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I try to hold the top closed over my cleavage. “Maybe we need to put a button or—”
“A button? On a ceremonial robe?” She shakes her head. “Let’s not lead a fashion rebellion.”
“I know we’ve done things a certain way for a long time, but it’s not like buttons are a fad. We could probably adopt them and not risk the downfall of the pack,” I say with a derisive snort I can’t hold back.
“Your mate has to be able to take it off of you,” she says.
It’s all in a day’s work for her, but talking about the actual act of mating as part of the ceremony makes me profoundly uncomfortable, especially since we’re talking about Ashton being the guy doing the undressing. I try to laugh it off. “Look, I’m not going to claim my fiancé is the smartest guy ever, but I think he can handle buttons.”
Melissa’s expression falls, and suddenly I’m not sure we’re having the same conversation. Her eyes dart toward the curtain, hardly a soundproof barrier between us and the women beyond it, and she lowers her voice. “Do you know what happens at the mating ceremony?”
I shake my head slightly; if I move it too much, the dizziness is going to come back.
She breathes in sharply then goes back to adjusting the neckline of the garment. “We have plenty of room to let this out, so it closes all the way. Nobody wants to see a bride spilling out of her robe on the way to the chamber.”
That does nothing to make the dread go away. I zone out, staring at my own reflection in the mirror as Melissa tucks and pins and adjusts. I want nothing more than to rip the damn robe off and flee from the studio entirely, but the unspoken questions raised by this stranger’s remarks will just follow me.
When I’m appropriately covered, Melissa takes me out to display her handiwork to Mother and Mrs. Daniels—both of whom remark how unfortunate it is that I’ve gone up a size, like I’ve got a fatal disease—and they approve the changes that need to be made. I’m little more than a hanger.
After I’ve changed into my normal clothes again and we’re off to what promises to be a very awkward lunch with Mrs. Daniels, I pull my phone from my purse and text Tara.
You need to tell me everything about the mating ceremony.
The only thing I know about the ceremony is that the couples whose pacts are sealed at Lupercalia gather before Lupa’s monolith to be anointed with blood from the day’s sacrifices. Then, acolytes take them to the ancient chambers beneath the huge mound built by our ancestors. That’s where the spectators’ part is finished, and they all go off to enjoy the rest of the Lupercalia celebrations. Nobody has bothered to tell me what happens after I disappear down that torch-lit path to the mound.
Three little dots appear on my phone screen then vanish. They appear again, they vanish again, over and over as Mother complains to me about Mrs. Daniels’s coldness and how horrible it will be to sit down to a meal with her. I pretend to listen but it doesn’t matter. Mother will air her grievances to a blank wall, just so long as she can complain out loud.
Finally, Tara sends a return message. It just says:
I’ll come over tonight.
That doesn’t reassure me at all.
CHAPTER 14
I’m in my room when Tara arrives, and she chirps into the intercom that she’s coming up. Even as kids, we never had to share our space with each other, but we’re all in the same hall, which father referred to as “the girls’ wing.” Even though Tara and Clare have moved out, their bedrooms are still there, though they’ve been redecorated a bit to remove fairy lights and school trophies.
My door creaks open and I sit up on my bed, tossing aside my book. “Hey.”
“Hey,” she says, and sighs deeply, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocking on her heels.
“That bad, huh?” I try to laugh as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, but the mood in the room is somewhere between “right before you find out grandma died” and “the sex talk with your parents.”
Not that I’ve experienced either; our grandparents are all still alive and probably have a good hundred years left, and Mother has probably never even said the word “sex” out loud.
“You can sit down,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Stop acting like you’re here to break bad news.”
“I thought everything about your mating ceremony would be bad news,” she counters, heading toward the bed. She doesn’t sit down, but throws her whole body across the middle, pillowing her chin on her hands. “Especially after the whole dinner thing.”
