Chapter 40 Dakota
Dakota
“Those vagabonds from the woods clean up nicely,” Kosuke told me, standing next to me at my wedding reception, and I did not sigh at him.
Much.
He had improved, but he was always going to be that old-fashioned elder family member, I supposed.
“Just because they’re not rich like us doesn’t make them—”
“Yes, yes,” he agreed. “They’re fine as they are. I’m simply saying that the Russian alpha boy looks very good in the tuxedo your mate gave him. Does he have any idea how much it cost?”
I scoffed at the very notion. Aleks wouldn’t have accepted such an extravagant gift if he’d known what a Versace tuxedo cost. Probably more than the house he lived in was worth.
On the other hand, maybe he could sell it after the wedding and buy something useful for his pack.
Or not, because who would buy a used tuxedo with shoulders that broad? A football player, maybe, but I figured they could afford their own suits.
It was good to see him there, though. Him and Cash and his mother Katya and a silent man who followed him everywhere, whom I assumed was the gray wolf from the night of the challenge, Viktor.
Clearly, Aleks’s pack was very protective of him, and I couldn’t help but see it as a good sign. Most of them had been uncomfortable around Grant.
It was odd, wearing a suit and with his hair styled, Cash suddenly reminded me of a young Elvis. Very handsome in his own right, and clearly, Aleks knew it.
He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the nervous man.
“Who is this?” Kosuke asked, an actual note of interest in his voice, more than the amusement he was giving for most of the wedding guests. I looked up to find that Igarashi Minori had just arrived.
She’d missed the wedding itself because of a delayed flight, and spent almost an hour apologizing to me over the phone for it, but even as a mage, she couldn’t control planes, so I’d had no complaints.
Besides, she’d been cutting a business meeting in Hong Kong short in order to come at all, and how could I complain about that?
My cousin was awesome, and I was thrilled to see her.
“That’s Minori,” I told him. “She’s Jiro’s younger sister.”
Kosuke’s eyes narrowed, and he looked over to me. “The cousin who murdered your parents? And you invited her to your wedding?”
“She didn’t kill my parents. Her brother did.
Minori is the best. Honestly, she’s one of my favorite family members, other than my grandmother.
Who would be your granddaughter, if I remember my family history correctly.
” Casually, I leaned back and toward him, lowering my voice.
“Minori’s the person who’s acting head of the family.
Should be head of the family, but a bunch of stodgy old men don’t think she can hack it.
Even though she singlehandedly saved her family’s dealings with my pack. ”
He turned and stared at me, eyes narrowed all the way to slits. “Is that right?”
“Dakota,” Minori exclaimed as she reached me. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
I turned to face her, smiling. “Please. I’m impressed that you made it at all.
And grateful. You’re one of my favorite family members.
Plus Obaasan told me how the council was harassing you about how a ‘real’ head of family could easily take on every meeting and get to my wedding as well.
” I looked her over, effortlessly stunning in a pale gold silk dress.
“Which you have clearly done, and in style. That dress is gorgeous.”
She blushed and ducked her head, then sighed. “They really are insufferable. Kenji told me that if I couldn’t handle it, I should step down and save them the trouble. As though being in two places at once is easily overcome if only you have enough willpower.”
“Kenji,” Kosuke said, frowning. “Like that little weasel Tanaka Kenji?”
Minori . . . turned to face him, blinking. “He . . . is, yes. He is Tanaka Kenji.”
I lifted a brow, frowning. “Was that his, maybe, grandfather’s name, too? Great-grandfather?”
She hesitated, considering, then nodded. “I believe they do pass it down as a family name. Why?” Then she glanced back to Kosuke, frowning, like something was wrong but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.
It made sense, because since we’d started bonding, he had also started to seem more corporeal to me. Assuming she saw him as I did, he was just a handsome young Japanese man in somewhat old-fashioned clothing.
He was scowling now. “Why is he on the Igarashi council? The Kenji I knew was bad enough. He was a compulsive exaggerator. I’d have never let him sit his worthless ass on my council. And his family are minor powers. Barely related to us and weak of magic.”
Minori just stared at him for a second, then turned to me, stunned.
