“I will. We’ll deliver the cakes, and she’ll finish the decorating after they’re placed on the table.”
The meeting wound down, the final prep details handled with the kind of efficiency you only got from years of military and pack discipline. Everyone filed out, peeling off to their assignments. Bronc lingered at the table, Juliet at his side.
He looked at me. “You got your words ready?”
I exhaled, long and slow. “Yeah. Just hope I don’t choke.”
Juliet squeezed my arm. “You won’t.”
Pearl ducked her head in from the hall. “Boys, I need you to help set up the chairs out back.”
Bronc rolled his eyes. “Coming, Ma.”
They left, leaving me alone in the big room. I pulled out my notepad and scanned the speech again, looking for holes. There was nothing fancy—just a promise, a blessing, and a warning to anyone dumb enough to cross the Iron Valor Pack. But I wanted it to be perfect.
I sat there for a minute, thinking about my life before Aspen, before this pack, before the wars and the scars. I thought about my father, always chasing something bigger, never stopping to see what he already had. I thought about my mother, cold and proud, but with a spine of steel. I wondered what they’d think if they really saw me now.
I stood, stretched, and went outside to help set up the chairs.
The rest of the morning flew by in a blur of motion. Every time I glanced at my phone, another half hour had vanished. By 10:00, the compound had taken on the feel of a festival: tables lined up ready for food, banners strung between the trees, anda sound system set up on the old wooden stage. The crew had even set up a “VIP” section for the out-of-towners, complete with shade tents and an espresso bar, courtesy of Parker’s caffeine addiction.
Menace and Savannah’s private jet landed on our airstrip just after 10:00. He looked every inch a king—tall, blonde hair slicked back, suit so sharp it could cut glass. Savannah clung to his arm, laughing at something he’d said, her own red hair catching the wind. They greeted Bronc with bear hugs and handshakes, then moved through the crowd like they owned it. Which, in a way, they did.
The vampires arrived next. Kazimir was a walking statue, tall and pale, black hair slicked back to show off his cheekbones. Lucia trailed him, wrapped in a blood-red dress that made every head turn. She spotted me and gave a sly little wave. I nodded back, trying not to blush like a kid at prom.
The angels still hadn’t arrived. I wondered if Archon would grace us with his presence. He tended to avoid gatherings and showed up only when absolutely necessary. Since he’d touched me, I felt connected to him somehow and hoped he’d make it.
I made the rounds, shaking hands, doing small talk, but my mind kept drifting to Aspen and the bakery. Every time I checked the bond, I felt her moving—kneading dough, boxing cakes, making Oscar sample every new batch. She’d texted me at 9:30: “All good here. Oscar says the blueberry muffins are overcooked. Tell Pearl I blame the altitude.”
I texted back, “You got this, Sunshine. I’m proud of you.”
At 10:45, my phone buzzed with a photo: Aspen, flour-smudged and grinning, holding up a perfect pink wedding cake with four tiers. My heart damn near stopped.
She was perfect.
At 2:00 sharp, I pulled the club van up to the curb in front of Aspen’s bakery. The van was technically a “delivery vehicle,” but today, it was an armored transport for the most precious cargo in the Texas panhandle: Aspen’s wedding cakes, boxed and stacked with military precision on rolling carts.
Through the plate-glass window I saw her, a streak of motion in that lemon-yellow sundress, hair swinging as she boxed up the last of the sheet cakes. Oscar was on the counter, issuing orders like a field marshal, and the pair of them looked so serious that I felt a laugh bubble up even as my hands sweated on the wheel.
Aspen met me at the door, pink in the face and out of breath. “We’re ready,” she announced. “I need you and your alpha muscles.”
“Always at your service,” I replied, sweeping the boxes onto the cart and double-checking each one for structural soundness. She’d written “DO NOT TIP” on every side in bubble letters, and Oscar had added a few warning stickers for good measure.
“Are you sure you don’t want a seatbelt for these?” I asked only half-joking.
Oscar sniffed. “The cakes are sufficiently stabilized, sir. The real hazard is human error.”
“Noted,” I said, and maneuvered the cart down the ramp and into the van’s back section. I locked each box in place with bungee cords, then ran a towel between them and the wall just in case.
Aspen climbed into the passenger seat, Oscar in her lap, and I started the engine.
The drive out to the clearing was twenty minutes on a straight shot of county road, the van’s shocks tested by everypothole. I took them slow, hands at ten and two, hyper-aware of every shift in gravity. Aspen watched me, her lips twitching in a barely suppressed grin.
“I like seeing you this nervous,” she said. “Makes me feel like my cakes matter.”
“They matter,” I said, not even hiding it. “And so do you.”
Oscar looked up at her. “Miss, the mate bond is pulsing off the charts.”
