CHAPTER THIRTY
Kayla
The Witch Bitches show up an hour before the ceremony and hurry me upstairs to my bedroom.
Jasmine throws open my closet with a flourish. “What are you wearing?”
“Whatever I want. Shadow wants me to be comfortable. We’re so not going to repeat the Weddingpocalypse.”
Victoria slams my closet door closed, but Jasmine rolls her eyes and reopens it.
“We need more to go on than comfortable.” Violeta pushes aside a bunch of slogan tees to get to the things I’ve shoved into the back.
“He says handfastings are often done in a person’s best clothes,” I say. “So whatever that is.”
“You don’t know?” Skye says.
“I haven’t really explored my wardrobe selections since moving here, because there weren’t any guys. No guys, no dates, no fancy clothes.” I give a quick shrug. It was dry as shit around here until the fae arrived. “But I have a few dresses from Seattle.”
“This is cute.” Violeta pulls out a purple summer dress.
“Super cute,” Autumn says.
“I don’t know.” I take the hanger and hold the dress up to my body. The skirt covers everything, but my legs are so long it always looks like I’m about to flash everyone. “Isn’t it kind of short for a wedding?”
Since Jasmine’s still rooting around the closet, Victoria bangs the connecting door to get my attention.
Words appear on the magical parchment. “It’s definitely too short.”
“Okay, I’m wearing this one!” I say. If Victoria’s going to lock me up whenever she throws a tantrum, then I should get to wear what I want.
“Do you like these shoes?” Jasmine holds up a pair of pretty sandals.
“I do.” I strip off my robe and let Hannah pull the dress over my head. “But we’re not wearing shoes. We’re supposed to go barefoot.”
“That’s how the orcs do it in Faerie.” Naomi nods, setting her brown curls bobbing. “Both people are barefoot.”
“I guess I had the fancy handfasting.” Hannah laughs.
“Yep.” Autumn points at her. “That’s what marrying a king will get you.”
Violeta does my makeup again, Skye brushes out my hair, and in no time at all, I twirl in front of the mirror, making the skirt flare up enough to flash a lot of thigh. I always liked this dress. It fits well but doesn’t cling, and it shows off my thighs and makes my legs look fantastic.
As I pass the parchment on the way out of the room, Victoria writes, “I still can’t believe you’re not going to wear shoes.”
I wave the rest of the women on, then turn back to the parchment. “You’re getting your wedding ceremony, just like the fine print demands.” I wag a finger. “And you need to stop complaining about fae traditions. Just because they’re different from the ones you’re used to doesn’t make them wrong.”
A sulky feeling fills the air.
I take a deep breath and remember Shadow’s idea to treat Victoria like a child who doesn’t yet have much emotional maturity. “Look, when you say things like that, you might hurt people’s feelings. You don’t want to make Shadow sad, do you? Or Moonlight or Mist?”
“No.” The word appears slowly, but it appears.
“So no more negative talk about the ceremony.”
“But it’s the last wedding.” A shiver of sadness goes through the air. “It should be something I like.”
“How do you know you won’t like it? Hannah and Severin’s handfasting was lovely.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.” Okay, I would, but only about getting dicked down by Shadow, which wouldn’t be any of her business if she hadn’t tricked us with the fine print, so I don’t feel bad.
The atmosphere brightens, and I give the wall a pat before heading downstairs.
When I reach the entryway, Dewdrop leaps off his living room perch to land in my arms. “You look so pretty! You’re purple like me!”
I press a kiss to the top of his head. “It is the best color.”
He flies ahead of me down the hall, and Victoria opens the back door for him.
Shadow meets me there, looking as gorgeous as ever in black leather pants and a linen shirt, his long hair loose. Like me, he’s barefoot.
“My witchy beauty.” He offers me his arm along with a pleased smile. “You are a vision.”
When I take it, we walk arm in arm along the aisle to the arbor.
Our friends and his family fill the backyard, with the extra addition of Naomi’s husband, Wranth, a tall, handsome orc who looks even grumpier than Thorvinn, which I didn’t think was possible.
