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Though the doctor has been checking me over, she hasn’t explained anything. One of the first things I asked was if Augustus was okay. She assured me the alpha king was just fine, as though I was simply a concerned citizen. I know she was just being professional, but it’s made me feel insane.

Especially because it feels like I can scent him. More than the baked-in smell of him in his rooms. Like he’s been here recently, his silage left behind.

But he hasn’t seen me.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that when I come back to myself, it’s with the roar of a hair dryer in my ear, the hot air on the side of my face. One beta is doing my hair. The omega is laying out makeup products on the vanity. The other beta has my fingers laid out and is buffing out my nails.

Maybe they’re planning to kill me, and they want to do me the service of looking half-decent in my casket. Maybe Augustus is planning to sell me to the highest bidding workhouse and wants to make sure I fetch a pretty penny.

But, no—when I saw him at my old house…the way he looked at me—

It means nothing. I have to stop assuming that I know what he wants, based on little details like that.

My mind is a whirlwind of everything—the way he touched me, held me during my heat. The fact that he didn’t come to see me after that. That he came after me, when Gavyn took me. Then, that look he gave me right before I thought he’d been shot.

I’m so confused.

“Take a deep breath,” the beta with the hairdryer says. When she switches it off, my ears ring from the absence of the sound. “This is going to be the happiest day of your life.”

Surely, she wouldn’t be cruel enough to say that to me if I was about to walk the plank.

What would make this the happiest day of my life?

I go quiet again as the women finish their preparations. My nails are trimmed up, buffed out, and given a nice French tip. My hair is glossy, smooth, laying over my shoulders nicely in loose curls. There’s not much makeup on my face, but enough to smooth out blemishes and darken my eyelashes.

Staring in the mirror, I barely recognize the woman looking back at me.

It’s the nicest I’ve ever looked in my life. Tears well up behind my eyes, and the older beta woman puts an arm around me, tutting, “Save that for later! Don’t ruin the mascara. Come on, let’s get you dressed.”

We move to the other side of the room, and they waste no time taking off my robe, helping me into a dress that I can’t quite make out. There are no mirrors over here, so I trust them as they pull it up and over my shoulders.

It feels heavy. Expensive. The fabric on the outside is a little rough, the pattern something floral. As I’m staring down at the dress, it jogs something in my memory, but I can’t quite think of what it is.

“Come on!”

When I’m dressed—and wearing a pair of flats under the dress—the women herd me out of the room, leading me down the stairs, their hands held out for me to hold onto.

At this point, my brain is fully awake, but I’m so stunned at how quickly everything is happening that I haven’t quite processed the full scene.

That is, until I’m standing outside of two massive doors, which are opened for me to reveal a large ballroom. There are chairs lining either side of the room, and a trail of petals leading straight up the middle of them.

Everyone in the room—all the shifters filling all those seats—turns to look at me when I’m ushered inside. Then, hastily, they stand as a pianist on the other side of the room starts up a song that I swear I’ve heard before.

“Hi.” I turn to find Aurora standing beside me, wearing a simple black dress. I can’t read the expression on her face as she holds her arm out to me. “Come on.”

I listen, taking her arm and letting her walk me up the aisle.

Up the aisle.

The thing is that, while I logically know what weddings are, it’s not like I ever went to them growing up. I’ve seen one or two portrayed in TV shows, when I was allowed to watch, and have read about them in books. But between being so sleepy and out for so long, and not being that familiar with the entire process, this is the first time it occurs to me that this is a wedding.

This is a wedding.

Then, Aurora and I reach the end of the walk, and I’m left standing in front of Augustus. He turns to me with an expression so full of hope, wanting, and possessiveness that for a second, I can’t breathe.

Maybe I really did die. Then again, maybe not—that spot on my breast, where he bit before, throbs gently at the sight of him, yet another place on my body that yearns for his touch.

“Thank you, everyone, who has gathered today to witness the union of our rightful alpha king and his fated mate. You may be seated.”