Liz tossed a white towel over my dress and passed me a glass of champagne, which I sipped to be social. It was the good stuff. My Bruiser had made certain everything on the wine list was the good stuff. Theverygood stuff. Just like the tea he hadplanned for the honeymoon breakfast. TWG’s Grand Wedding Tea was a slightly floral tea, pricy according to my earlier tea preferences. When I came to New Orleans, I had put Cool Whip in my tea. Bruiser may have paled when he first saw me do that.
Cia took pics with her phone of me hiding behind the champagne flute. I sat up and pasted a happy smile on my face. Suddenly worried. Nagging worried. Stupid-no-reason-worried. Except I hadn’t planned the security around the chapel myself. I hadn’t overseen and judged every single jot and tittle. My people had. My very excellent, well-trained people who knew more about security than I ever would. But we were riding through the night, a perfect target for anyone who might simply lie in wait to hit us with a rocket or something.
Jane is stupid kit. Stupid kit thinks is mature puma concolor. Stupid kits needs strong hunters and safe den. Jane should be happy. Is marrying strong mate Onorio.
Are you fussing at me?I thought at her. On my wedding day?
Stupid thing.Wedding. Stupid thing—lifetime mate. Mates are good for making kits. Then screamer cat is alone with kits for many years. Does not need mate for life or raising kits.
Part of me chuckled in the back of my mind. Your lack of logic fails you. I should be happy I’m getting married, yet I don’t need a mate?
I/we of Beast is better than Jane and better than mountain lion. Push tree off ledge. Shove rock off cliff. Pull dead deer into den and sleep with carcass. Scream at full moon. Tonight will dance in front of band, sleek and lissome. Eat much dead cow and salmon and trout. Mate.
There’s some cat-logic in there somewhere but I don’t get it.
Jane is stupid.
I like the idea of the dance, but pushing limbs off ledges? Is that like a housecat pushing a dish off a countertop?
Beast isnothousecat. Jane is stupid.
I pulled away from her and let it go. More pics were taken. The limo driver put on music, starting with These Boots Are Made for Walking, which made everyone laugh except Angie and me. Angie was confused. I just wanted to walk away in my boots . . . Wedding jitters. Quint in hospital jitters. Jitter jitters.
Jane is stupid.
It hit me that Beast had the jitters too. When I said that to her, she spat at me and vanished into the darks of my mind.
At the chapel, the limo made a right into the bride’s entrance and braked under the porte cochère. All but two of the cadre of female attendants rushed into the church to find the male attendants and hunt down the bride’s room. Molly, Angie, and I got out more slowly, Moll adjusting my dress to keep it off the cobbled stone walkway.
The chapel was situated near the crest of a hill, a mountain in the background, far-off house lights visible in the dark of winter, the moon hanging in the trees. The chapel was a rich man’s whimsy, based roughly on some fancy church in France, the stone cut from his personal Appalachian quarry, the beams reclaimed from old Pennsylvania barns, the carved wood, unpadded pews purchased from four smaller churches. The carpet had been made to his exact specifications in Iran, knotted by hand. I had seen the pics and taken the virtual tour but not seen it in person. The rich man—someone named Richardson? Michalson? Whatever—got the chapel finished. Then he died. His only heir to the chapel and his palatial home next door, was a single woman with a dozen cats. She had opened the wedding chapel and turned his home into an inn.
The place—venue?—was way more beautiful than the pics. I liked everything I saw. Not wanting to admit that, I said, “And here we are.”
Molly grinned up at me. “You’d rather be in a bar fight than get married this way, wouldn’t you.”
“Yeah.”
“But you look so pretty, Ant Jane,” Angie said, mispronouncing my aunt title the way she always did. Reaching out, she touched a pearl and a citrine on the pointed sleeve, shining against the black lace. “Like a model or an actress on a red carpet. And so do all the rest of us.” She angled her face up to mine, a slightly sly expression on hers. Her tone hardened almost imperceptibly. “Anyone who wants to cause trouble will die.”
“Oh Lordy,” Molly said. “What have you done, little girl?”
“Nothing,” Angie Baby said, sounding more innocent than a cherub. She shrugged. “I justknow. I saw it before my angel left.”
Molly made some kind of inarticulate noise in the back of her throat that might have been the sound of her strangling on shock and words best left unspoken. She took her daughter’s hand and towed her toward the sanctuary, leaving me alone. Angie turned back and grinned at me, reddish curls bouncing. She waved.
Walking down the cobbles, I checked out the surrounding area. There were lots of places for a sniper to hide. The darkness of the night would provide cover for a small army. That shoulder-mounted rocket I had thought about on the way here was even more a possibility. We were an unmoving target.Crap. My hands started sweating in the cold air.
Eli sauntered down the walkway from the chapel’s bride’s entrance, his hands in his pockets, and a grin on his face. He looked like something from a men’s mag, except moreself-assured than any almost-but-not-quite-human man should. When he was close enough to not have to yell, he said, “You’re hating every second of this, aren’t you, Babe.” His teeth flashed in the dark, silently laughing at me.
He may have found me amusing, but his eyes went unexpectedly calm, projecting tranquility, the serenity of a Buddhist monk. But we’d been attacked on the Dragon. Sooo . . . “‘Anyone who wants to cause trouble will die,’” I repeated. “Angie said that. Where are our shooters?”
“Got one on a balcony in the inn. Got two in the trees,” he nodded to show me generally where. “Big Evan already has a witch circle for ablood-hedgearound the chapel. It took him two days to mark, yesterday and today. He’s ready to go when you’re ready to walk. All our guys have weapons. Every witch is ready with defensive and attack workings. Janie, this is the safest place on the planet right now.”
Without warning, the blood dropped through my body to my feet. I relaxed so fast my blood pressure probably bottomed out. My next breath came easy, the first since Quint’s bike went down. “Oh.” The world seemed to spin a bit and I blinked.
Eli’s face went from tender to concerned and he reached out a hand as if to support me. “Jane?”
I fanned him back and he stopped. “I’m stupid,” I admitted.
