Regina’s mother Bunny gasped in outrage, and her father, Kurt, glared at Angela.
“Ignore her,” she said to Regina, whose face was turning scarlet. “She was raised by wolves.”
“I wish,” Angela said, casting a glance across the room. “If they looked like that.”
Well, speak of the devil. Jarrod was striding through one of the side doors.
Jarrod was impossible to miss; he made an entrance without even trying. He was big and handsome and he moved with a commanding presence. His thick, tousled brown hair had glints of caramel, and his lips were full and soft and sensual. Mary knew exactly how soft they were; he’d kissed her plenty of times back in high school. Ten years ago. To this day, she could still almost feel the firm, hungry press of his lips on hers.
Mary’s heart stuttered in her chest, the way it always did when she saw Jarrod.
Then she snapped back to their present situation – the bridenapping that was going down in flames. “Damn it,” she groaned. “He was supposed to come in through the front. His uncle promised us he’d come through the front, so he’d walk past the photographers.”
She shook her head in exasperation as Regina fluffed her hair and Hilda ran over to the door to let in the paparazzi.
“Quick, let’s get out of the way,” she said to Angela, and, maintaining a firm grip on her skinny arm, dragged her to the side of the store. She pulled her behind a rack of walking shorts and tried to look invisible.
“Are all bridenappings like this?” Angela muttered, stepping out of the way as the agency photographer ran past her at full speed. His assignment was to take pictures of the paparazzi taking pictures of Regina and Jarrod. “I’ve got to say, this isn’t exactly what I imagined.”
“No, this is not what they’re normally like.”For one thing, I’m not usually forced to arrange a bridenapping with the jerkwad who broke my heart back in high school,she thought with a grimace.
Mary pulled her checklist out of her purse, surveying it as she spoke to Angela. “Most of the time, both parties cooperate with the bridenapping,” she muttered. “We’ve never had a reluctant groom before.” Then again, Jarrod had always been a wild one. His parents had died young and he’d been raised by his uncle, and the two of them were famous for their clashes. It was amazing that they hadn’t ended up in a Death Match. Yet.
“I mean more like…bridenappings are supposed to be romantic, not some business arrangement. The handsome Alpha is overcome by passion for the human woman, and he sweeps her off her feet and takes her back to his pack for weeks of kinky sex until they marry by the light of the moon.”
“Angela!”
“What, I’m not supposed to know about kinky sex? I’vehadkinky sex. Again, I’m twenty-one. I went to college. Take your fingers out of your ears,” Angela said to Mary, who was humming loudly to block Angela out.
You got kicked out of college, Mary thought but didn’t say. Angela liked to think of herself as a rebel against society’s unreasonable constraints – silly little things like schedules and homework couldn’t hold back a free-spirited gal like her.
Jarrod had headed to the back of the store and he was standing in front of a counter, looking at fishing lures, while Regina waited for him to notice her. Mary resisted the urge to run up to him and smack him on the head for ruining all her plans today. He was too tall, anyway.
She ran her finger down the checklist. It was 11:15; he was fifteen minutes behind schedule. She and Hilda had carefully orchestrated the entire bridenapping scenario for Regina. Jarrod was supposed to keep “accidentally” running into Regina at pre-arranged times and places, after she’d had her hair and makeup done and the press had been notified, and then, after a couple of months, he was supposed to grab Regina and carry her away back to his pack.
If only he’d for once in his life do what he was told.
“Anyway, bridenappings are so on-trend these days that everyone wants to be bridenapped,” she said, frowning in concentration while changing all the times on her list. “Models. Movie stars. They don’t want to just have the Alpha propose, they want him to be overwhelmed by passion and sweep them off their feet nineteenth-century style.”
Only a human woman mated with an Alpha could give birth to another Alpha. And humans were completely dependent on werewolves, whose blood cured numerous diseases in humans, including cancer and diabetes. Therefore, werewolves were allowed to claim large tracts of land for their packs, living under their own law on that land, and the Alphas were permitted to carry out what was known as “bridenapping”. An Alpha could claim a human woman of his choice, carry her back to his pack lands, and marry her.
That ancient custom had died out around the early 1900s, giving way to more modern methods of courtship. In the past year, however, bridenapping had come back into vogue.
“But why don’t they just date and let nature take its course?” Angela wondered.
“For the same reason that humans go to matchmaking agencies, and also because it’s become incredibly prestigious for a woman to be bridenapped. It means she’s irresistible to the hottest, sexiest, wealthiest bachelor around. That’s why Hilda started this bridenapping agency. We get Alphas looking for the perfect bride, we get beautiful girls looking for their Alpha. They pay us to arrange everything. We set up all these accidental-on-purpose meetings where the Alpha runs into the bride, and then we have all the press assembled when he finally bridenaps her. And everyone’s happy.”
She glanced at Jarrod, who was looking over a wall display of fishing reels and frowning, hands jammed in his jean pockets. Jarrod didn’t look happy.
Angela made a face. “Capitalism ruins everything,” she said.
Mary shrugged. “Hey, it pays the bills. And you didn’t have to tag along today. If you’re bored, you can hang out at my house. Or you could do something totally crazy and look for a job.”
“Thatwouldbe crazy,” Angela agreed. “I’m still waiting for my muse to tell me what my true calling is. And I’m bored at your house. You don’t have cable. Who doesn’t have cable? This is the twenty-first century.”
“I can’t afford cable. I have rent, student loans, and a free-loading cousin eating all my groceries.” She scowled at Jarrod. “Is he ever going to go talk to her? For the love of— Oh, no. No, no, no.”
Jarrod was headed her way.
