Married My Alpha's Brother novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Altar
Ten minutes before her wedding, Alpha Jagger trades Rae for his first love in front of the pack, so she marches to his crippled brother Granger and asks him to marry her, and the gold in his eyes says he isn't what he seems.
Ten minutes before my wedding, the Gamma kicked open the door of the bridal room.
"Stop," he said. "All of it. Stop."
The seamstress froze with a pin between her lips.
"The ceremony starts in ten minutes," I said.
"There's no ceremony." He wouldn't look at me. "The Alpha wants you in the Great Hall. Now."
"Is it the border? Is somebody hurt?"
I was already reaching for the bag I keep under every bed I sleep in. Gauze, tape, suture kit, morphine.
I've been the pack's nurse for three years. When a man looks that white, somebody is bleeding.
"Nobody's hurt," the Gamma said. "Just go, Rae."
I ran out barefoot, four layers of white silk dragging behind me.
The doors of the Great Hall were open.
Three hundred wolves turned around in their seats.
The string quartet had stopped in the middle of a bar.
Jagger Blackburn stood at the altar in the charcoal suit I'd picked out for him.
He wasn't alone.
Shayla Hawley stood beside him in a blue dress, her honey-blonde hair loose down her back. Her fingers were laced through his.
Two years ago she'd left him to study with the covens up north. I'd spent a year gluing his heart back together.
"Jagger?" I said.
My voice bounced off the rafters.
He turned and looked at me.
"The wedding's off, Rae."
"You're wearing the suit."
"I'm taking a Luna today," he said. "It just isn't you."
Somebody in the back laughed.
Then a lot of people did.
Shayla leaned her cheek on his shoulder. A little silver vial on a chain winked at her throat.
"I'm so sorry, Rae," she said. She didn't sound sorry. "You can't fight the Moon Goddess."
Jagger lifted his chin and raised his voice for the gallery.
"Shayla came home this morning. My wolf knew her the second she walked in. She's my true mate."
"You proposed to me thirteen months ago," I said.
"And in thirteen months you still haven't shifted."
He shrugged. "I can't lead this pack with a human at my side. Look at you. You're barefoot."
A warrior near the aisle cupped his hands around his mouth.
"Little girl playing bride!"
"Take off the dress, sweetheart!" a woman called from the third row.
More laughter.
Only old Wanda Starkey, the retired tracker, wasn't laughing. She was glaring at Jagger.
I looked at the front row.
My father, Lane Prather, sat there with his silver Beta cuff on his wrist.
"Dad," I said.
He looked down at his shoes.
He stayed that way.
He once broke a rogue's jaw for whistling at my mother.
Now three hundred people laughed at his only daughter, and he studied his laces.
Jagger held up a hand, and the room went quiet for him.
"Give the gown to Shayla on your way out," he said. "It's paid for. You're dismissed, Rae."
Something rose up in my throat.
It wasn't a sob.
It felt horribly like a laugh.
I swallowed it and looked past them all.
Past the altar. Past my father's bowed gray head. Past the faces I'd stitched and splinted and sat up with all night.
In the far corner, under the north gallery, a steel wheelchair sat half in shadow.
Granger Blackburn.
Jagger's older brother. The firstborn. The heir, until three months ago.
He led our warriors into Sawtooth Pass when the raiders came. He brought every one of them home.
Somebody cut him down from behind on the way out.
I spent six weeks changing the dressings on his legs. He never once made a sound.
The Elders gave his seat to Jagger "until the heir can stand."
He hadn't stood since.
Nobody sat within ten feet of him.
I picked up two fistfuls of silk and walked down the center aisle.
"Rae," Jagger snapped. "Where are you going?"
I didn't answer him.
My bare feet slapped on the marble. Every head turned to follow me.
I stopped in front of the wheelchair.
Granger looked up.
His eyes were so dark they were nearly black. His hands rested on the armrests, big and scarred, perfectly still.
"Granger," I said.
He waited.
"Are you really going to sit there and let your brother do this to me?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
"What do you want, Rae?"
"Marry me."
Three hundred wolves stopped breathing at once.
I heard Jagger come down the altar steps.
"Have you lost your mind?"
I kept my eyes on Granger. "I'm asking you a question."
He studied my face for a long time.
"I can't walk," he said.
"I know. I've seen your legs. I can't shift. I'd say we're even."
"They'll eat you alive for this."
"They're already chewing." I held out my hand. "Yes or no?"
He leaned forward. The chair creaked.
He took my hand, and his grip nearly crushed my knuckles.
"Yes."
Somebody screamed.
It was Shayla.
"Granger, she's using you! She just wants to save face!"
"Then she picked the right face," Granger said.
I went around behind the chair and took the rubber grips in both hands.
"Excuse me," I told the warriors blocking the aisle.
They backed away.
I wheeled him up the aisle and stopped right beside the altar. Right beside Jagger and Shayla.
The Elder stood behind the stone table, clutching the pack book to his chest.
"Bind us," Granger told him.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
The Elder licked his lips. "Granger. She has no wolf. A bond needs two spirits, or the cord won't take."
"Then let it fail in front of everyone. Bind us."
"I forbid it." Jagger planted himself in front of the table. "You're turning a sacred rite into a circus."
Granger turned his head slowly toward his brother.
"You just broke a moon-sworn promise in front of three hundred witnesses. Don't talk to me about sacred."
He looked back at the Elder.
"Bind us."
The old man's hands shook as he lifted the silver cord out of the book.
He looped one end around my left wrist and the other around Granger's right forearm.
Granger's skin was fever hot against mine.
"A cripple and a human," Jagger said, loud enough for the gallery. "Moon help us."
The cord began to glow.
Faint at first. Then bright enough that the people closest to the altar shaded their eyes.
The Elder looked down at it.
"Granger Blackburn," he stammered. "Do you take Rae Prather?"
"I do."
"Rae Prather, do you take him?"
"I do."
The silver sank straight into our skin.
It stung like a wasp. When it faded, there was a thin white crescent moon on the inside of my wrist.
The same mark shone on Granger's forearm.
Jagger leaned down close to my ear. His breath smelled like the champagne I'd ordered.
"This changes nothing. You're still nobody here."
I didn't look at him.
I looked at my husband.
His fingers were still laced through mine.
I squeezed. He didn't let go.
His thumb moved once across my knuckles.
"Let them talk," he said quietly.
I nodded.
Then I saw his eyes.
A ring of pure gold flared around the black, bright as a struck match.
I'd seen that color exactly once in my life. In the old Alpha's eyes, the night he ran down six rogues alone.
It only comes to an Alpha at full strength.
It was gone in a blink.
Granger's grip tightened on my hand until it hurt.
He didn't smile. He barely moved his lips.
"Don't tell anyone what you just saw."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend