Epilogue
Las Vegas
Six months later
Natalia
Adrian’s pack had redecorated the entire casino in honor of our wedding. The whole hotel was covered in light blue hydrangeas, bouquets of lavender and beautiful white roses, as well as gauzy ribbons of fabric that spanned every room. It was heavenly.
It had been that way for a week in anticipation of such a momentous occasion.
I was up in the bridal suite all by myself.
I had spent the last several hours being doted on by several members of the pack, as well as my sister who had fawned endlessly over my dress.
She had leapt up in excitement when I’d promised her that she could wear it when she found the man of her dreams and married him someday.
Since being rescued from the Asamire pack, she had thrived.
They hadn’t hurt her along that way, but the experience had rattled her.
In order to relieve both her worry and mine, Adrian had asked a local pack that was located in Belarus to keep an eye out for her.
She didn’t know and assumed the men guarding her were simply men, but the two of us only trusted that she would be safe in the hands of wolf shifters since vampires had already taken her once.
“You look incredible,” a male voice purred behind me. A shiver raced through me at the sound. My pussy clenched expectantly. We’d been apart for a week and Adrian had apparently finally run out of patience.
“It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding,” I scolded him lightly, but I smiled and turned to face my future husband anyway.
“Maybe in the human world,” Adrian said with amusement.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m still human,” I laughed.
“But your husband-to-be is most certainly not,” he replied. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a sweet kiss. I let him kiss me for several more seconds until the passionate embrace began to take a much rougher turn.
I laughed and pushed him away.
“Stop it. You’ll mess up all the work Sheila put into my makeup,” I chided him.
She had only just left after spending several hours insisting on ensuring that it was perfect for the ceremony.
She and the entire pack were looking forward to the once in a lifetime event that was their alpha marrying his mate.
“Don’t worry, if she has to fix it again, I’ll just order Eamon to make it up to her tonight,” he declared, and I had to stifle another laugh.
“Just cause you’re his alpha doesn’t mean you can order him around in his own marriage bed,” I replied.
“Being the alpha means I can do what I want,” he growled.
“Sure. But soon enough, you’re going to be tying the knot and then you’ll be beholden to a whole different kind of ball and chain, my alpha,” I grinned, and he shook his head.
“Keep sassing me, my pretty mate. You’re going to be getting my knot tonight, and I’m in no mood to be gentle,” he teased.
I turned around in a huff, pretending to be aggravated by his warning when it was the complete opposite. I was hoping for it to hurt tonight.
He came up behind me and slapped my bottom lightly.
“I’m going to enjoy reddening your bottom for the first time tonight as my wife,” he growled, and my core clenched down hard with desire.
I was looking forward to everything.
I’d moved to Vegas with him after he’d come to Belarus to find me. I’d told him about my deal with Isabella Lasombre and he’d told me he was proud of me for it.
Since then, Adrian and I had taken position as the reigning king and queen of Sin City. The Asamire had long been run out and hadn’t come back. The other vampire clans still seemed to be recovering from the events that happened at the Wynn months ago.
The Lupo pack had welcomed me with open arms. They were all breathtakingly sweet, but even I had to admit that Enzo and Sheila were my favorites.
Sheila was undoubtedly the pack gossip, yet it was never in a mean way.
Just last week, she’d heard another pack mate had gotten pregnant and had sent a roomful of flowers in celebration.
We’d hidden outside the window when it arrived just so we could see the way her eyes lit up when she received them.
Sheila’s husband Eamon had grumbled that we should mind our own business, but he’d insisted on coming with us to see her reaction anyway. It was even better than we anticipated.
A knock at the door broke me from the delightful reminiscence.
“Come in!” Adrian called out.
The door opened and my father strode inside the room.
“Father!” I gasped, smiling in surprise. I hadn’t seen him since I had left Belarus and he’d encountered a number of work-related issues and withdrawn his attendance from the wedding after several promises to make it up to me later.
“Viktor,” my mate greeted him. My father grinned widely. His blond beard was thicker than I remembered, but it only added to his charm. His blue eyes sparkled, and his good mood felt so contagious that even my own bright one climbed along with it.
“Adrian and I worked together to make sure I was able to make it to my little girl’s wedding,” my father exclaimed, and I rushed to wrap my arms around him. “Irina is downstairs waiting for us, but I wanted to surprise you myself.”
“I’m so glad to see you. I hope you two didn’t do anything illegal to get you here in time for the wedding,” I laughed and when the two of them didn’t respond, I sighed mockingly with disappointment. I couldn’t keep it up with a straight face though and my excitement burst right through.
“I brought the two of you a wedding gift, but I didn’t think it appropriate to give it to you in front of the rest of your guests,” my father explained. I started when an attendant rolled a massive crate inside the room.
Another followed.
They kept coming until the entire entryway was full of them. By my count, there were more than a couple dozen by the time they finally stopped.
“There are more where this all came from,” my dad said. I looked back and forth between him and Adrian, but my future husband looked just as clueless as I felt. The door to the suite swung closed and my father walked over to the crate closest to him.
He took a tool from his belt and cracked it open so that we could see inside the first one. It was a massive crate full of sun fire bullets.
He opened another to reveal an entire crate of guns. The third was full of crossbows that were specially engineered to hold wooden stakes rather than arrows. The fourth held stockpiles of dried blackthorn, a specialized herb meant to guard against vampiric compulsion.
“I give you the gift of protection. If my daughter is going to reign as the queen of Las Vegas, I want to make sure no one can lay their hands on her ever again,” my father declared, and Adrian took my hand. “I mean, aside from you of course.” My father winked in our direction.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I replied.
I approached the crate of guns and ran my fingers across the plastic case on top. I took it out and flicked it open to find a case-hardened Desert Eagle.
It was a work of art. Each one cost about twenty-four hundred dollars and the crate appeared to be full of at least a hundred of them. I traced my thumb across the golden eagle engraved on the handle and sighed happily.
I’d only gotten to fire one of these in my life and it had been a dream.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, and my father smiled.
“Congratulations, my daughter,” he answered.
“Thank you, Viktor,” Adrian said softly. Even he seemed to be taken aback by my father’s gift. “This will most certainly reinforce our position here for a very, very long time.”
My father nodded. “You will take care of her. She is more than capable of looking after herself, but with you she will be unstoppable,” he continued. He took my hand and Adrian’s and brought them together as one.
“Now, isn’t there a wedding or something you two need to get to? It isn’t like it can start without you,” he said cheerfully.
“You have a point,” Adrian laughed, and he turned to me and brought my fingers to his lips in a chaste kiss. “Come, my sweet mate. It’s time I take the next step and make you my wife.”
I couldn’t help but kiss him.
This was the start of forever. I was ready to say I do.
The End