thought it meant he'd love me forever, but when you're young you still believe in happily ever after. I didn't know that love can turn to ask in the mere second it takes for a fire to be set.
I believed I could turn their head the way I did the man I loved. That never happened though, instead, they made him stop loving me. It wasn't until that happened that I gave up. I had been raised to think that a Dragonetti breathed the fire of the dragon. That we were fierce and never gave up on what we set our sights on, but losing his love took any meaning I had away. I mean, what was I fighting for if not for him, and if he turned against me there was no point. And as I wore my fierce façade all these years later, it was truly that. An act that no one seemed to see through even Theo though I couldn't be so sure it wasn't because he just didn't care. With a story like mine, you'd think I'd regret it or at least stop loving the man, but not me.
I love him still, that's why I followed the charade of our marriage, and when he days he loves me as he kisses me on the cheek, I don't say anything. I don't know why he still says it. I've heard him tell the monks that he doesn't love me that I'm around still because he needs my money and yet, he says it every day. Even when he's away, he sends me notes with the words scrawled in his hand, and I don't understand. Yet, I let him say it as I walk through this life, and no matter how the words may affect me, I never say it back. Because I don't want to break down in front of him. I will not be broken or at least, I will not let it be seen that I have been. I let him tell me he loves me, always waiting for the day he doesn't. Maybe because I feel the need to maintain the strength born within me. Maybe because the words from me would crumble something and let him see I'm not as strong as I pretend to be. Maybe because I don't want to be disposed of as so many men do their wives when they've served their purpose. This life is mine to maintain, whether in wedded bliss or in the midst of war, I walk through it wondering how long I'll survive until he replaces me. I wouldn't have pictured still being his wife after all this time, but I guess money saves me more then I know. Sometimes though, when I catch him looking at me there's something in his eyes that might be respect or a pride. I think that keeps me alive too, but I can't be sure. Sometimes I think the Dragon in my appeals to him. We are warm, red hot, and breath fire, and when you look into our eyes there's a resolution there that only another dragon can understand. We don't lie down to die, but roar when disrespected. Worst of all though, we don't admit defeat, and I guess that's why I'm still standing here. Because I'm a Dragonetti who can't walk away from her failing marriage. Because that would go against everything it means to be a Dragonetti. The dragon doesn't show weakness.
Dragons don't cry or well they do just not in front of anyone else. We hide in our layers where no one can see, and we let the tears fall there. For someone else to see that would go against everything I knew or every lesson I'd been raised with. That's why I never showed the pain I felt being married to a man I loved who didn't love me. That's another part of being a dragon. Dragons mate for life. Once we find the one, we love we never leave until our hearts stop. Our love lasts forever. That's why it's said we never forget. Our memories can be sentimental or of a past slight, but we always remember. We keep those memories so that we can take our revenge when the time comes, but when I look at my husband those thoughts never come to me. Maybe because my love for him is still strong. Maybe because I don't blame him as much as the monks who turned him against me. All I know is that if I ever sough revenge it would be on them, not him. If he loved me once more, I'd accept him back into my graces with no second thoughts. Unfortunately, I don't think that will ever happen. It was that that got me here, in this marriage, and completely devoid of the future I once envisioned.
"I'm going to love you forever, you know" I still remember when he said that to me as he made love to me the first time on our wedding night, all these years later, I want it to be that way again even if I know it won't be.
"Together you and I might just rule the world" that had been our plan in those early days as we reveled in the love that only newly weds could feel, but now he was climbing the latter to rule it choosing to leave me at the bottom to watch him rise.
"We were supposed to be in love…in this together" I thought of that more then anything else as I watched his rise, always remembering when we were first married, and those early days when we weren't where we were supposed to be partners instead of the pawns we'd become. More then I cared to admit, often with a longing that made the dragon cry when her husband wasn't looking. Theodore had never seen me cry. I'd never let him. I kept my pain as part of myself now. It was a symptom of feeling it all these years. The problem was I'd given my heart to this man and he had it still. I couldn't take it back or say I wanted to. I stayed by his side, waiting, always waiting for the day he set me aside the way the monks promised he would. That fateful day seemed to always be looming in my future and I was waiting on it each day I stayed with him. When he sets me aside for someone more worthy? As the thought fills me, I feel the car I'm in stop, and I realize where I am.
"I've come to this place that my husband has so often spoke to me about" I thought it with a demeanor somewhere between cold and mournful. It had been over a month since my husband had come here to finally reclaim what he said was his families birth right. It was the destiny the monks had planned all his life and all these years I had known I was not part of these plans. They were a Galavans future and I would never be that. Maybe that was why when he wrote to me asking me to come, I'd been completely shocked by the action. I had expected him to take Tabitha, she was his sister, this was due to her as much as him, but when he had sent for me, I hadn't believed him.
"He didn't have to send for me especially after I refused the first time" I couldn't deny the charm he had managed over me at the sentiment and this time I had followed, finding myself in Gotham city now. Part of me had hoped Theo would be waiting when I stepped out of the car, but as usual I was met by strangers. Men dressed all in black who barely said a word to me. Men who took my hand to lead me to places without an explanation. I entered a beautiful high rise then and as I let my eyes trace the gothic stone, I wonder what my time here would foretell.
