Mercy Thompson 06 - River Marked

“My, but you are going to have your hands full with Jesse, aren’t you? A little over three days, and she has the whole thing organized.”
    “Three?” I said. “We just decided to elope yesterday.”
    He smiled at me and kissed my forehead. “I heard about it on Saturday.” Before Adam returned from the East Coast.
    I glanced at Jesse—who smiled brightly at me, and mouthed, “Surprise.” Then I took a real look around. While we waited for Adam, the church foyer had been acquiring a festive air as people brought out boxes with flowers and wide white ribbons—and if I wasn’t mistaken, a few of the fae were using magic to add their own touch.
    I wore my wedding dress, purchased the month before. I’d thought it would be odd, with such a quick ceremony, but since I already had the dress—a great frothy thing from the waist down and formfitting white silk on top with narrow sleeves—Jesse had decided I should wear it. And Jesse had chosen to wear her bridesmaid gown because “What else would I wear?” I hadn’t been suspicious at all, probably because I loved the dress and would have accepted any excuse to wear it.
    Someone opened the chapel doors so people could go sit down, but there were a lot of people already seated. Not just wolves and fae—I could see some of Adam’s business contacts and some of my regular customers at the garage. Gabriel, my right hand at the garage, and Tony, my contact with the Kennewick Police Department, were sitting next to each other. I took a step closer to the chapel, trying to see everyone Jesse had made come to my elopement. There were a lot of them.
    Samuel held me back as the foyer emptied until it was just us, Jesse, and Darryl—and the organ began to play Wagner.
    Jesse, on Darryl’s arm, led the procession toward the mouth of the sacrament hall. She paused there, to let my sisters Nan and Ruthie, who’d evidently been hiding just inside the chapel doors where I couldn’t see them, lead the way, escorted by Warren and Ben, another of Adam’s wolves.
    At the front of the chapel, Adam waited for me next to the minister.
    I blinked back tears, sniffed—and Samuel dropped my arm.
    I looked over to see what he was doing, but another man had taken his place.
    “Zee wanted to have the honor of giving you away,” said Bran, Samuel’s father, the Marrock who ruled all the wolves anywhere I was likely to ever go, and the Alpha of the Montana-based wolf pack who had raised me. “But I had prior claim.”
    “They argued for a good while,” Samuel whispered. “I thought there would be blood on the floor.”
    I glanced in the church and realized that a lot of the Montana pack I’d grown up with were here. Charles, Samuel’s brother, sitting next to his mate, smiled at me. Charles seldom if ever smiled.
    About that time, humiliatingly, I started to cry.
    Bran leaned closer as we walked slowly, and said in a bare whisper that didn’t carry beyond us, “Before you start feeling overwhelmed by how nice we all are to do this for you, you really should know a few things. It all started with a bet ...”
    When we lined up in the front of the church, as smoothly as if we’d practiced it, Bran was right: I wasn’t overwhelmed anymore. Nor was I crying. Nan, Ruthie, and Jesse stood on my side of the church, along with Bran, who still had my hand. Darryl, Warren, and Ben lined up on the other side, next to Adam.
    My mother, the traitor seated in the front row of pews, sent my stepfather up to pin a silk Monarch butterfly on my bouquet. He kissed my cheek, exchanged a nod with Bran, then sat back down at my mother’s side. My mother gave me a delighted smile and looked nothing at all like the nefarious plotter she was.
    “Balloons,” I mouthed at her, raising an eyebrow to show what I thought of her subterfuge.
    She discreetly pointed up—and there, clinging to the ceiling, were dozens of gold balloons with silk butterflies tied to the strings.
    At my side, Bran laughed—no doubt at my dumbfounded expression.
    “Like the fae,” he murmured, “your mother doesn’t lie. Just leads you where she wants you to go willy-nilly, all for your own good. If it helps, you are not alone; she came to me with a coyote pup to raise, and look what happened to me. At least you don’t owe her a hundred dollars.”
    “Serves you right for betting against my mother,” I told him, as the music drew to a close, and he led me across to Adam.
    Bran stopped just short, pulled me