Somer’s laugh caught on the wind and made Dorrie smile. She loved her sister, and this would take time, but she would grow used to not having her around. She still had Samantha, after all.
The family were all seated in the banquet room, where there were more high ceilings with history steeped in the walls. The table was huge and could seat all of them. Some of the children would sit at a smaller one set up in here also. Raven silverware and candelabras adorned the tables, and flowers. Eden loved flowers.
“I love this room.”
“I have never seen anything like it,” Gus said. “Every time I walk in here, I see something different.”
Huge fires roared in the fireplaces, and ancestors hung on the walls watching over them.
“Luke, do not torment Merry!” Max bellowed.
“Thank God, I was about to pass out!” Cam roared. “What kept you?”
Rolling her eyes at her brother, who sat beneath Dev in the pecking order of Sinclairs, she took her seat between Harry and Wolf, her cousins. The noise, of course, was nearly deafening.
She found Dev’s eyes and smiled. He smiled back, and she knew he was worried about her, because that was his way. There was always a family member in need of his watchful eye.
Around her, most of those carrying Sinclair blood were dark-haired and green-eyed, with a few exceptions. The Ravens were usually fairer, a few with brownish hair color, and their eyes ranged from dark brown to gray.
“You do know that you’re next, don’t you?” Harry leaned to whisper the words into her ear.
Dorrie loved her cousins. Harry and Wolf were closest in looks and personality to Dev than anyone save her youngest brother, Warwick. Big, solid, and serious-minded.
“Next for what?” Dorrie said.
Wolf chuckled.
“What?” She shot him a look. His hand came out to pat hers on the table.
“Why, to find your Raven, of course,” Harry teased her.
“Stop it you two,” Rose, Wolf’s wife said from her seat on the other side of her husband. “Pay them no mind, Dorrie.”
“Very funny, and no. There are surely no more out there. You lot have them all. I am going to break whatever bound us all together and marry whoever I want, which will likely be Zachariel Deville.”
“I think not. He is marrying me,” Samantha said from down the table. Like a sister, she had come into their lives when the twins were young and been one of them ever since.
“Zachariel Deville will never marry you,” Warwick said, scowling at Samantha.
“Why not?” She glared back.
Samantha was sister to James, Max, Rory, Rose, Emily, and Maddie. Once, she’d been alone, but now she had family and love in her life, and she clung to that with fierce loyalty.
“Because he has told me he has no wish to marry for many years.”
“I can wait,” Samantha snapped. “After all, if he is the one, what is a few years?”
Usually sunny-natured and eternally optimistic, not many could get under Samantha’s skin, but one of those was Warwick. They had annoyed each other since they’d met.
“I wholeheartedly agree,” Dorrie said. “I am quite convinced there are enough Sinclairs married to Ravens, and Samantha and I will be set free to marry who we wish.”
“Oh sweet, misguided child,” Wolf said.
“I bloody hope so,” Warwick added. Large and gentle like Dev, he was also determined and loyal. “I’ll marry someone like Felicity Chalmers. She will be sweet-natured and happy to bask in my magnificence.”
“What is magnificent about you?” Samantha asked. “And Felicity is only sweet-natured when you are around because she wants to get her hooks into you. She’s actually a sharp-tongued shrew.”
“Like you, do you mean?” Warwick looked smug.
