Lottie didn't know what to do.

At least Grandma had assured her that the man looked no more than thirty. But other than that? She knew nothing about his family, his past, what he did for a living, or why he'd suddenly appeared in a village like this. For all she knew, the man could be a serial murderer on the run.

At least he wanted to marry her, right?

Still, she didn't know what to do, and she had no one to speak to for advice (except for the grandmother who'd proved that she would give her granddaughter over to the first man to show up on their doorstep), so she tossed a coin for three days in a row.

Each time, she told herself that she would follow the coin's advice: heads, and she would marry the big, biiiiig stranger who looked no more than thirty.

Heads. Heads. Heads.

Marry. Marry. Marry, it urged for three days in a row.

So here she was, stepping out of the house for the first time in three days because she'd been hiding away from all the villagers who would have accosted her on the streets.

And she would've kept hiding away. If only she didn't need to attend her own wedding.

You might think that in a small village like Wilkin where everyone knows everyone, they would all attend every wedding that ever takes place. Well, I'm sorry to break it to you, but ordinary villagers simply cannot afford to put aside a whole day of their livelihood for every nuptial, so most of the time, these things are attended by a small handful of close family and friends only.

Well, today's nuptial was no ordinary nuptial.

Today, everyone in Wilkin decided that witnessing the historic event of a dimwitted foreigner tying the knot with the village spinster was worth putting aside an entire day's worth of work for.

Today, the humble village temple of the God of Earth and Soil was woefully packed, almost bursting at the seams to accommodate the smelly, sweaty bodies of almost two hundred busybodies. By the time Lottie arrived at her own wedding, there was hardly even an aisle for her to walk down with her grandmother.

Village tradition said that men must propose with flowers, and brides must nurture those flowers in the days before the wedding and walk down the aisle with them. It signified, and told the world, how she would nurture their future relationship as man and wife.

Lottie's betrothed did what he had to do when he proposed with flowers, yet Lottie did not do what she was supposed to do with them. After all, she wasn't even sure that she would be here today until the coin told her, for the third time, that she must.

So not only did she walk the aisle looking down at her own feet, letting her long hair cover as much of the scar as it could, she also clutched in her hands a bunch of wilted flowers that told the whole village how terrible of a wife she would be.

The women gasped in collective shock at her audacity. The men sighed in collective relief that it wasn't any of them who was marrying her. And with that chorus of gasps and sighs playing in the background, Lottie made her way to the front of the crowd where she could make out in her limited periphery the long robes of the village priest and... a pair of black boots.

Passing the sad flowers to her grandmother, she came to stand before those boots.

Big, biiiiiig boots.

The priest began with a few words of jibber jabber. Then soon—too soon—it came time for the owner of those big boots to speak.

"Behold my oath that I will take no one as my wife except you."

His words, so deep and warm, spoken with the conviction of someone who had nary a doubt or reservation about what he was doing, who he was marrying, awakened something she'd kept buried for so long.

Curiosity.

She wanted to see him, to trail her gaze upwards from his boots to his torso to the tips of his hair...

See if he really was as big as Grandma made him out to be.

See what sort of uninformed idiot would come to Wilkin and marry its disfigured spinster.

See if he, too, was as ugly as she, despite having a voice like molten honey.

But she hesitated a few moments too long, and before curiosity had the time to convert into strength, the priest gave her a gentle nudge. It was her turn to repeat the jibber jabber.

"Behold my oath that never will I have anyone as my... my husband except you," she mumbled.

The villagers burst into loud cheers and applause. As much as they had mocked her and admonished her for her mistakes through the years, it seemed that getting rid of a spinster was a village-wide achievement.

As the smelly, sweaty bodies trickled out of the overfilled temple for a celebratory feast in the village square, Lottie wrung her fingers nervously. She could feel her husband's intense gaze burning a hole into her scalp.

"I... I... I..." she attempted, the way someone might in their efforts to fill an awkward silence, only to make it even more awkward.

"You're so beautiful," the voice boomed over her head again, and she forgot how to breathe.

No one other than her grandmother had ever called her beautiful. Not even she dared to think it of herself.

So there was no stopping that raging curiosity from rearing its head and forcing her eyes to take in the dark breeches that hugged his strong legs... the white linen tunic that did little to hide the muscles of his chest... the trimmed black beard that covered his jaw... and finally, the piercing hazel eyes that held as much warmth as his voice did.

His eyes glittered with an interest she'd never seen anyone bestow upon her, before they dimmed to something she was far more familiar with: pity and regret.

And her chin dropped again.

Before her stood the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes upon. With the most beautiful skin of golden caramel. With the most beautiful eyes and the most beautiful voice.

Then there she was, daring to lift her face and display her ugliness.

Of course, he regretted his choice.

But before she could escape and save herself from further humiliation, he placed two fingers beneath her chin and lifted it back up until they were again staring eye to eye.

"My name is Cain," he said with a reassuring smile, "in case you didn't know already."

"Cain..." she whispered, the name foreign on her tongue.

With his fingers still propping up her chin, he leaned in until their noses were an inch apart, and all she could see was him, towering over her; all she could smell was his scent, a mixture of autumn leaves and pine cones that reminded her of the forest; all she could feel was his presence, dominant with a hint of danger.

"Thank you for being my wife, Lottie."

The way he said her name, in that voice—it planted a hundred butterflies in her belly and made her heart leap in a way she never knew was possible.

Until he lifted a thumb and stroked it over one of the raised lines of her scar.

It was a soft, featherlight touch, but she flinched and covered a hand over her cheek. It was an instinct borne out of many years of fear and insecurity and pain.

He, too, froze and dropped his hand to his side.

For the next three years of their marriage, he never touched her again.

Word count: 1,273

A/N: I didn't want to pick a male lead name so close to the one in my other story (Dane), but the various meanings of the name Cain fit the character too damn well. Plus it's also an appropriate nickname for the... Canis lupus.