"I am engaged!" I cough out.
"And we've established that you don't want to be, so that's one challenge overcome."
And once again, I'm being steamrolled by a man who thinks he can just have me.
Meanwhile, my body is still shouting, he can have you any time he wants! But the chemistry between Nathan and I isn't enough for me to walk from one cage into another.
"Changes need to be made here if this pack is going to survive," Nathan tells me. "You and I are the only werewolves in the allied packs to invoke the right in a hundred years. Imagine what we could do together."
I have imagined what we could do together. Just not in the way he's proposing.
"That way, too."
Is he reading my mind?
He must see my panic, because he explains, "Your scent. Let's drop the pretense. I know you want me. And I want you."
What's it called when everything swells up and you can't breathe? Anaphylaxis?
That, but for my pussy.
"Think about what I've said." He switches smoothly back into what sounds like a business conversation. "And the advantages I'm offering you."
"How romantic. Truly, the proposal every girl dreams of." I roll my eyes, and I don't know why, but I say, "I'll think about it."
"You'll agree," he says with a pleasant smile.
And that's it. That's the last we speak of it through a polite, if deeply weird, dinner. He asks me about my time in London, and tells me about his five years in Berlin, where he was exiled during his time away from the Greater London pack. We talk about the meal—the venison is delicious—and when it's over, he calls me a car and assures me that mine will be returned to my house before morning. He even shakes my hand at the door.
As we stand on the front steps of the mansion, he puts an arm around my waist and leans in to whisper in my ear. "Please don't take this chaste goodbye as an indication that I'm not interested; I am. But we have many nights ahead of us. I'm willing to wait."
He doesn't even try for a kiss. He's that's infuriatingly confident.
And I am so confused.
The Dixon family motto could easily be, "if it's uncomfortable, ignore it."
My dinner with Nathan last week is currently causing my family maximum discomfort, and their unwillingness to speak to me about it is such a blessing, I practically beam on the ride to brunch and my fitting for my ceremonial dress.
Still, my heart and head are divided. While I desperately want to believe Nathan can get me out of this mating pact, it's not as simple as, "I'm king, I can do what I want." He'll face the wrath of the pack and a red tape nightmare. There's no way Ashton and his family will let someone walk all over them so blatantly.
And I don't know Nathan at all. There's no guarantee he means what he says. Maybe he's that magnetic and disarming with every woman he meets. There could be any number of potential mates in the pack that he's considering; there's no reason for me to believe otherwise, especially when rumors are swirling that he's in love with the former queen.
Still, if he's serious, dissolution of the mating pact could be tied up in council for months, even years. Ashton could just get tired of waiting and walk away. At the very least, it will postpone my sentence for a while.
For centuries, one particular family of thralls has been responsible for creating our ceremonial garb. They don't have a storefront; werewolves and humans alike need to be of a certain social station to know how to find R. F. Frobisher Tailoring and Dressmaking in their unmarked studio on Bloor Street West. Our driver lets us out in front of the building, and we make our way up to the eleventh floor. The elevator doors open on a crisp white lobby, where a receptionist greets us and directs us to a seating area currently occupied by my hopefully not-future-mother-in-law.
"Mrs. Daniels," I say politely, sitting beside my mother on the opposing white sofa.
Mrs. Daniels has a flute of champagne on the chic glass coffee table between us, but it appears untouched. She clutches her Launer bag by the handles so tightly that were she not wearing black leather gloves, her knuckles would no doubt be white. The corners of her harsh mouth are turned down and her flat, aristocratic face is pinched with fury at the sight of us.
"Vivianne," she says, nodding to my mother.
There's no greeting for me.
"The traffic was simply abysmal," Mother says, as if small talk will somehow break the ice around us. But this isn't ordinary social ice. This is the thick, unbreakable kind that shuts down nautical passage.
Mrs. Daniels blinks. "I wouldn't know. Our driver brought me."
