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The alarm finally stopped, but the tears didn’t. I leaned against the kitchen counter, desperate to regain my composure. Bibi and the crew would be here any minute...
Which made me cry harder, and I slid down the counter onto the floor. All the frustration of the last ten years of my life poured out of me, when I’d done what everyone else told me I should do for the good of the pack, and this was what I got in return.
A knock on the door made the boys start barking. Another charming trait they’d picked up in the last few weeks. I wiped under my eyes...good thing makeup remained at the bottom of my to-do list, because it would be all over everything at this point.
Charlotte ran to the door. Stranger danger wasn’t a thing in Green Mountain Village—nobody came here unless they had to—and she opened it to reveal a spectacularly sparkly drag queen, a giant blond man who exuded some serious bear energy wielding a camera, and a tiny, dark-haired human woman who was perfectly put together—it was probably a requirement hanging out with Bibi—in tow.
“Hey, sugarplum.” Bibi picked up Charlotte. “Aren’t you just as cute as a button?”
Charlotte’s mouth dropped. “Princess?”
My daughter wasn’t the only one absolutely fascinated by Bibi le Bonnet. She was this ethereal creature, this ideal that no one could possibly meet. I mean, she had sparkly eyelashes. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d managed a shower by myself.
“You’re the princess. I’m more like your mom’s fairy dragmother. Which would make me your drag grandmother. Oh, I am way too young for that.” She laughed. “Where’s your mom?”
“I’m in the kitchen.” Still slumped in an upright fetal position, hugging my knees to my chest.
Bibi put Charlotte down, and her impossibly high heels clicked on the linoleum floor. The last time I’d worn a pair of heels was probably my ceremony day. I didn’t call it my mating ceremony anymore, because Pedro wasn’t my mate.
She wore a black-and-white patterned dress. One arm was completely bare, that was, until the opera glove started, and the other side had a giant poof at the shoulder. It was a wonder she managed to get Charlotte to let go.
Bibi kneeled in front of me, the hair from her shocking red-bobbed wig falling slightly toward her face, and frowned. I couldn’t be more of her polar opposite if I tried in my stretched-out T-shirt and ripped leggings.
My socks didn’t even match.
Her entourage stood behind her and looked at each other, confused whether or not they were supposed to be capturing this absolute rock bottom moment.
The thought that I could look back on this and laugh meant that I believed that things would get better. They had to. There was nowhere to go but up.
“What happened here?” Bibi asked as she settled beside me. I cringed at the thought of her beautiful dress making contact with the kitchen floor.
“You mean, why does my house smell like burnt cheese and little boy pee?”
“I wasn’t going to bring it up, but now that you mention it.” She put her hand on my arm and gave me the first smile without pity that had come in my direction since long before Pedro took off. “My plan was to give you three choices about what you wanted to do tonight, but we have no choice but to make this better.”
“I’m not sure you can.” My heart broke to say the next words. “I should back out of The Mating Game.”
Fire engine red lips formed a perfect O. “Why on earth would you think you should do that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“You’re a perfect fit for The Mating Game.” Bibi shifted her long legs to get more comfortable, looking even more out of place among discarded toys and too many dishes in the sink. I was embarrassed that I didn’t have a chance to shove everything into a closet, a backroom, somewhere Bibi, her crew, and anyone who eventually watched this didn’t have to see it. “My mission is to make you believe that you’re worthy of all the amazing things that are about to happen to you. Please don’t back out.”
The next wave of the meltdown sucker-punched me, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Bibi pulled me into a hug and rubbed my back until I cried all the frustration, anger, and embarrassment out.
I pulled away to catch my breath. Bibi’s shoulder was soaked. At least it was the bare one. Of course I’d be the one to finally give her a flaw.
“Tell me everything. If you’re ready.”
“Where do I even start?”
Marissa tapped my shoulder and handed me a tissue. “Want some tea?”
“Sure. I mean, maybe. If I have any, it’s in the cabinet over the stove.” I slid to the side so she could reach it. “The mugs are there too. You’re welcome to have some.”
Bjorn opened the tripod for his camera. They were filming this. The boys came downstairs, sensing two new shifters in the house.
Their mouths gaped at the sight of the sparkly goddess beside me and the bear of a man behind the camera. I held my breath, expecting them to try to mark their territory, but I was too overwhelmed to do anything about it.
But so far, it looked like they might actually behave.
“Start at the beginning.” Bibi welcomed Charlotte back into her lap.
“Like how I wound up married to a wolf that wasn’t my mate?” Humans thought of marriage as the ultimate commitment, but they had an out. They could walk away from each other, even if it tended to be messy and painful. Becoming mated was so much more. It was a soul contract, written in the stars before the wolves involved in it had ever laid eyes on each other. That was all I could say about it because I had yet to experience a true mate bond.
But I wanted it. There was a wolf out there for me.
Bibi scrunched her nose. “If you want to talk about Pedro.”
I’d studied what Bibi had done with The Real Werewives. She had a way of getting people to tell her things they wouldn’t tell anyone else. Agree to things way out of their comfort zone. Right now, she was giving me a one-way ticket out of this pity party.
And somehow, my kids were being good in her presence, so it would be pretty reckless of me to doubt her magic.
“I do. Everyone says they want to know what happened, but they never give me a chance to answer, and I’ve lain awake more nights than I can count thinking about what I wanted to say.” I accepted the steaming mug of tea that Marissa offered. “I didn’t have to mate with a wolf in the Green Mountain pack. Technically. But it was expected. Celebrated. Some of my friends found their mates right away. They’re still together. Others got the hell out of Dodge. Those were the smart kids, the ones who got scholarships. That could’ve been me, but I had to go straight to work after school to help my mom after my dad died. Wolves take care of their own. So I never worried about my future, because I thought, when it was my turn, I’d be taken care of, too.”
“That’s a great theory, when it works. But packs have changed, and there are too many wolves that don’t have a place anywhere.” Bibi’s words had an edge, like all those glitter-covered wounds that were still healing. “That’s why we’re doing The Mating Game. It’s time to change the way wolves think about finding fated mates. You deserve to find a wolf that makes you feel like a queen.”
“I feel like a queen right now.” Sad as that was. Sitting on the floor with Bibi and the kids—while Marissa made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches assembly-line style to replace my burned mac and cheese, and Bjorn watched her with guarded amusement—was the most peaceful and orderly my life had been in a long time.
Bibi laughed. “Then we definitely have some work to do.”
“How are we going to pull this off? My babysitter bailed tonight. My house has been marked by my two tiny wolves. How will I convince a mate they want this?”
“By being you.”
She was determined to make me cry every last bit of emotion out tonight.
My she-wolf told me not to get my hopes up, but I was tired of mediocre. I wanted some of that sparkle that Bibi was more than ready to serve.
“I’m not sure who I am anymore.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Carter climbing Bjorn’s leg, and Caleb getting way too close to the camera. “Boys. No. Eat your sandwiches.”
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Bibi suggested.
“All of us? You’re underestimating how much time it takes to get three kids out of the house.”
Caleb turned to us. “Where are we going?”
