The Wolf Shifter's Big Fat Wedding

1. Olivia

OLIVIA

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO

“You are a capable woman. You are worthy of praise. You look great, and you’re gonna go down there and mingle like you know you’re a rock star.”

I stared at the reflection of my dull, dishwater-brown eyes and tried to will myself into believing the words I was saying.

“You got this. You rocked this entire quarter and convinced a long-time client not to take a cheaper offer from a competitor. You’re now able to run an extra twenty as a wolf without getting winded and another five on the treadmill as a human. You deserve to—”

“Olivia!”

My sister Serafina’s voice cut into my affirmations, and I jerked upright, unable to miss the deep flush that colored my slightly tanned cheeks.

While I didn’t have the deep olive tone that some of my Sicilian cousins had, I could tan almost as well as them.

With summer approaching, it was almost time to switch to a slightly darker shade of foundation.

“In here!” I called, hoping she hadn’t heard my peptalk as I exited my en suite bathroom.

Thankfully, since my family had grown up in the house, we’d had lots of time to soundproof most of the spaces so we weren’t hearing each other go about our business.

Before two of my siblings moved out, there had been nine shifters living in this house, and nobody needed that many showers, bad singing into hairbrushes, and other hygienic events as constant background noise. “Are you okay?”

“Need help,” Serafina said, nearly bursting through my door like the Kool-Aid Man. I didn’t blame her. She was so ridiculously pregnant that I was proud of her for being mobile.

“Of course!” I hurried over to her, offering her my arm, but she breathlessly waved me off to sit on the edge of my bed.

“I was trying to pull up my stockings, but I forgot Cillian helped me get them on this morning,” she said sheepishly, lifting her long, traditional skirt to show me the compression hose that was now bunched around her knees.

Okay, now I was really impressed that she was able to walk into my room.

“Oh, I got you, don’t worry!” I soothed, quickly kneeling in front of her. “I’ll get these unbunched, then you can stand and I’ll shimmy them into place.”

“You are a godsend.”

I warmed at her words. Sometimes, being the fifth child out of seven felt pretty thankless—especially since I was supposed to be the final Rizoli baby until my little brother Massimo decided to make a surprise announcement about his conception at my dance recital by having Mom throw up while she was hugging me—but I really did enjoy when I could bring genuine relief to those that I loved.

“Want me to rub your feet while we have a moment?” I asked. I was being careful with the hose because with shifter strength, it was far too easy to destroy even the strongest of underthings.

“Sorellina, there’s a party to get to. Let’s table that for another time. Like tomorrow.”

Chuckling, I finished the first part of our quest and stood, offering my second eldest sibling my hands. She took them, and I was immensely grateful for my natural shifter strength, which allowed me to pull her to her feet with ease.

“Head rush…” she murmured, blinking a bit, and I scented the air to make sure everything was all right.

Serafina’s first pregnancy with Aggie had been rough, so I’d learned what to have my nose search for in regard to high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and pre-eclampsia. Pregnancy was hard on pretty much every species, no matter how magical.

“Do you wanna sit back down?”

“No, no, I’m good. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll get stuck up here.”

“Fair enough. Hold onto my shoulders.”

She did, and I busied myself with getting the hose up her thighs, over her rear, and finally into the proper position over her baby bump.

“There you are! Right as ra—”

A child went streaking by the door with a broom above their head, yodel-shrieking like they were an alien from a generational space opera.

Then a second blur, swinging around an expandable feather duster like a wand.

And finally, a third blur, wielding someone’s personal massager. It wasn’t mine, so I could only hope it was one for someone’s neck rather than the alternative.

“Go,” Serafina said, her eyes wide. “They’ve been released!”

I nodded. After making sure my sister was steady, I took off after the triplets.

Although the first two grandchildren in our family were singles from my eldest brother, my father’s rival and his little sister couldn’t say the same.

What was supposed to be their second grandchild turned out to be their second, third, and fourth.

Nothing had ever been the same since for that side of the family.

I could never remember the trio’s names, since we mostly shouted various Italian curse words after them because they seemed to have come into their wolf energy and stamina early. I racked my brain as I dashed after them, trying to recall. Billie, Millie, and Lily? That sounded sort of right.

