Imprisoned By Love

Chapter 10

Katniss

"Ouch!" I yelp as one of the younger girls who are attending to me rips a wax strip off my legs. "Remind me again why I can't just shave because it's just gonna all grow back next time I wolf out."

"Because we're less likely to miss places this way," Delly says as she gets to work moisturizing the now hairless leg. "It's not every night that you get married, you know."

"Yes," I say pulling my leg back. "But I'm supposed to leave at sunset so I'm to the tree at dusk and my hair isn't even out of its curlers."

"We've got plenty of time," Johanna says. "All we have to do is dress you and get your hair into some sort of arrangement. The sun's barely started to fall."

"We'll have you ready in no time, M'lady," Katherine, the girl laying more wax on my leg says. "You don't have anything to worry about." I glance out the window as the two younger girls continue getting me ready and Johanna, being the carefree person she is, flips through a magazine.

Within an hour and a half, I'm standing in Peeta's mother's elegant wedding dress. It brushes the toes of the silvery gladiator sandals wrapped tightly to my legs. I smell like lavender and the other oils they'd rubbed into my skin. I cross my arms awkwardly over the extremely low cut dress. It fits extremely well, considering I hadn't tried it on even once. It always felt like it wasn't mine, it was hers. His mother. But it does feel right now that I'm in it. Looking how Peeta had always supposedly envisioned me as he watched me grow up from afar. I play with the necklace I had found days after he had stopped meeting me like I always do when I get nervous. My engagement necklace rests below it, the pearl and diamond earrings dangling in my ears.

"It's a good thing my brother is already out there in the woods," Johanna says. "I don't think he'd let you make it to the clearing." I laugh nervously.

"You're gonna be in my shoes in a few weeks," I say. "How aren't you nervous yet."

"Because my wedding isn't a big deal like yours and Peeta's," she says. "Mine isn't in front of people who are virtual strangers because I grew up with them." I feel her behind me as she starts pining in my silvery veil in the intricate braids holding my hair away from my face. "I'm also not nor am I ever going to be their queen." I turn around and look at her.

"What if I'm not good enough?" I ask. "I haven't even met half of them."

"They trust their Alpha," she says as she carefully lays Courtney's intricate tiara in my carefully pinned hair. Using bobby pins to keep it in place. "He chose you, knew that you were meant to be by his side. That's good enough for the rest of your new family."

"I was human two weeks ago," I say.

"But you aren't anymore," she says. "And honestly, that's all that matters." Johanna steps back and looks. "I think it's straight. What do you think?" I glance in the mirror at the image of a Greek princess adorned in her black and white gown encrusted in diamonds. I barely recognize the woman as myself, but I smile and see her return it.

"I guess there's nothing more to do," I say. "I'm as ready as I'm really ever going to be."

"Then we better get going," she says stepping forward and pulling a layer of my veil down over my face. I follow her downstairs where a barge sits and four men who I'd seen around in passing glances stand, ready to carry me into the woods. The all take a knee as they see me and I walk slowly and carefully up to the curtained seat. One of them, Jake I think his name is, helps me in and and pulls the sheer silver material similar to my veil closed. The barge wobbles a little as the lift me up on their shoulders and they begin my journey towards the great willow tree.

Butterflies flutter in my stomach as I'm taken slowly up through the woods. I hear the procession in the distance, getting ready to join me on my journey, singing and playing music as I enter the clearing. Tonight means so much. Everyone depends on Peeta so much and now, I'm part of that leading structure. The heartbeat of the pack sets in the chests of their Alpha and his Luna. The time has finally come for me to walk in the steps laid out for me in the stars.

I hear shuffling as the people gathers stand to welcome me to their family tree. I'm set down carefully as music plays and Gale opens the curtain, helping me out onto the sandy ground. I carefully pull my dress with me and feel all their eyes on me. I keep my head high, like Peeta and my instincts have told me I have to do in this moment, but all I want to do is get beneath the trees curtain of branches as fast as I can. A little girl with pale blue eyes comes up to me with a bundle of sunflowers, I take them from her and give her a smile as I gone her hand a small squeeze and she shyly runs back to her mother.

Two of the men who brought me here hold the beaches apart as I walk into the tree and I hear them swishing behind me as I pass.

"You made it," Peeta says softly to my right. I turn and locate him through scent rather than sight through the dark and the veil.

"I did," I say. "Though I really don't understand why there isn't anyone else here."

"Our marriage is declared by nature," he says laughing. "Not an individual." He reaches in his jacket pocket and pulls out a knife with a stag horn handle. "They make a big show of it, but it's really just us saying what we want to say to each other right now and then slitting our palms to join our blood."

"Well, since you seem to know what we're supposed to be doing, why don't you go first?" I say.

"I want to promise you that I'll be home every night, that we can spend every moment of the rest of our lives together," he says. "But, I think I've already proven that there will be times that I'm not gonna be able to keep that promise. But I wanna promise you that I'm going to try my hardest to make sure that this isn't just me shouldering all the responsibility that this leadership possesses. Because if I let you in on what's going on, we won't have so many nights apart. But that really, that isn't the reason that we're standing here Katniss. We're standing here because I knew you were the one the moment I laid eyes on you. That you are the one I am meant to spend the rest of my life with. And I don't think I could be any happier. You're beautiful and so much more caring and loving than you would ever let anyone know. And I'm more than grateful to the starts to have laid out our path beside each other." I feel a tear run down my cheek before I swallow nervously underneath his intense gaze.

"Well, I really, I wasn't prepared to have to say anything I wasn't told to say because all the weddings I've witnessed have been orchestrated," I say. "But you know, I may not have known you like I know you now, but you meant a lot to me when I was a kid, and it broke my heart when you weren't there for me anymore. I'm so thankful that you gave me a place to belong and that I finally have more than just myself on my side. You've given me the gift that no one could have ever given me that deep down, I had always wished for as long as I can remember. To be able to escape the human world within an instant but still be with the ones I love. I've found a family with you Peeta. And after losing my own, I wouldn't change a thing about my life now that I get to share it with you." Peeta chuckles and I feel his hand gently grip my arm.

"For not being prepared, you sure had a lot to say," he says.

"Well, that's just off the top of my head. There's still a lot more I could say, but we can talk about that later without all the prying ears out there," I say and I see his teeth flash as he gives me a smile.

"I'd like to hear that," he says. "But we have the rest of our lives for that." He runs the edge of the silver blade across his palm leaving a thin red line that begins to bleed. "Right now, it's time to prove our birth rights. In a way, we were both born on this land, though it was years apart. It's time for us to take our place at the lead of our family."

He holds the knife to me and I don't hesitate to take it and slice open my own hand. Together, we gather the blood pooling on the fingers of our opposite hands and cross our blood streaks with our claws deep within the tree trunk, just below his mother and father's marks. We then face each other meet our wounds to form a tight seal. We look into each other's eyes as the pain fades and I feel my cut heal beneath his warm touch.

Peeta reaches out and pulls the cursed veil from my face and I smile at my first unobstructed view of my husband.

We seal our marriage with the softest, sweetest kiss I'd ever experienced.