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.