Ben smiled at her. “Anytime you want to change that ...”

I poked him in the side—he could have slipped out of the way, but he didn’t bother.

“Okay,” he said, backing away with

exaggerated fear. “I’ll be good, I promise. Just don’t hurt me again.”

He was loud enough that all the people around us looked at us.

Adam pushed his way through the pack and ruffled Ben’s hair as he went by him. “Behave, Ben.”

The Ben I’d first met would have snarled and pulled away from the affectionate scold. This one grinned at me, and said, “Not if I can help it, I won’t,” to Adam.

I liked Ben. But if I catch him alone in a room with Ruthie or Jesse, I will shoot him without hesitation. He’s better than he was when he first came to Adam’s pack, but he’s not safe. Some part of him still hates women, still looks upon us as prey. As long as that is true, he needs watching.

“I have someone I’d like you to meet,” Adam told me, with a nod to Nan.

He took my hand and led me past the giant wedding cake. It was a beautiful thing of blue and white flowers and silver bells—and despite having been cut and served to everyone here, it was still huge. Someone else had ordered it for another wedding and hadn’t paid for it, which was the only way—Jesse had told me—that she’d managed the cake. Whoever had originally ordered it must have been planning a much bigger wedding than this one. I glanced at the crowded basement and tried to imagine a bigger wedding.

“Quick, now,” Adam told me, and tugged me out the side door and up the back stairs. “We’re escaping.”

We made it out to the parking lot without seeing anyone else. Adam’s truck, inexplicably attached to a huge goosenecked travel trailer that looked bigger than the mobile home I’d lived in until this winter, when the fairy queen burned it to the ground, awaited us, poised for a quick getaway.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked, as Adam boosted me in through the driver’s side, got in behind me, and started the truck before he had the door closed.

“Some of the fae have an odd idea of bride send-offs,” he explained, as I wiggled over to the passenger seat and he guided the truck out of the parking lot, “including, according to Zee, kidnapping. We decided not to chance Bran’s feelings should such a thing happen, and Zee promised to run interference for us until we were off.”

“I forgot about that.” And I was appalled because I knew better. “Bran and Samuel are probably more of a danger than any of the fae,” I told him. “Someday, I’ll tell you about some of the more spectacular wedding antics Samuel’s told me about.” Some of them made kidnapping look mild.