Chapter 10: The Engagement Dinner

The invitation came on heavy cream card, addressed to the firstborn and his wife.

The Alpha of the Saranac pack requested the pleasure of our company at the Kingsbury house, to celebrate his choice of a Luna.

"He's marrying Sienna," I said. "Eight days before he fights you for me."

"He's hedging," Bram said. "Or my stepmother is."

"We're going."

He looked at me over his coffee.

"Because you want to watch him squirm?"

"Because Sienna didn't lie for him in the hall," I said. "And I want to know why."

The widow lent me a black dress that had been her daughter's.

The one-eyed man pressed Bram's only suit with an iron heated on the woodstove and complained about it the whole time.

"Look at you," he said when Bram put it on. "Like a bear at a funeral."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

The Kingsbury house blazed with lights.

Forty guests stood in the long front room with glasses in their hands: the elders, the old families, Corbin's friends in good coats.

When the butler said our names at the door, every conversation stopped.

Then, one by one, people came over to shake Bram's hand.

Not all of them.

But the eldest elder did, and three of the old families did.

A woman I'd known my whole life kissed my cheek and whispered, "Good for you, honey."

Across the room, Corbin watched it happen with a glass in his fist.

Dinner was at the long table in the dining room.

They'd put us at the far end, below the salt.

Bram looked at his place card and laughed, which made Imogen's smile go tight at the head of the table.

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