Undeniably Chosen

by Shelly Crane

  Our wedding day was ruined.

  Completely, utterly, devastatingly, five ways to Sunday ruined.

  Well, that’s what Ember said anyway. I didn’t look at her as I passed her on the way through my family to my significant because I knew I would cry before I even made it to him. In fact, I didn’t look at any of them because they would all make me cry. I just focused on the way the freezing air felt so freeing and good on my bare legs. Daddy had turned on the porch heaters for the ceremony and everyone standing around was definitely helping to create body heat. He had wanted to have it inside, but I wanted it outside. It was our custom. They said we were shattering all the rules anyway and it didn’t matter so we could protect my feet from the snow.

  No, I had said. Some things were sacred. Just because we were changing didn’t mean that all our traditions and things we cherished had to go out the window.

  Two days before our wedding, Grandpa Peter and Nana came with a lot of other family members and said they wanted to go on a gem expedition. They hadn’t been in a while and wanted to take Seth and me with them. They were getting older and needed the younger folks to help. So Dad, Mom, Rodney, and all of us packed up and we went into the mountains. Seth as so fascinated. I’d been on two of these in my lifetime and it was neat to watch. Grandpa didn’t do too many of them anymore because his business did so well, he didn’t need to.

  But when the day was done, we camped out like we always did and they started to get weird, talking about life and love and all sorts of weird things around the fire. Seth and I remembered the last time we had a campfire and the ambush that ensued. But this time, Grandpa and the family had done something else entirely. Something that made me cry for a different reason. They took all the gems that Grandpa found in the dig that day and gave a third of the find’s profits to Seth and me. The rest they saved for the family fund, for the fight coming, in case something happened. It made me think they were worried about their business or something. We had ways of getting money…but Grandpa wouldn’t always be here.

  That made me cry harder when I realized what Grandpa was doing. He was getting us ready in case something happened to him.

  They all knew that Seth didn’t have any money, coming from the Watsons, who had always spent and been bad with their investments, and he hadn’t planned to use his degree, instead wanting to use his morals and brawn to save lives. They knew that he had given up his job because of what happened and were thrilled to hear that a new job had opened up for him. So the next surprise and the next “wedding ruiner”, as Ember called it, was when, on the way home the next day, the family took us to a house in between the college and my parent’s house. I didn’t understand what was going on when we pulled in. I thought at first that Daddy was showing me a location for a new center or something. But the whole family came with us.

  And Seth knew right away.

  “It’s for you,” he whispered as we looked out the window.

  “What?”

  “The house.” He gulped and looked over at me in the seat. “Rodney told me about the tradition.” He smiled, but I could tell that he was feeling a little…inadequate stacked up against my family. They could do that sometimes. “I didn’t know about it. We—the Watsons,” he corrected and scolded himself for the mistake, “they didn’t carry on that tradition. You could have told me that day when I was going on about getting you a ring and us living in my crappy apartment.”

  He scoffed a little laugh, but I could see it building. This was what I feared. This was why I hadn’t said anything.

  My college was already paid for, so that wasn’t a problem. And honestly, I had no qualms about living in his apartment. I liked it. It was the perfect size for us. The tradition was all about making sure you could provide for your wife and honestly, in this day and age, asking a young guy like that to be able to buy his own house at such a young age was pretty unreasonable.

  He tilted his head and smiled. “Doesn’t take away the fact that I was supposed to buy you a house before I could marry you according to our people.” He shook his head. “And by their standards, we’ll never get married.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered and nodded, “and look at all the wonderful things they’ve done lately. They’ve tried to deunify us, the leader of the council is a traitor with the Watsons, and they declared war on us just because you were defending yourself and me. That doesn’t sound like a race of people that I want to listen to the letter on anymore. I think we should make our rules from now on. Follow the traditions we want and think are important and let everything else go.”

  He nodded and looked at the house again. “It’s a gorgeous house. Nothing like I’ve ever lived in, that’s for sure.” He swung his eyes back to me. “As long as it makes you happy, that’s all I care about. I don’t care where we live or what we do. I just…” He licked his lip. “I just don’t want your family to think that I can’t take care of you. First the money we’ll get from the gems, which is…insane. And now a house?”

  “They don’t think that,” I assured him.

  He smiled looking down. “Okay. Let’s go before they think we’re fighting about it or something and that’s all I need.”

  He opened his door and got out, pulling me from his side, helping me down gently. He kissed my forehead before we turned and I jumped as everyone yelled, “Surprise!”

