Page 12 of Bride

Too bad. So sad. “See you in... seven years? Or when you decide that the key to peace is a joint Were-Vampyre MLM scheme and try to sell me dietary supplements. Do have Vania fetch me at home, though. I donotlook forward to reorganizing my résumé.” I turn around to find the doorknob.

“There won’t be another opportunity in seven years, Misery.”

I roll my eyes and open the door. “Goodbye, Father.”

“Moreland is the first Alpha who—”

I slam the door shut,withoutfirst walking out of the office, and turn around, back toward Father. My heart slows to a crawl and thuds in my chest. “What did you just say?”

He straightens up from the desk, full of confusion and something that could be hope. “No other Were Alpha—”

“The name. You said a name. Who...?”

“Moreland?” he repeats.

“His full name—what’s hisfirstname?”

Father’s eyes narrow suspiciously, but after a few seconds, he says, “Lowe. Lowe Moreland.”

I look down at the floor, which appears to be shaking. Then at the ceiling. I take a series of deep breaths, each one slower than the other, and then run a trembling hand through my hair, even though my arm weighs a thousand pounds.

I wonder if the blue dress I wore at Serena’s college graduation would be too casual for an interspecies wedding ceremony. Because, yeah.

I guess I’m getting married.

CHAPTER 2

He used to think that all Vampyres’ eyes looked the same. He may have been wrong about that.

Present day

Such an unfortunate, desolate choice. What loving parent would choose to name their child Misery?”

I don’t consider myself a sensitive person. As a rule, I’m not opposed to people implying that I am a disappointment to my family and my species. But I do ask for one thing: that they keep that shit away from me.

And yet, here I am. With Governor Davenport. Leaning on my elbows over the balcony that overlooks the courtyard where I just got married. Biting back a sigh before explaining:

“The council.”

“Pardon?”

Gauging intoxication levels in Humans is always a struggle, but I’m fairly sure the governor is notnotdrunk. “You asked who gave me my name. It was the Vampyre council.”

“Not your parents?”

I shake my head. “That’s not how it works.”

“Ah. Are there... magic rituals involved? Sacrificial altars? Seers?”

So self-centeredly Human, the assumption that everything that’sothermust be shrouded in the supernatural and the arcane. They nurse their myths and legends, in which Vampyres and Weres are creatures of magic and lore, capable of curses and mystical acts. They think us able to see the future, to fly, to make ourselves invisible. Because we’re different from them, our existence must be governed by otherworldly forces—and not simply, like theirs, by biology.

And maybe a couple of thermodynamics laws.

Serena was like that, too, when I first met her. “So crucifixes burn you?” she asked me a couple of weeks into our cohabitation, after I failed to convince her that the viscous red liquid I kept in my fridge was tomato juice.

“Only if they’re, like,veryhot.”

“But you guys do hate garlic?”

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