My stomach drops. Oh God, is it even possible for a member of my family to simply date and get married like normal wolves? My nerdy mom tried her best to make a go of it in a human career as a video game designer and even got engaged to her brother’s BFF, the then Prince of North Dakota—totally practical move for a werewolf princess. But what did she get for all those level-headed decisions? An ex-fiancé who’d ended up marrying her brother, and not one, but two time-traveling Viking wolves claiming to be her fated mates. I mean, lucky for me, or my twin sister and I never would have been born but it seriously feels like the odds are completely stacked against me.
Stop, Ola. Best night of your life. Remember?
Okay, calm face emoji…that’s totally right. I push thoughts of my family’s notoriously bad, super dramatic, time-traveling often included relationship history out of my head and remind myself that doesn’t have to be me.
I’m in a terrific relationship with the starting center for the North Dakota Elks, after all, and it’s been 100% drama free so far. That’s pretty amazing considering my background and, you know, general personality, which is made up of one-part co-dependent twin, two parts descended from motorcycle gangsters and Vikings, and a whole lot of telling it like it is.
But somehow that didn’t scare away my down-to-earth and no drama boyfriend. He appreciates my straight talk. “Your directness is refreshing. Honesty is important in a relationship, yes?” he’d told me on our third date. He finds my background, “very historical and fun.” And as for my sister, he likes that I care about my family and he assures me he cares just as much about his, even though they’re far away in Ghana. In fact, he wants us to take a trip there to meet his people in a couple more months. A trip I’m pretty sure will culminate in a biomedia post with the title, “He put a ring on it!!!”
That is if I don’t fuck it up.
“Are you okay, my baby?” Akwasi asks. He has to lean in close to be heard over all the hooting and hollering.
Geez, he smells good. That expensive cologne on top of rich and famous kind of good that regular wolves just can’t replicate. Plus, he laughs at all my jokes—even the really inappropriate ones, and he hasn’t so much as flirted with another woman since our first date. I know, because I dosed him with a spy drone on our second one.
What?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know spy drones are super illegal, and some might argue a pretty large invasion of privacy, but whatever. I’m a distrustful bitch—everybody knows that.
Besides, Akwasi passed all my tests with flying colors. Isn’t that what counts? My famous and super talented boyfriend is tall, dark, and handsome as hell. Plus, he’s really into me. He calls me “my baby” with a seriously sexy African accent, but unlike the string of guys I dated before him, he’s been respecting my decision not to have sex until I go into heat.
I should also throw some extra points at him for actually showing up to the most important night of my life.
Other than my parents, it’s not exactly a family reunion up in here.
You see, my cousins, the Nightwolf triplets decided to schedule their totally unnecessary triple vow renewal on the same weekend as my coronation.
I’m sure, the oldest triplet, Rafes had a lot to do with that date choice. He’s the President of the North American Lupine, and he hates my guts, which is totally unfair because I’m fucking awesome and he’s a stuck up prick. But unfortunately, he made it a choice between the three of them and the one of me, and all my favorite aunts and cousins opted to spend the weekend in Mississippi instead of North Dakota.
And as for that twin sister I used to be so co-dependent on—well, she’s currently in hiding from our family’s mortal dragon enemy.
A mortal enemy who I sort of grabbed by the dick last year. Or by the dicks, maybe? Still not exactly sure what was going on down there. But whatever I touched was large and pulsing. And nearly a year later, I can still remember the sensation of it or them moving around beneath my hand.
Look, I don’t normally go around grabbing guys by the dick. That’s all sorts of bad hashtags, which I’m supposed to be avoiding now that I’m officially representing for a state pack. I was just trying to distract him, while my sister and her mate escaped from his supervillain fortress located on a remote Greek isle. You know, hero stuff!
But I’ve kind of been having a hard time scrubbing that memory from my head. And sometimes when I let myself think about it too long, I get a little scared. Because it wasn’t pure horror I felt when I touched him. I mean there was a lot of that. But there was also a weird feeling in my stomach.