Chapter 57: Chapter 56. The Wedding Reception
Vivianne hated it whenever she saw Genevieve and Valdemar; their tortures and how they used her in the past can’t be forgiven by a simple apology. And she definitely saw the hatred that simmers in Genevieve’s eyes.
She never blamed Genevieve for hating her, because she knew what her father did to her was never unfair. Theobald de Rothschild, the late count of Rothschild, has never truly loved Genevieve and keeps her because his family never agreed for him to marry the commoner woman, moreover a Gypsy woman.
Zara Tanner wasn’t an ordinary omega; she was a storm given flesh, a gypsy enchantress whose beauty defied the ages. Her hair, though pale as freshly fallen snow, flowed in thick, silken waves down her back, a crown of moonlight that glimmered beneath the sun. But it is her eyes, unearthly and gleaming violet, that arrested any man’s soul. They held the wildness of untamed forests, the whispers of forgotten spirits, and the secret knowing of beasts and winds alike.
Her presence was magnetic, dangerous even, like a flame that drew moths too close to their ruin. Zara spoke with the tongues of animals, their voices answering hers as though she were kin. Wolves lingered in her shadow without baring fangs, crows perched upon her shoulders as if waiting for her command, and restless spirits came to her with secrets no mortal should have known. She carried the weight of old magic, the kind both feared and revered.
In firelit taverns and under the sprawling night sky of the Erengrad Empire, men would forget themselves when Zara passed. She laughed like a song and walked as though she belonged neither to sea nor land but to the very essence of freedom.
Theobald de Rothschild, one of the counts in the empire and one of the empire’s greatest houses, is one such man ensnared. Though bound by law by his noblesse oblige to his house, he was married to a daughter of a marquis, his legal omega wife, Genevieve, but his heart is stolen by Zara Tanner.
He adored her with an obsession that eroded reason, refusing to mark Genevieve because no vow, no bond, or imperial law could dim the fire Zara lit within him. With her, he fathered Vivianne, a daughter born not of sanctioned nobility but of forbidden passion, stained with both scandal and allure.
Zara was more than a mistress; she was the fracture in a Rothschild lineage, the living proof that desire could topple even the noble house. Every noblewoman hated her; every nobleman envied the spell she cast. And yet, when she walked through the streets with her wild hair and violet gaze, even the bitterest tongues fell silent. For in her, the world saw something they could neither cage nor destroy: a woman who belonged to the spirits, not to men.
Genevieve could never look at Vivianne without seeing Zara first. The tilt of her chin, the curve of her lips, the luminous glow of her presence—every part of Vivianne is a haunting echo of the gypsy woman who had stolen Theobald’s soul. Yet, there’s something different in Vivianne, something that made her even more breathtaking.
Zara’s beauty was wild and storm-born, with white hair whipping in the wind and violet eyes blazing with secrets of spirits and beasts. Vivianne’s radiance is quieter, softer, and far more dangerous in its subtlety.
Unlike her mother, who burned quickly and was consumed like a wildfire, she smoldered like embers hidden beneath ash, glowing steadily and deeply. One only needed to glance her way to feel the warmth, to sense the slow, consuming fire that would creep into the heart and take root before one realized it.
Zara was untamed, the tempest that wrecked noble vows and lured men into ruin. Vivianne is grounded, poised with a grace that came not from rebellion but from an inner strength that couldn’t be broken. She isn’t the storm that crashed upon the shore but the still sea whose depths swallowed whole fleets. And in that balance of her mother’s beauty and her own quiet soul, Vivianne surpassed Zara entirely.
For Genevieve, it’s such a cruel irony. To see the woman who had shattered her marriage reborn in her daughter, stronger, lovelier, and destined to wield a softer, subtler kind of power. Zara had been a tempest untamed, the dazzling siren Theobald could never possess fully, for all his desperate love.
She was the omega who had never been marked, not because she was unworthy, but because Theobald couldn’t mark her as his omega when he already belonged, lawfully, to Genevieve. Zara had lived and died unclaimed, her brilliance free but incomplete.
Vivianne, however, bore the one thing her mother had been denied: a bond. She had been marked by a partner whose strength is unquestionable, so overwhelming that even Emperor Dietrich himself trembled in front of Roxanne. That mark isn’t a shackle but a crown, an emblem of a power Zara had never known. In Vivianne, Zara’s beauty and spirit were reborn but refined, secured, and elevated beyond her reach.
And the bitterest twist of fate was that Zara and Theobald’s end had been swift and merciless, a carriage accident that left them entwined in death as they had been in life. Yet here, standing before her, is Vivianne: the living legacy of that forbidden passion, brighter and stronger than Zara had ever been.