Everyone wears nice clothes that still look comfortable, which is good, since the audience stands for a handfasting.
Dewdrop lands beside the kittens, and they all make excited noises when we pass.
We stop in front of the arbor and stand facing each other with one set of hands clasped. Shadow pulls out a silver ribbon and opens his mouth to—
“I don’t understand why this is fake,” Wisp whispers, but her high-pitched voice carries, so it’s more like a whisper-yell.
“Me either,” Slate says, equally as loud.
Dawn adds, “Bipeds are weird.”
Chuckles ripple across the backyard.
“It’s not fake,” Dewdrop says. “It’s pretend. There’s a difference.”
“Oh, so it’s like a game,” Wisp says. “I love games.”
The other kittens nod, then stare up at us with expectant looks.
Slate whispers, “Why hasn’t it started yet?”
Another round of chuckles goes through the audience at the kittens being so oblivious to the fact that their antics caused the delay.
“See? Weird.”
“Ahem,” Shadow says, then turns his attention to me.
He lays the middle of the ribbon over our hands.
Victoria scrolls the words of the traditional handfasting across her parchment for him to read.
“Kayla, I bind my life to yours that we may be one for the rest of our days.” He wraps one end of the ribbon around our hands.
“Through strife and famine, through joy and prosperity, we will together face everything life brings.” He wraps another turn.
Even after the kittens’ reminder that all of this is fake, his words resonate inside of me. How I wish for them to be true! I want that kind of life with him, one that will last the test of time.
Then it’s my turn. Picking up the other end of the ribbon, I read, “Shadow, I bind my life to yours that we may be one for the rest of our days.” I circle our hands with my end of the ribbon.
“Through strife and famine, through joy and prosperity, we will together face everything life brings.” I go around again, binding our hands together.
“Now kiss,” Victoria orders.
“Did she add that, or is it part of a traditional handfasting?” I whisper.
Shadow uses our bound hands to tug me closer, his green eyes glittering with amusement. “Does it matter?”
Then his mouth covers mine, and I have to admit it doesn’t matter one tiny bit why we’re kissing.
We throw another cookout, but make it fae-style. Under Wranth and Thorvinn’s directions, the men roast a boar on a metal spit over a fire pit, with Luke shooting small, controlled balls of flame into the animal’s chest cavity to speed things along.
“Where in the world did you get a whole boar?” I ask. There aren’t any in the woods around Ferndale Falls.
“Ah, that’s the thing. It didn’t come from this world.” Shadow smirks. “Naomi and Wranth brought it from Alarria.”
All of the Witch Bitches brought something, so we’ve got coleslaw, mac and cheese, and potato salad as well as Key lime pie, double-chocolate brownies, and cherry cobbler for dessert. I make corn on the cob and a large bowl of fruit salad, figuring other people than Dewdrop might like some.
Thorvinn provides ale and cider, and Shadow practices making iced mochas, now that I’ve shown him the coffee-ice-cube trick.
Soon everybody’s eating and talking and having a fantastic time.
I join the other Witch Bitches, and as a group we scope out what the guys do when Jasmine walks over to the food table, where she makes a slow production of looking over all the sides before adding another spoonful of coleslaw to her plate. She makes her way back to us. “Well?”
“Thorvinn looked,” Skye says.
“Looked? He watched you like a hawk the whole time!” Violeta squints her eyes and mimics looking around avidly while the rest of us laugh.
“Your turn.” Jasmine elbows Violeta.
The shorter woman glides across the grass, going straight for the corn on the cob. She lifts it to her mouth and takes a firm bite, and the tankard Jace holds freezes solid and bursts into fragments when he squeezes it too tightly.
Violeta smiles triumphantly when she returns. “Did you see that?”
“Everyone saw it,” I say. “People on the International Space Station saw it.” Okay, probably not, because of the town’s protection spell, but still, it was really flipping obvious.
I get some more potato salad and join Shadow and his family.
“Having fun?” He grins down at me.
“Yeah.” And I mean it. This is really nice.