Before she could say what she was thinking, she seemed to think of something else and turned back to Kosuke.
“Grandmother always says he lied his way onto the council, and we should see him out in favor of someone better suited to the position. I just . . . never thought I could do that.”
Kosuke scoffed. “Acting head or actual, it’s your council. You can call for a vote to remove anyone.”
Before she could ask who the hell he was and how he knew it, I cleared my throat. “Minori, this is the ghost of our great-great-grandfather, Igarashi Kosuke. He came home with me, and he’s been . . . teaching me.”
Kosuke turned and lifted a brow at me, but then smiled. “It’s been interesting, getting to know the new generation. The world has changed quite a lot.”
“Less in Japan,” Minori said with a sigh and a rueful smile.
Kosuke crossed his arms over his chest. “Then perhaps, it’s time for me to return home and help you change that.” They turned to walk off together, and the last thing I heard from him was, “Tanaka Kenji indeed.”
“Are you all right?” Jax asked, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around me.
I turned my face up to look at him, and heard a camera clicking somewhere in the background.
“I’m amazing, actually. See, I got married today.”
He smiled back. “To anyone in particular?”
“To the best alpha any pack has ever had.” I leaned into him, taking a deep sniff of the rose in his front pocket, and more, of the man himself under the layers of silk and wool. “Best night of my life, the night I met him.”
He chuckled. “That’s funny, I heard it was a one-night stand.”
“Mmm,” I agreed. “One night, one lifetime, who can tell the difference?”
We drifted there, swaying slightly to the music, as our pack and the whole Crescent family danced and drank and were merry all around us. And the Idaho Wildwood pack. And a few select members of my blood family.
“Oh,” I said, only half present. “Kosuke might be taking his leave.”
Jax hummed in response, then seemed to realize what I’d said. “I thought you two had worked things out, and Prudence wasn’t looking for a way to put him to bed anymore?”
“We did. Just . . .” I lifted my chin in the direction of the bar, where Minori was ordering, clearly deep in conversation with Kosuke.
Which, to anyone who wasn’t me, or apparently her, or maybe that strange stoic wolf who stood by Aleks like a guardian, would look like she was talking to no one at all.
“I think maybe he’s found a member of his family who needs his guidance more than I do. ”
He grinned, and it was a little on the evil side. “Oh that’s good. I’ll bet with his help she can clean house over there.”
“Exactly. But we’ll worry about that later. How is Seth?”
I asked because his best friend had been utterly panicked not so long ago, and had texted Jax from the men’s room, which was why he’d left me alone on our wedding day.
Jax nodded toward the hallway that led to the restrooms, where Seth stood, still looking sweaty and nervous.
“I think I should probably put him out of his misery,” he whispered, and I nodded in return.
“Best to just jump right in, when you’re going to panic until it’s done.”
So he took me by the hand and led me up to the stage where the band was playing, and when the song ended, motioned toward the singer. She grinned at him, giving a questioning look, and he nodded.
She turned to the crowd and announced, “So, Crescent folk and guests, it seems that we have someone here tonight who has a very special question for an even more special someone in attendance.”
People started looking around, confused, because this had not been planned to death in every detail like the wedding itself. They’d known months ahead of time everything from the times to the menu, but this?
This had just been Seth, coming to Jax and asking if it was okay to do it at our wedding, and Jax and I both giving our full-throated support.
In the middle of the dance floor, people started backing away, making space, when they realized that Seth was trying to press his way through the crowd. When he dropped to one knee behind Maia, she froze, clearly having heard the noise and realized everyone nearby was staring at her.
The singer grinned at her. “Maia? Seth has a question to ask you.”
A moment later Maia was sobbing and nodding, and Seth was swooping her up into his arms and spinning her around the dance floor.
The singer cheered, and the band started into a slow song. She leaned down toward us, holding the microphone away from her lips. “Love the weddings where everyone loves each other this much. You guys call us anytime, yeah?”
Jax nodded, then pulled me into his arms, sweeping me onto the floor to dance near Seth and Maia, to the band’s rendition of the immortal Platters song, Only You.
It couldn’t have been any more true.