To Genevieve, it was unbearable. Vivianne carried not only Zara’s face but also the fulfillment of what Zara had always longed for: belonging, protection, and a love that marked her and declared her untouchable. The mother had died unclaimed; the daughter lived as if the world itself bowed at her feet.
Genevieve’s gaze lingered on Liselotte as the girl adjusted the hem of her ceremonial gown, the golden fabric shimmering under the palace grand hall’s light. Her heart constricted with a pang of recognition. Liselotte, her own daughter, stood at the threshold of a life that mirrored Genevieve’s own.
She wasn’t blind. She saw it all: the way Emperor Dietrich’s eyes drifted again and again toward Vivianne, the longing in his stare, and the hunger so carefully restrained. It’s the same expression Theobald had worn whenever Zara entered a room. That same hopeless devotion, as though no crown, no law, no duty could ever sever the pull of forbidden desire.
She turned slightly, her voice cool but measured. "How’s life treating you in the North?"
Vivianne’s lips curved into a polite smile, her tone light but edged with steel. "It was fine. Just a few days there. Then we spent a month traveling here for Liselotte’s wedding. Oh, the Empress Consort."
The title sounded sweet but cloying. Vivianne gave a subtle, knowing smile, one Genevieve couldn’t quite decipher. In her past life, Vivianne had never been granted such a title. She had been the empress from the beginning, but not the empress with dignity or power.
She had been the empress most alphas could enjoy at the whim of their emperor; the "precious omega," Dietrich, had been bartered to foreign kingdoms and principalities as if she were no more than a night’s entertainment.
Vivianne’s jaw tensed as the old bitterness flared like a wound. That was no longer her life. She’s with Roxanne now, bound to her in a bond that’s hers alone; no other alpha, mated or unmated, is affected by her pheromone anymore.
Because of Roxanne’s strong blood lineage and her strong bond, it is so special it makes Vivianne’s special pheromone tame. And if anyone tried to drag her back into that old existence, she would rather die than endure it again.
Genevieve’s lips curved into something between a smile and a warning. "Yes, she’s the Empress Consort now. Refer to her well." Her voice is cold as marble, a mother defending the fragile dignity of her daughter even as she saw the ruin already forming.
Vivianne tilted her head, her tone smooth, almost disarmingly calm. "And I’m the Grand Duchess." She said it like a blade sliding from its sheath, matter-of-fact, making sure Genevieve understood exactly where she stood.
In the hierarchy of the Erengrad Empire, the title is a weapon in itself. It placed Vivianne above her stepmother, above her half-brother, and above the count’s blood that had once tried to cage her. She is no longer the helpless omega from the Rothschilds, who’s been caged in the attic and treated like nothing. She’s the grand duchess, bound to a powerful alpha who has claimed her without condition.
Genevieve’s face didn’t show any emotion, but her eyes flickered with recognition, perhaps even fear. It’s one thing to see Zara’s beauty reborn in Vivianne, but it’s another to face the truth that Vivianne had achieved everything Zara had been denied. And in that moment, Genevieve understood: whatever destiny awaited Liselotte, Vivianne would not share it.
"Refer to my wife correctly." Roxanne’s voice cut through the hall.
It isn’t loud, yet the weight of her words pressed against every ribcage present. Her amber eyes fixed on Genevieve, then flicked briefly to Valdemar. The young man stiffened, his face paling as the full force of her alpha dominance bore down on him. Instinct betrayed him—he bowed deeply, almost stumbling, as though invisible hands had shoved him into submission.
A ripple spread through the chamber. One by one, nobles lowered their heads. Some bowed out of respect, others out of fear, but all of them yielded. The oppressive air thickened until even seasoned lords found their knees trembling.
Dietrich felt it worst of all. The Emperor of Erengrad, the alpha whose very presence had commanded armies, now found his bones quaking under Roxanne’s aura. His fists clenched against his will, rage simmering beneath the surface, but his knees betrayed him. With a hiss of breath, "Hold it," he ground out, his voice low and cold, his sharp gaze darting toward Liselotte, who sat frozen and pale beside him. "You are the Empress Consort."
It’s less a reassurance and more an order, a command that she cling to the title as though it were armor. Before the moment could break entirely, Genevieve moved. She stepped forward, spine stiff, her voice polished politely. "Yes," she said, each word bitter on her tongue. Her eyes didn’t rise to meet Roxanne’s or Vivianne’s. "Yes, Your Grace, the Grand Duchess of Borgia."
The title slipped from her lips like both venom and surrender, acknowledging Vivianne’s position with all the weight of the hierarchy behind it. To refuse would be suicide; to accept is a humiliation.