Page 120 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

HOLY MATRIMONY

I walked to the window, my curtains pulled back to reveal the gentle light of the noon sun before it turned more ruthless during the afternoon. It was the same yard I’d grown up with my entire life, but I looked at it like there was something new out there that could catch my attention and calm the simmering tumult within me.

I turned around and walked to the door. A simple panel of dull wood, painted and repainted over the years, but the longer my vision focused on it, the bigger and bigger it grew until it was taking up practically the whole wall.

Back to the windows.

Then the wall again.

The windows.

The wall.

The sweat drips down⁠—

Not Helping!

Suddenly, there was a sharp rap on the door and Amanda came in, carrying a steaming cup of tea. “Here you are! Chamomile, lavender, blue butterfly pea, and lemongrass tea specifically made from herbs from Serafina’s garden!” she said brightly and easily like I wasn’t an utter wreck. “Now, why don’t you sit down before that wolf metabolism of yours shoots up and makes you sweat out your hair and makeup?”

“Oh!” I’d been up since four in the morning, too excited to sleep, and three of those hours had been dedicated to choking down a breakfast that my stomach did not want and doing me up, so I most definitely didn’t want to ruin any of those efforts. “Right, of course. I just…”

I trailed off because I really had no idea what to say, but Amanda didn’t point it out. Instead, she helped arrange my voluminous skirts, then placed two thin blankets over me, protecting my dress, before handing me the tea.

As if that wasn’t enough, she grabbed the standing fan she’d insisted on bringing, despite the available air-conditioning in every bedroom of our house, and pointed it right at my face.

“Oh, that’s lovely,” I breathed. “Thank you.”

“Just doing my maid-of-honor duties!” she said with a salute before brandishing a clipboard she seemed to have pulled from the void of space itself. “I’ve got a whole list here to make sure your best day is the best day, so you don’t need to worry about a thing!”

“Thank you, so much. Really, Amanda, you’ve gone above and beyond.”

But I’m still gonna worry.

Not because, for once, there was nothing really to worry about, but because I was so excited that I had no idea what to do with all the energy inside of me.

Finally, after a little over two years, it was my wedding day. Keith and I were about to tie the knot in front of a whole lot of wolves and three very important humans. At first it was only supposed to be two, Amanda and his mother, but due to a magic show and an improper sourcing of materials by a magician duo, Keith found out that his woodshop teacher already knew about the supernatural world. It was still a mystery if the nearly eighty-year-old man was supernatural himself, but it made me wonder exactly how secret our people were, since our existence was less surprising than it was supposed to be.

Oh, and said magician duo would be at the reception. From what I understood, Riccardo thought they were human when he hired them, but no, the magician was a latent wolf whose mother had also been a latent wolf who had been exiled from her pack in South Dakota, and the assistant was a green witch.

Small world.

“Knock knock,” Zia Vedette’s voice issued from the other side of my door, and I nodded to Amanda to answer it.

But it wasn’t my elder who came in first; instead, three lanky shapes hurried through the opening.

The triplets.

They’d grown a lot in the two years since they’d blown out my birthday candles. They’d calmed down ever so slightly. They still were a handful, but getting them medicated for their ADHD had given them a way to channel their energy and stop searching for dopamine by being destructive whirlwinds. What would happen once they shifted was up in the air. We all knew their meds would no longer work for them, but the hope was that our natural shifter healing abilities would alter the parts of their brain that didn’t properly release or absorb dopamine and serotonin to do what they were supposed to.

Only time would tell.

“We brought you gifts,” the eldest, Bonnie (or was it Connie?) said, pulling her hands out from behind her back. Not too long ago, I would have expected a spider or even one of those cans filled with paper snakes. But no, instead, it was a delicate hairpin, made of a few twisting gold pieces topped with shimmering pearls. “Something old,” she said, and gosh, there went my heart.

I knew my triple-threat nieces and nephew could be a lot, but ever since they’d covered for my escape with a little improvised arson with Rolando, I’d been much more tolerant of their… quirks. Ultimately, they were good kids.

“I got you something new!” Lonnie (Ronnie?) said right after I took it, producing one of those soft and squishy little balls that were all the rage lately. “For squeezing!” He was proud as could be, and I took it gingerly before Zia Vedette leaned over and whispered she’d had it enchanted by a witch so it could actually stand up to some wolf-level stress squeezing for a little while.

“And I got you something borrowed!” the youngest said (wait, was that Connie?), pulling out something I never expected.