Werewolf Wedding(66)

Dane snarled and gave a sour look to the bald monster to his left. “Let me go,” he said with a hollow, defeated voice.

With one last look at Jake, Dane turned around, and did exactly as he was told. He was limping slightly, but he didn’t waste any time in making tracks.

“There,” Jake said with a smile and then turned to the crowd. “Now who’s ready for a marking? Who’s ready for a real party?”

What had been a chant for blood only minutes before turned to a chorus of voices calling for a marking. I guess no one really did care what happened, as long as something did.





-21-


“That... was certainly something.”





-Delilah


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“I’m not just a butler, you know,” Barney said with a sly grin. “I’m also the second oldest wolf in the pack. And since Greta is related to him, pack law says I perform the ceremony. I hope that’s okay with you?”

I just smiled. The whole thing was over the top, the whole thing was ridiculous and wonderful and bizarre all rolled up into one delicious, lupine jelly roll. Which I know sounds dumb, but when you’re standing on a dais with a busted up, sweaty, long-haired, muscle bound, naked werewolf? You think a lot of stupid things.

“No,” I said. “Of course not. But I’ve just got jeans on. That’s not very formal, is it? Shouldn’t I wear something nicer?”

“My shirts torn up, barely hanging together. My pants are shredded below the knee, and my mate-to-be is worried about looking nice. God, I couldn’t possibly be more in love with this woman.”

Jake shot me one of those knee-melting looks as he pulled his ragged clothes back on. In the deepening dusk, his eyes glittered with the moon’s light. His hair thrown back over his shoulders caught some of the quicksilver sheen.

A voice from behind me piped up. “All I’m missing is the giant ice cube she said she’d carve.” It was Greta, but the ones that joined afterward came from most everyone. A chorus of the most honest, raucous laughter I’ve ever heard rose up. The mood of the entire group seemed to shift when Dane was gone, even from the few who’d followed him in the past.

“Next time?” I asked, turning around and trying not to cry. “I promise I’ll make the biggest, gaudiest wolf ice sculpture the world’s ever seen for the next one that comes along.”

“Deal,” she said with a wink. “Now get on with it, you two have more important things to do than to entertain a bunch of gawking wolves.”

A blush crept down my neck. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Hoo boy,” Jeannie said, ruffled up but unhurt. “Does she ever have someone... er, I mean, something better to do. Jake,” she said, “do you do that wolf thing when you do it? Or is that just a fighting thing?”

“Depends on how good it is,” he said without missing a beat. “If it’s a real toe curling go, then the fur can definitely come out. You’ll find out all about it if you hang around here long enough.”

She was staring at him, wide-eyed and in awe. The last time I’d seen Jeannie speechless was when she got a six hundred dollar combination speeding, red light running, and no insurance ticket. “Huh?” she asked after a moment.

“You fit in pretty well with all of us rough and tumble wolves.” He grabbed her shoulder and smiled. “Stick around. You belong here, just like she does. That is, if you want to be here.”

“Are you kidding?” Jeannie said with a smile. “You’re telling me I’ve got a chance to get with a calendar hunk werewolf, and then you turn around and ask if I want to be here? I was willing to get in between that brother of yours and you. I was going to get my head torn off to get between the pair of you. Ask her, I’m not lying.”

“No,” I said. “She certainly is not lying. This woman would do pretty much anything to get herself a big ol’ lunk of a werewolf.”

Jeannie let out a long, trailing sigh. “It’s true.”

After another long interlude of laughter and cheers, we all took our places. Barney stood at the front, with Jake and I on either side. Jeannie and Greta flanked us, one on either side in a sort of bridesmaid way.

“Music?” he asked someone at the back.

Expecting a bunch of organ honks and some hymns, I was both surprised and delighted when instead of the somber, normal human wedding music, we got some guitar solo and a pounding drum beat.

“I feel like I should be going to a wrestling ring,” I said out the side of my mouth. Jeannie giggled at first, trying to stifle it, but apparently everyone else in my immediate vicinity heard too. That’s when I found out that when he thinks something is really funny, Jake, my beautiful wolf, the alpha of this pack, both in-laughs and snorts.

“Real dignified,” I said with a grin as he turned first red and then slightly purple from laughing.

“All right, all right,” Barney said. “Simmer down. Let’s get this marking on the road. These two kids don’t want to be here all night.”

“Damn right,” Jeannie added.

More laughs. It seemed like I really did belong. All the laughing and the cheering and the total inability to care what someone was wearing fit me perfectly. That’s when it hit me. I hadn’t just found a mate, I realized as I stared into Jake’s eyes. Someone had lit a fire – a big one – a few minutes before, and the orange light bathed both the dais and reflected in his eyes. “I’m home,” I whispered.