“Ready?” Fabian asked, giving the veil one last fluff. I nodded and that was when the music started.
I couldn’t tell you what the trip up the aisle was like, because it felt like I’d been making it since that night when I was standing on the pavement outside the restaurant, dithering about whether to go in or not. Shit, maybe beyond that. Maybe we’d spent our whole lives moving towards each other, and all the crap that had happened before we met each other just made us appreciate what we had more.
I loved them. I felt that as the veil was pulled back, as Dad handed me to them and they drew me closer, as the celebrant spoke ancient words people had said over and over, in different languages, according to different faiths, but the intent was the same—to promise to love the other person for as long as you could, to make sure they knew that. The celebrant turned to me when it was my time to speak, and I’d spent all night up with Nikki, drunkenly concocting my vows, but all of that was forgotten right now.
“I love you,” I said simply, laughing, then crying when I did so. “I love you. Let’s get married.”
“Damn straight,” Lucien said, breaking all the rules and stepping forward and taking me in his arms. “Say man and wife.” The celebrant looked confused, but I remembered that line fromThe Princess Bride.“Say man and wife!”
“Ahh…you may kiss the bride?” the celebrant said.
68
The first hint that all was not right was during the plane ride. My mates had booked a private jet to take us out to a private island owned by a friend of theirs. Bali weather was a lot hotter and more humid than it was at home, but that didn’t explain this. I was sitting in the small plane, fanning myself with a magazine, despite the air-conditioned comfort.
“Everything all right, omega?”
Tobias asked the question as he stared at me from the seat opposite mine.
“Yeah, just hot,” I replied, then shifted my hips. For some reason, I couldn’t get comfortable, something each man seemed to view with some interest.
“Hot,” Lucien said, leaning in closer. “You’re certainly that.”
“No, I’m all sticky,” I said, grabbing the front of my light cotton top and using it to try and funnel air down the front of it. I reached up and went to change the air vents, but Max’s hand covered mine. His eyes were a perfect silver as he shifted each nozzle to face me, then turned the air pressure up.
It didn’t help.
As soon as he touched me, I felt it—something…dropped inside me, like the slow fall of dripping honey, and wherever it fell, something hot and liquid spread throughout my body.
“I’m…”
I couldn’t finish that sentence, not when he was staring at me, touching me. Beau got out of his seat and dropped down into the space by my feet, despite the pilot announcing we were about to begin our descent. I felt like I dropped down with the plane, down, down, down into a part of myself I’d never felt before.
The wolf had been patient. She’d acknowledged my efforts to make our pack a functional one, so she’d let me have my head, but not now. Now, we had all of the symbols of being joined upon us—a ring on each of our fingers, bites on our necks, marks that fucking throbbed right now like an oversensitive clit. Instinctively, I pulled right back into my chair, trying to put some distance between me and these silver-eyed men, because the moment they touched me…? Only in doing so, I felt the slick synthetic slip of the vinyl seat against my skin, and that had me whining.
“Try this.”
Max ripped his shirt up and over his head and then balled it up to pass to me. I just stared at it, uncomprehending, but that scent… I pressed the fabric to my face, and all four men rumbled their approval at that. More shirts were pulled off and handed over, until I had a great wad of them that I held onto like a child might a teddy bear.
“Breath us in,” Max said. “That’s it, omega, just keep breathing us in.”
So I did, wide-eyed and staring right up until the plane landed, my eyes flicking from one man to the other. I felt wound up tight, on edge and… When the door opened to the plane and the pilot smiled up at us, I moved, tearing off my seatbelt and running down the small flight of steps and out into…
I didn’t know this place, didn’t know this beach, those tropical trees. It felt like everything was too bright, too intense, too open, and that was not right.
“Omega…” Tobias growled out my designation, and standing there in crisp pants and no shirt, he looked like some kind of splendid wild man. So why did I take a step away each time he tried to get closer?
“Don’t run,” Max said, his voice more wolf than man. “If you do…” He shook his head as if to dislodge something.
“Or run.” Lucien’s lips curved into a vicious smile. “Just know we’ll chase you. Wherever you go, wherever—”
I didn’t let him finish his sentence, throwing the shirts down on the runway before taking off. My thin pumps were useless on this rough tarmac, so they were tossed away, then my bag because it was weighing me down, but as I ran, as I heard their footsteps, I knew this wouldn’t be enough.
She knew I wasn’t enough in this context.
The wolf emerged from inside me, skin turning to fur, clothes tossed to one side. We turned around and saw the four men converging on us, then let out an insolent howl before taking off at a run.
We’d never been here before, but somehow, we knew the way—past trees and shrubs, past tranquil pools with large orange fish the wolf took note of, past a low wall and then up a path to the front door. We needed to den down, hide, find a place to nest in. We nosed at the big carved door, then slammed our paws down on the lever handle, and it swung open. Our head whipped around over our shoulder as we heard their shouts, but then we were moving forward, nose to the ground, sniffing and sniffing until we found…