Not the Bride He Wanted novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Queen's Gown

Brenna makes her sister take off the Queen's gown in front of their mother, Magnus pins her ex to the wall, and Aksel spits a hint about what her father paid him.

A girl with short dark hair woke me at six by sitting on my feet.

"You're the bride," she said. "I'm Tilde, the sister. I brought coffee and gossip."

"Can I just have the coffee?"

"No. It's a package deal."

I sat up in a strange bed in a stone room that smelled of cedar.

She held out a mug.

I took it.

"Your sister got here at four," Tilde said. "In the back of a tracker's truck."

"Did she cry?"

"The whole way up the drive. The guards said she cried in harmony with your stepmother."

"Where are they now?"

"East wing. Your father's in the kitchen, eating my brother's bacon like he paid for it."

I drank half the coffee in one swallow.

"Is that the gossip?"

"No." Tilde pulled her knees up. "The gossip is that you walked in here yesterday and gave Magnus terms."

"So?"

"Nobody gives Magnus terms. The Beta says Magnus laughed after you left."

"He didn't laugh at me."

"I know. That's why it's gossip."

I liked her already, which felt dangerous.

The seamstress was supposed to fit me at eight.

I came down the east passage at five to eight and heard my stepmother's voice through the fitting room door.

"Turn, baby. Oh, look at you. Look at the line of it."

I opened the door.

Kirsten stood on the fitting block in the Queen's gown.

It was white silk with long sleeves and a row of tiny pearl buttons down the back.

Someone had already pinned the hem for her height.

Her honey curls were pinned up.

Aksel's mark was a fresh red crescent on the side of her neck.

The seamstress was on her knees with a mouthful of pins.

My stepmother turned and smiled at me.

"Brenna, good. You can take Kirsten's old dress. It's in the car. It'll fit if you don't eat."

Kirsten smoothed the silk over her hips.

"I didn't plan it this way," she said softly. "But the gown came for me, Bren."

"Did it."

"The treaty was for me. You're just covering until things get sorted out."

"Sorted out how?"

"Daddy's talking to the King's people." She tilted her head. "A man like that doesn't want the backup."

The seamstress took the pins out of her mouth very slowly.

I walked over to the fitting block.

"Take it off," I said.

Kirsten laughed.

"You're not serious."

"You ran off with my mate in the middle of the night. You're wearing his mark."

I pointed at her neck.

"You don't get to wear my wedding dress over it."

"Your wedding dress?" My stepmother's voice went high. "You are the second choice, Brenna. Everybody in this house knows it."

"Then let everybody in this house watch."

I turned to the seamstress.

"Would you undo the buttons, please?"

She looked at me for a long second.

Then she stood up and started at the top.

"Mother," Kirsten said.

"You can't let her," my stepmother said.

"I'm the bride," I said. "She's a guest."

Button by button, the silk came open down my sister's back.

Two maids had come to the door to watch.

Kirsten stepped out of the gown in her slip with her face burning red.

My stepmother wrapped her in a robe and swept her out past the maids without a word.

The seamstress shook the gown out and held it up to me.

"It'll want three inches off the pins," she said. "You're taller."

"Thank you."

"No," she said, and her mouth twitched. "Thank you."

At eleven I came back down the passage in the white silk with my braid pinned and my hands cold.

Aksel was leaning against the wall by the stair.

He was in a borrowed gray suit that was too short in the arms.

He pushed off the wall when he saw me.

"Bren. Wait."

"Get out of my way."

"Just one minute." He caught my wrist. "You look beautiful. You know that?"

"Let go of me."

"I'm trying to say something."

His thumb moved on the inside of my wrist the way it used to.

"I'd have chosen you. If you'd ever fought for me. You never needed me, Bren. She needs me."

"She needed a ride."

His grip tightened.

"Don't be like that."

The passage got darker.

A big hand came over Aksel's shoulder, flat on his chest, and walked him backward into the stone wall.

Magnus didn't hit him.

He didn't have to.

He was in a black suit and a white shirt.

He held Aksel against the wall with one palm.

"Touch my bride again," Magnus said quietly, "and you'll say your vows with one hand."

Aksel's face had gone white.

Magnus looked down at me.

His eyes went over the gown, the braid, the hem the seamstress had let down.

He didn't say I looked beautiful.

He said, "You took it back."

"I did."

"Good."

He let Aksel go.

Aksel straightened his short suit and rubbed his chest.

Then he looked at me, and something mean came up in his face.

"You think you won something," he said. "Ask your father what he gave me for her."

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