“Oi! Cugine!” I said, managing to catch up with them and grip the still-swinging feather duster. I was treated to three pairs of hazel eyes looking up at me like I was the weird one. “You know there’s no running around inside the house. Outside with you.”

If I hadn’t been so frazzled, maybe I would have remembered to take all their war implements from them. As it were, they ran out with the broom and the personal massager.

“Thank you,” Zia Vedette, their grandmother, panted from the stairs. While wolf shifters generally kept our stamina well into our seventies and my father’s little sister was only sixty, speeding after three versions of chaos incarnate was a little exhausting. “I go back downstairs now.”

“Don’t worry about it, I got it,” I said, rushing past her.

Even though my father had lived in America since he was very young, the rest of his siblings had been born in Italy proper and hadn’t immigrated over until after their teens—some even in their late twenties—so their accents were all much thicker than my papa’s, although he still did have one himself.

“Could you check on Serafina? I had to leave her in a hurry.”

“Of course, cara. Soon that little bambino will be here.”

“I’m sure not soon enough for her.”

“Hah! Yes. I remember the days. Terrible time for ankles.”

I gave her a chuckle as I thundered down the stairs, but by the time I made it to the bottom, the triplets were nowhere to be seen, and I was sure the hairstyle I’d spent a couple of hours trying to coiffure had already turned frizzy.

Damn it.

“Aaay! Olivia! I was wondering where you disappeared to! Come, help me grab some extra cups from my trunk, will you?”

I didn’t have time to check my reflection in the mirror before one of my aunties caught my wrist and dragged me off. It wasn’t exactly surprising, however, which was the reason I’d chosen wedges instead of heels.

Not that I really owned any heels. I had three pairs of shoes and two of them were practical for in the office.

I didn’t mind, though, nor did it bother me that almost as soon as I was done, one of my much younger cousins tugged at my arm.

“Zia Olivia, where’s the bathroom again?”

“Here, let me take you. I know you have trouble reaching the sink.”

“Thank you!”

Nor did I mind as she and I exited the bathroom with maybe a little more water splashed down our fronts than usual.

“Toilet by the kitchen’s clogged!” an older cousin called as they rushed past us.

Unfortunately, even with five available toilets in the house, it wasn’t enough for a group of nearly a hundred shifters, so instead of grabbing someone, I returned my baby cousin to the expansive yard my parents had been meticulously designing ever since I was a kid and hurried to deal with it myself.

It was about as pleasant as one would imagine, but I sighed in relief when it was done and went outside to grab a glass of wine.

We were already missing two bottles that were supposed to be toward the back of the little display I’d put together. The only reason I noticed is because they were some of the special ones brewed by my great-uncle Giuseppe that were shifter strong.

“Hey,” I murmured to the closest body—my brother, Leandro. “Do you know what happened to the wine?”

He was texting, so he didn’t answer. I jabbed him lightly in the side. As the middle child, Leandro had the predictable habit of acting like he was the main character of our entire family and the rest of us were all supporting characters to serve his plot.

“Huh?”

“Two bottles of Great-Uncle Giuseppe’s wine are missing. Do you know where it went?”

“Uh, no. I don’t think so. You should ask Rolando. He was the one who helped you set it up, wasn’t he?”

I nodded and resisted pointing out that my youngest brother was the only one of my siblings who had helped me get everything ready for the party. “Any idea where he is?”

“How should I know? I’m not his babysitter.”

I jabbed him again, this time a little harder. Although Leandro was my elder by two years, he could be such a brat, and I had no problems treating him as such.

“Ow! Fine, fuck! I think I heard one of the boys call him over into the woods or something.”

“The boys?” I asked dubiously, certain he wasn’t referencing a certain comic-inspired show with a disappointing final season.

“Yeah, you know. The teens and college-somethings that are just so… angsty and terrified of ever being perceived as cringe.”

“Exhausting,” I agreed.

I was so grateful most of my childhood had passed without social media.

There were advantages to the information age, of course, and I loved being able to look up anything at the drop of a hat, but as an ugly duckling who grew into a slightly below-average duck, I knew I was lucky that entire awkward transition hadn’t been subject to being documented on the internet forever.

“I think I’m gonna—”