She knows damn well that we have a chauffer, too, but I love the way the remark lashes back at my mother. If anyone has the right to change the tone of the meeting, it's Mrs. Daniels, and she's not about to relinquish that control.
Before I can mentally gloat too much, I remember that I might be stuck at family dinners with her for the rest of my life. Maybe she'll stay mad forever and I'll never have to speak to her.
The doors to the studio open and a thin East Asian man dressed in all black calls "Daniels?"
Ashton's mother leads the way, but my stomach sinks at the realization that this reservation was made under my married name. As free and hopeful as my transgressive meeting with Nathan made me, I still have to play the role of Ashton's fiancé. I put on my peppiest smile and resolve to look every bit the excited mate-to-be. It might make my worst-case scenario future more tolerable if I can win Mrs. Daniels over now, instead of after-the-fact.
"I'm Stephen," the man who leads us down the stark white hall says. "You must be the bride?"
"That's me." As we walk, I sneak glimpses at a few of the open doors we pass. Bolts of fabric, drafting tables, a mundane conference room, it's all so normal. I don't know what I was expecting, but thralls fascinate me; a society living symbiotically with ours, as removed from the human world as we are, and still totally secret? It seems like it should have a little more panache, a little more mystery.
"You're going to be meeting with Melissa today," Stephen explains, pausing outside a set of frosted glass double doors. "She's one of our top designers."
Mrs. Daniels is taken aback. "We were supposed to be with Alexis."
"Sadly, Alexis has been called away on royal business," Stephen says, and he doesn't sound sad about it at all. "You'll be meeting with Melissa. As I said, she's one of our top designers."
His no-nonsense delivery shuts Mrs. Daniels's dropped jaw and I have to hold back a snort of laughter. Did Nathan do this on purpose? Maybe I'm giving him too much credit. Either way, it's pretty funny to see my mating pact once again meddled with by the very existences of the new pack leader.
Stephen opens the doors to a bright, sun-flooded studio with light polished wood floors and trim and tidy workstations. A dressmaker's form on a short circular platform wears an intricately beaded ceremonial robe of dusky pink silk that freezes the breath in my lungs.
"Just as you remember?" a voice asks, and I turn to face the source, a dark-skinned woman with slicked-back white hair and dramatic smoky makeup, who looks like she should be costuming superheroes in a movie instead of making wedding gowns for werewolves.
I nod, my whole body numb as I turn back to the robe. I do remember it. At least, I remember something like it. Rough, unfinished pieces of it basted together the first time I came to try it on. That had been just a month before I invoked the Right of Accord, when my mating ceremony had been only a few full moons away.
I walk around the garment slowly, feeling dizzy and faint. How could I have forgotten? The business changed locations while I've been away, but somehow, being fitted for my own wedding dress slipped my mind. Maybe that isn't the right phrase; maybe it's more like a repressed memory. It was truly traumatic, standing there as my Mother and Mrs. Daniels debated whether the sash should tie in the front or at the side, whether the color washed me out.
All those feelings crash over me again. I've only delayed the trap laid for me by destiny.
Meanwhile, Mother gasps and coos over the beadwork, the sweeping angel sleeves and tall, structured collar, while Mrs. Daniels eyes Melissa coolly.
"Alexis has done a wonderful job with it," Mrs. Daniels says pointedly.
"It's truly an exquisite piece," Melissa agrees, not giving Mrs. Daniels anything to argue with. Then, Melissa turns to me. "But it was created with a much different bride in mind, I hear."
Before I can answer, Mrs. Daniels cuts in. "The same bride. It's the ceremony that's been delayed. My son isn't interested in paying for a new robe to match whatever new person this one has become."
"This one?" Mother's offense surprises me, considering she has much the same opinion of my leaving as Mrs. Daniels has.
"Shall we try it on?" Melissa suggests, and I nod, a pit in my stomach as she carefully undresses the mannequin and leads me to the curtained-off changing area.
The collar and shoulders of the robe are stiff, starched into unforgiving lines. Melissa frowns as she ties the sash. "You've gained some weight since the last time we measured you."