Page 10 of Cinder's Adventure: Get Me To the Wedding!

Cinder laughed. It often occurred to her that her children would never truly appreciate just how abnormal her life was, or her relationship with Kai, for that matter. Which meant, by default, they would never understand how abnormal their lives were either. How much she and Kai had had to fight to claim their own happy ending.

And maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe it was perfectly all right for them to look at their parents and see their love and their future exactly as it should be.

“You don’t have to believe it,” she said. “But just don’t tell your aunt Cath and uncle Jest. They’d be very hurt.”

Nowbothkids looked suspicious.

“We don’t have an aunt Cath and uncle Jest,” said Rikan.

“Oh, but you do. You’ve just never met them. They’re very busy running their bakery, but we’ll take you to meet them sometime soon. You haven’t really lived until you’ve tasted Cath’s lemon tarts.” With a laugh at their bunched brows, Cinder slid off the bed and pulled the blankets up to their chins. “Enough questions. It’s time for bed.”

“Did I miss the story?”

“Daddy!” cried Peony, sitting up and raising her arms.

Kai swooped to the other side of the bed, his dress shirt from a long day of diplomacy rumpled and unbuttoned at his neck. But his eyes shone as he kissed Peony and Rikan and helped Cinder finish tucking them in.

“I was telling them about Cath and Jest,” said Cinder with a wink in his direction, “and our adventurous wedding day.”

“Ah,” said Kai with a knowing nod, “that’s quite the story.” Coming around to Cinder’s side of the bed, he laced their fingers together. “Maybe tomorrow I can tell you about the bachelor party Thorne threw for me the week before our wedding. It involved tigers and karaoke and was something of a disaster.” He returned Cinder’s wink.

“Realtigers?” asked Rikan.

Kai laughed. “Tomorrow,” he promised, as Cinder turned off the light.

The end.

Chapter 9

Cinder shook her head, dazed.

“Cinder?”

She blinked. Her vision began to clear.

“Cinder, are you all right?”

Kai?

He was whispering, his voice tinged with concern.

Cinder squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and when she opened them again, the world began to right itself. Sensation returned to her right hand—the warmth of Kai’s fingers holding hers.

The scent of peonies perfumed the air. She was wearing a gown. A heavy gown. A heavyweddinggown.

And there was Kai, looking much more comfortable in his finery than she was. He was studying her, his brows tight with worry.

She blinked and tore her gaze from him. Winter stood behind the altar, watching them. “Should I go on?” she whispered.

Cinder turned the other direction, to a vast hall full of onlookers. It might have been enough to make panic set in… except that her gaze fell immediately on the front row, and she saw all the love spilling forth from the faces there. Iko and Scarlet and Wolf and Cress and Thorne and Jacin and Kinney and Tressa and even Torin, all watching her with… well, yes, some amount of concern, given Cinder’s continuing silence. But also friendship. Acceptance. Encouragement.

She brought her gaze back to Kai. His eyebrows lifted in a question.

She tried to remember what Winter had said, but all she could think about was the feeling that she’d just woken from a nightmare, to find herself in the midst of a the most remarkable dream.

“I love you,” she blurted out.

And with that—the tension broke.

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