The Lorents arrived in a long train of white Mercedes-Benzes.
Savy and I spied on them from the plant landscaping on the rooftop garden.
The parade reminded me a bit of when Aladdin posed as Prince Ali Ababwa when he first tried to court Jasmine.
Well, minus the elephants and big blue genie or anything remotely exciting like that. They didn't even think to throw candy.
But they had pickup trucks piled up with chests. The pickup trucks even had the Merc logo, which was ridiculous! Did they buy a regular truck and switch the logo? No? There really was such a thing as a Merc pickup truck? What was this world coming to?
The houses around the pack house were dark and quiet. This either meant everyone was out, sleeping in early tonight, or spying from their windows.
The lights in our bedroom suddenly flickered on.
"Samantha Kingsley!"
Mum's silhouette had her hands on her hips.
I wanted to watch the soldiers file out, but I knew better than to ignore Mum.
I went back into the room. Savy followed me in even though she could've stayed to watch more. I would have.
Mum was dressed in a very pretty flowy bluish purplish dress. It made me think of the irises that bloomed to welcome Spring.
"Sam!" Mum started. She stopped when I stepped into the room. She folded her arms and pursed her lips as I stripped off the oversized black hooded sweatsuit and wiped my bare feet.
I slipped my feet back into the white ultra-high heels.
What? Mum couldn't have thought I would have been in the bushes without covering my white ceremonial dress and heels, right? I'm not that dumb. The flash of white would be easily spotted in the dark. Our bushes in winter didn't conceal much.
So I had worn an oversized hooded sweatsuit I found in Mate's drawer. It was big enough, and my skirt was short and tight enough to even pull on the pants, even though the hooded sweatshirt was long enough to cover the skirt as it was.
Genius, right?
I gently adjusted my short skirt just so. All done!
Mum eyed me from head to toe critically, but even she couldn't find fault in my appearance. I grinned.
Mum sighed, shaking her head, but she had a hint of a smile she couldn't quite hide. "Oh Sam! Whatever will I do with you? And your mate is the Lorents' future Alpha too! It's a good thing he is so smitten with you, or I would be worried about this match!"
"Smitten?" I asked. Hahahaha. What an old-fashioned word.
Mum stroked a lock of hair out of my face. "Sam, the Lorents are good people, but you know how they are also very traditional in their pack..."
Mum was frowning just a little. She was worried.
"It's fine," I assured her. "I'll be fine. I know how to smile and pretend to be a lifelike doll."
"That's not it, Sam!" Mum exclaimed. "Oh, that's the last thing I want to happen to you! Sam, you're my daughter. I want you to have a happy life with your mate. Both of you." Mum reached out to take both Savy's and my hands in hers.
Then, as if to comfort herself, she said, "It'll be fine. If Bell can fall in love with you in an old sweatsuit running around hunting rogues at night, I'm sure you can do no wrong in his eyes once he sees how beautiful you are like this."
Now that was an interesting theory. "Should we test it?" I grinned at Mum.
"Sam!" Mum blanched. "Please be serious! This is your betrothal ceremony!"
It's just a ceremony, and he was still going to reject me, right?
Unless...
I looked in the mirror. I hated to admit it, but I hoped for a moment that Mum was right. That Mate was smitten with me and in love with me, and if I looked pretty and smiled at him, he would forget I was stupid or difficult or immature or troublesome and be happy I was his mate.
So happy that he would never reject me ever.
{Mate! Mate! Mate!}
Oh, he's here.
Mum gave me a hug. "You're a brave, beautiful, and kind girl, Sam. Don't let anyone ever make you feel anything less."
Okay...
I swallowed a lump and blinked the hot feelings away from behind my eyes.
"It's just a ceremony, right?" I said. "I'm just going to get a lot of gifts, and that's about it."
I shrugged. It's not like anything will change.
"Sam," Mum said seriously, "you will always be our daughter, but after tonight, you will also be a Lorent."
Wait, what?
No way. Shut up. Impossible!
Mum hugged me again. "I'll go greet our guests first. Come down to the library when you are ready."
Okay, yeah. Sure. I'll just need another hundred years to be ready.
Killion's explanation just now was sorely lacking, except now that I tried to remember, I did recall something about being accepted as the male family's own daughter. I just hadn't put two and two together.
I nodded at Mum, but I looked out at the sliding doors to the l garden. I was 95% sure that I would be able to run away if I tried right now, but where would I run to?
{Run to Mate}
No, stupid, we are running away.
Wolfie was confused.
No! Think! I'll just smile and go through this. If I ran away now, it would cause my mum and dad a lot of trouble. But if I ran away as a Lorent, that might be all right. After hearing the stories Jessica recounted from her cousin, I'm quite sure that it was fairly commonplace for Lorent wolves to run away.
Although I wouldn't like for Alpha James and Luna Edith to be troubled too. They had always been kind to me.
Wait, but if they were kind to me, why was I running away? Except I just felt I should.
{Trap}
One word.
They were giving us gifts and formally pledging their blessings and commitment to me mating their son.
Their son, who was my mate anyway.
{Trap}
Wolfie seemed quite sure about it.
{Run to Mate}
I paused.
"Sam?" It was Savy. She had returned to her bed and manga, but maybe a mindlink had caused her to have to pass me a message. "What's wrong? You need to go down now."
I nodded and left the room. Killion was waiting for me at the front door. He held the door and followed me into the lift.
We got out on the third floor, and I walked, letting Wolfie lead the way. Wolfie was going to Mate. I had always called this my lucky sense of direction, but now I realized it was just me following Wolfie's instincts. As I walked, I felt the adrenaline race.
Killion was fine. He would follow me. He was safe.
I could just walk out of the pack house, and no one would stop me. Not with a highly official looking suit-wearing Killion next to me.
I could walk out the back door, shift, and run away.
I could walk out to the garage and get Killion to drive me anywhere else.
For some reason, Wolfie chose to walk to the library on the second floor. The last time I was here, Harvey and I were dealing with the rogue attack.
Mate was there now, and from the scents along the corridor, there were many other people there too.
I couldn't say how many exactly, but more than I had expected from a "private" ceremony.
Two Lorent guards stood at the entrance.
"Is something wrong, Goddess?" Killion asked me.
"Killion, think hard. Is there anything else I need to know about tonight?" I asked.
{Trap}, Wolfie said helpfully.
Killion frowned a bit, as if he was trying to figure out what he was supposed to say. "Luna Bell is here, and... well, just go with your wolf, goddess."
If the guards at the door heard it, they acted like they didn't.
He knocked twice at the door and swung it open. "Alpha Sam is here."
I loosened my shoulders and walked in gracefully with a smile.
Why?
Because, as Killion had said, Alpha Sam is here. And if Alpha Sam was going to walk into a trap, it would be in Alpha style.
Or did you expect the killer heels to give me a hard time? Well, this wasn't my first time in them now, plus I had alpha wolf balance and high pain tolerance.
Yes, it was like using white wolf healing to reduce the need for sleep. (For which I will never diss Ki about again.) I was using alpha wolf powers to walk in heels—but these heels, they were inhuman. I don't know how human girls do it.
If I had to wear heels and a small tight ceremonial dress, I was going to wear it like I owned it.
"Good evening." I offered a small polite bow to my audience and smiled again.