Accidentally Fell for My Ex's Uncle: Dark Alpha novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Some Kind of Deranged Stalker
Poppy crashes her ex's uncle's wedding, falls through the ceremony and kills the bride. The alpha says she owes him a wedding. HOOK: he tells her to try not to die tonight.
The dress belonged to my sister, and the dress did not want to be on me.
I tugged the neckline up for the third time.
"Left side's trying to leave," my best friend whispered through the hedge.
I fixed the left side and wobbled on my heels.
The heels were my sister's too.
She wears a size seven and I wear a size six, so I had stuffed the toes with tissue.
"Tell me again why we're doing this," said my other friend, crouched in the dirt with his phone out.
"My boyfriend told me I couldn't come to his uncle's wedding," I said. "He said it was Moonstone Pack only."
"So you're breaking in to prove you're not an embarrassment."
"I'm breaking in to prove I'm a girlfriend."
"Trespass is a misdemeanor in this state," he said. "But only if the sign is posted."
Through a gap in the leaves I could see the lawn.
There were white chairs, lights strung in the trees, and two hundred wolves in suits that cost more than my car.
My boyfriend, Brent, sat in the third row.
We had been together eight months.
His arm was around a girl from Landraver Pack, the one he swore was just a work friend.
Brent turned and kissed her on the mouth.
It went on long enough that the minister coughed.
"Okay," Dottie said. "New plan. We go home, we eat a tub of ice cream, and you block his number."
"He lied to me."
"Poppy, we are leaving right now."
"I borrowed torture shoes for this man."
I took a step back to wave my arms, and my heel found a root.
I fell.
I grabbed the hedge, and the hedge came off in my hand.
Then I was rolling.
I went down the slope through a bed of tulips and over a speaker.
Then I crossed the cake table, and frosting went up my nose and into my ear.
I came out the other side flat on my face on the white aisle runner.
The first thing I saw was a pair of shoes.
The second thing was a fistful of lace, which was attached to a wedding dress, which was attached to a bride.
She stood three feet from me, mid-vow, with her mouth open.
"I'm so sorry," I said, and I let go.
The dress tore all the way up the train.
The bride stepped back to get away from me, and her heel caught the ripped hem.
Her arms went out, and I watched her go.
I heard her head hit the stone.
It was a flat, small sound.
She did not move.
A man in a gray suit knelt and put two fingers on her neck.
He looked at the groom and shook his head.
"She's not breathing."
My ears rang.
"Well," someone in the crowd said. "That didn't take long."
"Not even an hour," said another voice. "She wasn't even marked."
"Poor Alpha Lucan. That's six now. It has to be a curse."
Six, I thought. Six what?
Brent came pushing down the aisle. "Poppy? What are you doing here?"
A silver-haired woman in pearls stood at the cake table with a cup of tea already poured.
She was the only person on the lawn not looking at the bride.
She held out a napkin and the tea.
I took the napkin, because my hand shook too hard for the tea.
"I should have fallen on you instead," I told Brent.
Two hands closed around my arms and lifted me off the ground.
I looked up.
The groom was the tallest man I had ever seen.
He had dark hair that had been pushed back too many times, a hard jaw, and silver eyes that were actually glowing.
My wolf sat up inside me and wagged.
I told her no, because we had just killed someone.
She didn't care.
"Sorry," I said out loud. "I'm still looking at your face. It's extremely good."
He blinked once. "My bride is dead."
"I know!"
"On the ground."
"I know that too, and I'm sorry, and I want it noted for the record that the face is still good."
Behind the hedge my friends had lost their minds.
"RUN, POPPY!" Dottie shrieked.
"DON'T RUN, THAT LOOKS GUILTY!" Frankie yelled. "IT'S MANSLAUGHTER AT THE VERY WORST!"
The groom's grip tightened, and his alpha power came down on my wolf.
She rolled onto her back.
"What pack?" he said.
"Riverside. I'm nobody. Please, it was the hedge."
"A Riverside wolf crashed a Moonstone wedding."
"I technically crashed through it."
"And killed my bride."
"I will do anything," I said, and my voice cracked. "Anything. I'll pay for it all. I'll keep a receipt."
He looked at my torn dress and my frosted hair, and at my shaking hands.
An old woman in the crowd stepped forward, beaming.
"Well, Alpha Lucan," she said. "The Moon Goddess has found you a seventh."
"Seventh what?" I said.
"The other six are dead," Lucan said flatly.
"Six wives," I said. "You have buried six wives."
"Yes."
"And I'm the seventh."
"You are."
"Is this a wedding or a kidnapping?"
He thought about it. "The ceremony is the same either way."
He turned to the guards. "Clean her up. We finish this today."
"I'm not marrying you!"
"You killed my bride. You owe me a wedding."
"That is not how marriage works!"
"It is when the bride is an alpha's."
He leaned in until his breath moved a strand of my hair.
"Of everyone who could have fallen on my wedding," he said, "it had to be the one who comments on my face."
"I said it was a good face."
"Ten minutes," he told the guards, and walked away.
At the edge of the lawn he looked back over his shoulder.
"Don't die on me tonight," he said. "I want to see how you turn out."
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