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“I can’t believe this. You’re just saying this to keep me from wanting you to marry Zeb!” she cried, stumbling back and tripping over a lawn chair.
“Well, you’re not wrong, but it’s still true.” I reached for her hand to help her up. “I’m a vampire. I have been for almost a year now. And you didn’t notice, because you tend not to pay attention when people evolve or change. Zeb and I are no longer the six-year-olds who played house. I’m not dangerous. Not to Zeb and not to you. But the bright side is that while I can never, ever bear you grandchildren, Jolene can have all the kids she and Zeb want. In fact, there’s every chance that they’re going to have a huge family.”>A symphony of gasps and angry growls rippled through the bride’s family. My knees turned to jelly. The wedding party was silent and aghast, besides Gabriel’s shocked “Beg pardon?”
“No no no no no no. You and I have never felt that way about each other,” I said in my slow and deliberate voice. I turned to Gabriel as Zeb kissed the back of my hand. Dick stared at us, slackjawed, unsure whether to laugh or, well, laugh. I asked, “Is it some sort of thrall or whammy? Please tell me it’s a whammy.”
Zeb wrapped his arms around me, looking into my eyes with a level of tenderness only seen when politicians are publicly apologizing to their wives. “I’m sorry I let this go so far, Jane. Jolene’s a nice girl, but I wanted to get back at you for spending so much time with Gabriel, for not loving me back. We have such a long history together, Janie. Friendship and companionship, that’s what’s going to keep us happy for the rest of our lives. It’s always been you, Janie. You were always the girl I’ve wanted to spend my life with. You were always the girl I wanted waiting for me at the end of the aisle.”
This was all starting to sound horribly familiar. Mama Ginger “awwwed” and demanded that Floyd get up and use the disposable camera to record this beautiful moment. Jolene, who had left the Great Cake Debate to investigate why the groom was snuggling up to another woman, cried, “Zeb, honey, what the hell are you doing?”
Lonnie got to his feet and glared at Zeb with a predator’s eye. “What’s going on here?”
Zeb looked pained, panicked, at the sight of his bride-to-be. He pressed his lips together, then blurted, “I can’t do this, Jolene. I can’t. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t be with you. I can’t go through with this wedding.”
Jolene chuckled, looking to me to say that this was all joke. I shook my head, bewildered. “Zeb, this isn’t funny.”
“It’s not a joke. Jolene, I can’t marry you. This whole thing, it’s wrong.”
“What are you talking about?” Jolene demanded. “I love you!”
Sweat broke out on Zeb’s forehead as he vomited out the words: “I don’t love you.”
Jolene let loose a strangled cry as she sank into a chair near her father. If looks could kill, Zeb would be hogtied at Lonnie’s feet with an apple stuffed in his mouth. Mimi wrapped her arms around the distressed bride and murmured soothing sounds into her neck. Behind them, a wall of indignant, insulted werewolf relatives rose to their feet, glowering at Zeb and me with curled lips and bared teeth.
“You’re doing the right thing, Zeb,” Mama Ginger cooed. “I’ve told you from the beginning, this whole wedding has been a mistake.”
Mimi turned on Mama Ginger and snarled. But Mama Ginger was too wrapped up in her triumph to notice.
“Let’s get out of here, Jane.” Zeb took my hand and tried to pull me away. Gabriel’s hands clamped around my shoulders as I yanked away.
Gabriel’s voice was low and stripped of the barest hint of kindness. “Leave now, Zeb. I don’t think we can protect you if you say much more.”
“I’m not sure if I want to,” Dick muttered. “Even I have standards.”
Backing toward his car, Zeb sent Jolene a last sorrowful look. “I’m sorry.”
Mama Ginger and the rest of the Lavelles were packed up and peeling away from the farm in seconds. Jolene soaked her mother’s shoulder with hoarse, body-wracking sobs. I glared at the girl cousins, who were snickering behind their hands, and wrapped an arm around the bride. “I don’t know what to say.”
From behind us, I could hear Uncle Luke demanding, “Well, what does she expect?”
“Luke,” Jolene’s father growled.
“No, no, I’ve held my tongue long enough,” Luke said. “It’s not right, the daughter of our alpha mating outside the pack, marrying herself to some filthy two-foot-walking human. And now he’s done exactly what we all said he would do.”
“Hey, no one talks about my friend that way!” I cried. “He’s being a bit of a jerk right now, but he’s still my friend.”
“If you were a man, I’d slap you until you were spitting those fangs out the left side of your mouth,” Luke snarled.
“If you were a man, I’d slap you right back—hey!” I stepped out of the way when he did try to backhand me.
Without preamble, furry bodies flew at me from all sides. Several of Jolene’s aunts and cousins, wolfed out, leaped onto their uncle’s back. It had nothing to do with me personally. Attacking a guest on pack property was another clan shame. (I needed to start keeping a list.) Their response brought out several uncles and cousins who secretly agreed with Luke’s position and the cousins who were just itching for a good fight. I ducked around a tractor when I saw Lucy, one of the bridesmaid cousins who was still in human form, grab a bottle of Boone’s Farm and clobber Vance over the head.
“Is this normal?” I yelled to Gabriel over the din.
“It’s not abnormal,” he said. “Mind your head.”
I dipped just in time to miss the shattering plastic bomb of Aunt Vonnie’s cherished punch bowl. Vonnie, on seeing this, howled with rage, wolfed out, and went after the unfortunate uncle who had tossed it. Gabriel and I crawled under a table, where Dick had already dragged Andrea to relative safety.
“What do we do?” I asked. “Call the cops? Get a bunch of rolled-up newspapers?”
