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I sipped the tea and looked out the window, wondering when my stepbrothers and my mother would get here. I was hoping maybe I could make a last-minute appeal to my mother and ask her to talk Esteban into cancelling the deal somehow. I was going to die if she didn’t—I was almost sure of that.
Once Moncrieff discovered I was no longer a virgin, I would be pushed down the stairs or drowned in the bathtub or electrocuted in some freak accident with a hairdryer falling into the shower. And then I would be grave number six in the little burial plot in the corner of the nasty old man’s estate.
As I watched out the window, a convoy of expensive looking cars and trucks drove up the long drive leading to the mansion.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, my heart skipping a beat. “I think they’re here! My mother and my stepbrothers are here!”
“Isn’t that nice, dearie?” Crenshella said placidly, coming to stand beside me and peer out the large window. “Are you finished with that tea? Then I’ll take the cup—just mind your veil,” she said, taking the empty teacup from me.
I gave it to her without looking—my eyes were glued to the cars below. I saw five or six Alphas get out and then my stepfather, Esteban, exited the back of a black Cadillac Escalade. But why was he alone? Where was my mother? Where were my stepbrothers?
Then, coming out of the driver’s side and the passenger side, I saw Gabriel and Christopher. Gabriel must have been driving because he slipped the keys into the pocket of the gray suit he was wearing. Christopher was wearing a black suit—both of them looked somber, I thought.
“Christopher! Gabriel!” I shouted, waving and knocking at the window, but neither of them looked up. I saw them head for the front door and I turned to go meet them—only to be blocked by Crenshella.
“Now just where do you think you’re going, dearie?” she asked, frowning.
“To see my brothers!” I exclaimed. “Let me go—I have to see them!”
“I’m afraid not,” Crenshella said sternly. “Master Moncrieff has given strict orders that no one is to see you before the ceremony—it’s terrible bad luck for people to see the bride too early, you know.”
I stamped my foot impatiently.
“No! I need to see them now! I need to ask them—”
I stopped short. I couldn’t tell her that I needed to ask my stepbrothers why they hadn’t come for me—why they had left me languishing in this awful mausoleum of a house, fearing for my life.
“You need to ask them what, dearie?” Crenshella cocked one gray eyebrow at me.
“I need…I need to ask them where my mother is,” I said at last. “I miss her so much and I haven’t seen her in ages!”
“Well, you’ll see them all at the reception, after the ceremony,” she said comfortingly. “And what an exciting reception the Master has planned! Why, do you know he hired a special DJ just for you? He comes highly recommended—he’ll be the only non-Were at the party, which might be a problem if there was a full moon out tonight.” She let out a cackling laugh. “But of course, there isn’t—we’re a week from the next full moon so the human DJ will be just fine.”
I didn’t care about the human DJ or how good he was or how special the reception was going to be—I just wanted to see my stepbrothers! I wanted desperately to beg them to stop the ceremony somehow—to keep me from marrying Moncrieff. But Crenshella was standing firmly between me and the door.
I dodged around her, determined that no one was going to stop me—only to find Colonel Brazier posted right outside my door. He gave me a very unfriendly look when I put my head out. He’d been angry with me ever since he’d gotten into trouble for letting me wash the blood off my skin the night of the rescue.
“Aren’t you supposed to be hidden away until the ceremony?” he said flatly.
“Yes, but I have to see my brothers and my mother!” I exclaimed. “I have to see them now.”
“I’m afraid I just got word that your mother didn’t come,” he said, frowning. “Something about complications with her pregnancy? She’s apparently been put on bed rest.”
“What? My mom isn’t even here?” I asked faintly. I’d been so sure she would come—it was her last chance to see me and my last chance to beg her to intervene and stop the wedding.
“Afraid not,” Colonel Brazier said shortly. “As for your brothers and your father, you can see them at the reception. Right now the ceremony’s about to start so you can’t go down until you’re called for.”
I wanted to argue with him, but I could see it was no use. He was already pissed off at me for getting him into trouble my very first night here—he wasn’t going to let me bend any rules on his watch. I thought about trying to dodge around him like I had Crenshella—I would have if I wasn’t wearing the wedding dress. All he would have to do was stomp down on the train dragging behind me to stop me in my tracks.