“The food is amazing,” Mist says.
Moonlight agrees. “So many flavors and textures. I see what you mean about our fae forms, my son.”
The kittens look up from their roast boar and beg to try everything.
With Shadow’s approval, I spoon three little piles of mac and cheese onto a plate and let them each take a bite.
“Whoa!” “I want more!” “What is that?”
“That’s cheese.” He grins down at them. “It’s one of the very best reasons to shift, and you can have more once you do.”
He crouches and lets them set their front paws on his arm, then shifts rapidly between werepanther and fae, his magic singing through the air.
With a tiny pop of power, Wisp shifts into a werekitten. “Whoa!” She jerks upright as her center of gravity changes until she stands on two feet. She’s absolutely adorable with a cute little toddler tummy, and all the long fur makes her look a lot rounder than the adult werepanthers.
“Wisp, that’s amazing!” Shadow smiles down at her, eyes shining with pride, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing, continuing to shift so the other kittens can feel his magic.
Slate and Dawn start making their little grunting sounds of effort, and I share an amused glance with Mist as both of us fight not to laugh.
Two more little pulses of magic ripple outward, and Slate and Dawn change, too. They’re just as adorable as their sister, with Slate standing slightly taller and Dawn’s fur slightly more silver.
“Dawn, Slate, you did it!” Shadow stops shifting. In his werepanther form, he scoops all three of them up into his arms for a quick hug.
Then they’re wiggling to be put down so they can run over to Mist and Moonlight for more pets and praise. “You’re all so wonderful! Look at you!”
Dewdrop launches from the top of the arbor to land on the ground beside them, bobbing and flaring his wings as he dances with excitement. “You have hands now, like me!”
“Yes, we have hands!” Wisp holds hers up and runs over to me. “More cheese, please.”
The other two take up the chant. “Cheese, cheese, cheese.”
Shadow and I make up three plates with a little sample of all of the sides, and we have them sit on the grass and try to use forks for the first time.
Dewdrop has me make up a large fruit plate so he can share it with them. “Try this one!” He holds out a chunk of pineapple, one of his new favorites.
Wisp bites into it, her eyes going wide as saucers. “It’s so many flavors all at once and in only one thing! It’s sweet and tangy and tart and other things I don’t have words for!”
In their excitement, they quickly abandon the plastic forks and eat with their hands, asking a constant stream of questions about what everything is.
Shadow grins like the proud uncle he is and shrugs. “I’ll go wet some washcloths.”
“You stay with the werekittens,” I say. “I’ll get them.”
Inside, I wet the washcloths at the kitchen sink while chatting with Victoria. “Did you like the ceremony?”
“I did, but the party is even better.”
“It is.” Her words make me mention something I’ve been thinking about.
“You know, a lot of what makes weddings so fun doesn’t have anything to do with the marriage part.
It’s this.” I wave a hand toward the window to take in the backyard.
“It’s lots of people coming together and enjoying each other’s company. ”
“I do like having more people around,” Victoria writes.
“I want to find a way for you to be happy that’s not impossible to maintain.
I can’t make you a wedding chapel again.
I don’t have the right personality for it.
Plus, I’ve already got a job.” I wring the excess water from a washcloth and pick up another one.
“But what if we have more parties and get-togethers here? Maybe more people visiting from Faerie?” I have an idea I’ve been mulling over, but it’s not fully formed yet.
“I’d like that.”
“Good.” I head back outside. Shadow still sits with the little ones, his head cocked to the side as he listens to another question, this one probably about potato salad, since that’s what Dawn holds in her tiny fist.
He answers, then reaches out to tickle her tummy, her shrieks of laughter dancing through the night.
All three werekittens leap on him, leaving tiny clawed handprints of food all over his shirt. But he rolls onto his back, laughing. He’s so good with them, so loving and supportive and all the things a wonderful family can be.
I slam to a stop halfway across the yard. The party still whirls around me, but I’m frozen as if hit by a Stun Spell.
Because I can no longer ignore the way my heart leaps when I see him.
I love Shadow.
I love him so much.