Werewolf Wedding(28)

“Commotion?” I wasn’t even trying not to scream anymore. “I told him I’d marry him or be a vita or whatever, and then that * rode a motorcycle through the window and broke that bottle of wine! What the hell is going on?”

“Master Somerset did say that werewolf lives are often complicated.”

“Am I supposed to laugh at that?”

“Humor for the sake of diffusing stress. It frequently gets me in trouble with my mate,” Barney shrugged.

“So you’re one too? I asked if you were!”

He nodded, watching Jake and Dane still circling one another.

“I never said I wasn’t.”

Exasperated, I balled up my fists and drove them into the small of my back. “Are you two just going to dance around all night?”

Both of them turned to me, and immediately the heat in my cheeks went up about eighty degrees. “Well! I just agreed to marry him! And now you show up for God knows what reason. I want this shit over with! Have it out, beat each other up again, do whatever you’re going to do, but right now you’re both just ruining my getting engaged. This is not how I imagined it!”

“She’s certainly something, all right,” Dane said in his cocky * voice. “I’ll give you that. Those hips, too.” He made a kissing noise. “I’m going to love taking her for my own. I don’t know what you’re going to do when she finds out about the challenge. You did tell her, didn’t you?”

Before that could process, Dane threw a punch that caught Jake square in the mouth, though Jake took it like nothing happened. “Get out,” he snarled.

And then, something started... happening.

“Oh dear,” Barney sighed. “I’d say you should look away, as the transformation process can be a bit jarring, but I suppose if you’re to be the vita... At least these two have been doing it for a good while, so it should be too—”

I squeaked something similar to a curse as my fiancé hunched over, his hands twisted and stretched, and the front of his head elongated into something halfway between a nose and a snout. He gnashed his teeth, threw back his now slate-gray head and unleashed a roar that shook the pumpkin nearest him on the table. He flung his head from left to right, roaring in what was either extreme pain, or maybe felt really good. Teeth became daggers, fingernails extended into black claws, and his already muscular body thickened with long, tight muscles.

The buttons of his beautiful, tailored shirt popped, one after another, and his tight slacks ripped up the side seam. Good thing I can sew, I guess.

And for some reason, he got extremely bad posture out of the whole deal. He hunched forward, muscles in his back apparent with each breath that expanded his lungs.

“You... want it your way?” he snapped. His voice was difficult to understand, as though he hadn’t spoken in quite a while and was getting back in practice. “Fine, brother. Leave her out of this.”

“But Jacob,” Dane had an obnoxious, lecturing mother tone in his voice. “She’s what all this is about. How can I leave my mate-to-be out of this? I’m going to murder you, claim her, and then take my rightful place as the head of this family and alpha of the pack.”

As I watched, Dane went through a similar process to Jake, although his seemed much easier – maybe he was more used to the whole thing? He seemed extremely comfortable in his half-lupine skin. His fur was inky black, just like his eyes. “Their eyes match their... uh... fur?”

There was a lump in my throat, which I had to swallow four or five times to push down. “I can’t believe I’m taking this all so well.”

“You’re in shock,” Barney said. “You’ll have a panic when the adrenaline passes. Also, no, eyes don’t match fur. Just a coincidence in their case. After all, I’d look rather silly with blue fur, wouldn’t I?”

“You’d look like my sister,” I said out the side of my mouth. “During one of her phases.”

He snorted a laugh. “I think you’ll do just fine. Don’t listen to Dane. He’s been a loudmouth since he was born.”

The two of them came together in a thud of flesh and bone. Somehow, the first casualty of all their thrashing and clawing wasn’t either of them, but one of the innocent soup pumpkins, which exploded in a shower of orange parts and delicious, creamy soup. The majority of the gourd’s contents splashed on Jake, who understandably had other things to worry about.

Dane caught him with a left hook that would have decapitated a normal person. Jake’s head wrenched sickeningly, but he seemed unhurt. He answered with a head butt that split Dane’s bottom lip and when he was momentarily stunned with pain, Jake kneed his brother in the diaphragm and then slammed the same knee straight into Dane’s face.

“I don’t feel well,” I said, sitting down hard on the cool marble tile of the kitchen. The room swam around me.

Barney grabbed a towel off one of the many ovens, wrung cool water out of it, and wrapped it loosely around my neck. Almost immediately the wave of nausea passed, but then when Dane answered Jake’s violence with an elbow to the side of Jake’s head that crunched like his skull cracked, the sensation of bile creeping up my esophagus reappeared. “I’m gonna puke,” I croaked.

Barney stroked my face with the towel and led me back, further into the kitchen, and well out of sight of my mate-to-be and his brother beating each other to death. It was the sounds though – the crunch the thud and the crash of fists into jaws and knees into stomachs – that really hit me.