It wasn't until we were inside that I saw Theo had bought the whole building as was his way.
"He can't even share a building" I was amused at the thought as the silent man in black led me to an elevator and when we reached the top floor, I found myself being led down a hall with two double doors at the end of it. Looking around I couldn't help looking for him. I wanted to see him in the shadows that seemed to fill this place. I looked at the doors at the end of the hall, wondering if he was inside, but when we reached them, I found myself suddenly alone. The man only pushed me into the empty room behind those doors and I'll admit to being disappointed. Despite all I've previously said, I found myself eager to see him, and when he wasn't there to greet me it only served to confirm the things I already knew. That what he once felt for me had died long ago. So, as that knowledge settled once more within me, I found myself looking around this place where I was left to wait, and to my surprise as the city opened up to me, I couldn't say it wasn't beautiful. The windows opened to reveal the city I had carelessly dissuaded as I drove through it. I had to admit its beauty as I waited.
"On guard, he'll come when you least expect him" I reminded myself as my eyes took snapshots of the city below.
I would feel him, his presence, and when I did it was too late. I felt him press himself close to me, in the way I'd once savored, and his hands touched me in that way that told me what he wanted. He wanted me. In that way that a man would always want a woman whether he loved her or not. He started to kiss the delicate sloped lining of my neck and I knew his game. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to play it though as it as he started into the first steps of our waltz until he was leaning in close to smell the scent of me. This had meant more once, but now, it was just a reminder of things passed. I was tempted to stray from it even as my feelings for him begged to give in. I couldn't stop my eyes from closing as he did all of this. It was my one weakness, something that had crossed over since our time as lovers, and somehow, I think he knew that because it was the one thing he'd never stopped doing. He pressed me into the lining of his body, his lips at my ear, and despite it all, I fell into him with no choice at all.
I would never deny that I still loved him even if the feeling was not mutual.
"I was afraid you wouldn't come" he said it with such reverence that I almost believed him as the words grazed my ear in their sensual way. I didn't believe him though. I knew that any woman in any ordinary loveless marriage would long for this treatment from her husband, but when he touched me this way, I felt the opposite. For where my body felt pleasure, my heart felt pain, and all because I still loved him. I didn't want this loveless passion, but true love. The love we shared once before they showed him that I wasn't worth what he once believed.
"This is only the desperate touch of a lustful man. If I wasn't here any other woman would do" I thought it with scorn, my inner feelings telling me to turn him away, but as his hands were on me, I was crumbling to his touch despite the reality repeating itself in my head.
I honestly didn't know how many other women there had been. Tabitha said there were none, but when I looked at her, I always read passed her sincerity to the truth and lies. I was just a body here to quench that thirst deep within his loins. The reality almost made me turn him away, but I'd said that before. Each time he came for me in these moments, I always almost turned him away, only to surrender to his lusts. This time would be no different, I already knew that. As my hands went to claw his away, they stopped at the last second. Instead of lashing out at him, his hand grabbed mine before I could, and I shivered. It was like he could read me. Like he knew what I was going to do and had reached out at the last moment to keep me from doing it. His grip on me only tightened and he held me to him like iron welded joint to joint. I could feel him breathing, how he breathed me in, and once again my eyes closed. Maybe to savor this as I would have in another time. Then he was speaking to me with a voice I remembered from when I was eighteen and falling in love with him.
"Don't, not tonight. Don't be so cold tonight, let me have some of that dragon fire you store in your soul" I knew he was the devil in that moment literally whispering into my ear, but his words had their desired effect. I considered his words, ours hands just barely touching, and I felt something though it had no name.
A feeling that boiled in my blood as his mark was branded into my neck. I was still his dragon and as cold as I could be, sometimes, my cinders needed to be lit. He knew that, just as he knew me, and the temptations he needed to set forth to weaken me. He knew where to touch me and what to whisper as he did it. And his tricks had never failed. I always fell back into him like a damsel. This time was no different.
"I suppose…just for tonight. Then, I have a question or two" I didn't realize as I was saying the words under my breath as his own fanned out over my skin in that majestic way that thrilled me. It was hard to keep the chill in my voice as I said it, but I did. I don't think he believed me, but as I succumbed to him, I believe I retained some of that respect that I saw in his eyes when he didn't think I was looking. And with my answer leaving my lips, I saw it then when I turned my head to look at him. My eyes were filled with fire, his with blackness that could consume anyone, and when they met something seemed to implode. We shared that look for what felt like eternity, but what was only seconds. He wouldn't wait that long to have me, and he didn't. He was upon me then and there was no turning back. I had given into him and nothing I said would keep me from him now.
His hands whipped me into place pressing me firm to him and as his lips descended upon me, I never kissed him back. I allowed myself to be kissed while never kissing in return even as my love for the man flickered in my heart. As he carried me, Gone with the Wind style to our destination, my face pressed to his chest as his lips left mine, there was a thrill of longing vindictiveness there. I knew what was left. Not the tender lovemaking we'd shared as newlyweds, but the carnage that was left to us now.