  Seth’s hand came out to rest on my wrist on instinct. He was right. I tried to smile, but I was so confused. Wouldn’t they see how this would make a Virtuoso man feel weird about this? When it was his right to—

  “Now before we go any further,” Dad started and he and Grandpa Peter came and stood on either side of me and Seth, “Seth, we wanted to tell you that this is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this.” Not helping, Daddy. “We know that it’s tradition for the man to buy his wife a house. It used to be the tradition for him to build the house back in the old days. In less prominent or wealthy clans, they’ve started to share duplexes and condos and I even heard of an old house boat a couple years back just so it qualifies as technically buying her a house. And this isn’t the only tradition that needs to be changed. In the old days, it had its purpose for very good reason. But today, it hurts more than it helps. It’s sad that we let it get this far. It’s sad that we haven’t done something before now. Like the other tradition where the wife leaves her family?” He shook his head. “I got lucky with Ava, but I watched her grow up thinking that I was only going to see her a handful of times after her marriage. Some of our traditions sounds so romantic and then some of them leave me scratching my head wondering what the council was thinking.” He clapped Seth on the shoulder. “This is one of those things that we’ve decided to change. Our new tradition is that we’re going to buy the couple their first home, the Jacobsons, as a family.” He grinned. “They are under no obligation to keep it past a few years. It’s a starter home. Then you sell it, move on, pick the home you truly want, or stay there forever, we don’t care. Truly, it’s yours.” He looked at Seth. “I don’t want you to think that we didn’t think you could take care of Ava. This is just a landslide year of change. I have no doubt that she will be more than safe and happy with you. But I wanted to buy this house for you.” He held the keys out to him. “So don’t feel guilty about it. Just take them and let us do this. Not only is this a time for change, but you saved her—” He fisted the keys tightly, trying to get a rein on his emotions. I heard Maria sniffle beside me and turned to see her already crying as she watched.

  If Daddy started to cry, I was going to lose it. I felt Grandpa’s hand on my shoulder and smiled at him before looking back at Seth as Daddy tried to finish.

  “You saved my Ava.” He gripped his shoulder. “What I saw you do for her in that video—”

  “I never meant for anyone to see that,” Seth told him in a hurry and sighed, embarrassed at the attention. “I was just trying to…” He gritted his teeth. “Keep her from…” He shook his head. “It was an impossible si
tuation.”

  I could tell this was just like when he’d been given those awards in his apartment. They wanted to award him for the good thing he’d done and he just wanted to brush it off. He glanced back at me and I knew I was right by the little bit of annoyance I saw there.

  I smiled, maybe a little coyly, and held his arm tightly in my hands. He was losing this fight, he knew and I knew it.

  “I know, son. I don’t know that any of us could have done it better.” Everybody shook their heads. I swear. Everybody.

  Seth let a breath go from open lips. “Uh.”

  “Take it,” Dad said, using his Champion voice. “Like I said, we are grateful to you for saving our Ava, so grateful, but this isn’t charity or pity. This is the start of a new tradition.” Daddy smiled. “And you’re both just the first recipients. Take them.”

  Seth accepted the keys and everyone clapped. My cheesy family. “Thank you, sir,” he whispered, letting his free hand slide down to take mine. He looked at our family. “Thank you,” he said and I no longer wondered if he was thankful or embarrassed. It was obvious that Seth was caught in the moment, caught in the fact that a family would do something so big and wonderful for him. He looked up at that house and couldn’t believe it was actually ours.

  Let’s go look inside.

  He looked back at me. Can we?

  It’s ours now. I smiled.

  “Who’s next you think?” I heard Dad ask Mom behind us.

  “I volunteer!” Ember yelled loudly, making me laugh so loud. “I volunteer as tribute!”

  Everyone laughed and giggled, but I knew. Ember was beyond ready for her own story to begin. I couldn’t think about that though because my significant picked me up in his arms, making me squeal, and carried me across the threshold. I didn’t listen to my family’s ‘oohs’ and ‘awws’ as we made our way inside, fighting with the lock as I tried to unlock it and he held me up, laughing the entire time.

  When we finally made it inside, we just stood there on that hardwood floor and looked at each other. The house was gorgeous. It wasn’t huge by any means, but it wasn’t small. It had a small little backyard that I could imagine doing things with him in.

  My family did good.

  But in that moment, all I wanted to do was think about my life in it, starting with kissing him on every surface. He collided with me, his hand wrapping around my jaw as he moved me backward to the kitchen counter. He lifted me easily and we made good use of it until we heard the door open.

  Dawson and Maria laughed and stalled until we could get ourselves back together as everyone piled in. Maria later told me that she and Dawson had “christened” their house in a similar fashion.

  I smiled thinking about it, biting my lip to stop it so no one would know.

  “Imprinting isn't a life sentence,” I heard and jolted back to the present. I looked up to Seth as he looked down at me, knowing what I was thinking about, and listened to Dad’s words spoken, as they were spoken at every ceremony. “Our people thrive with our significant by our side. The proof of how destiny works and moves is right here in this circle, in this couple that will be joined together…today.” I didn’t look at Daddy as he got choked up. I couldn’t. So I looked down at my new Chucks—the other “wedding ruiner” that Ember enjoyed so much, sarcasm not implied. How dare I not carry on the barefoot tradition and wear shoes on my feet instead? I wiggled each toe as if they each held some kind of little rebellion and smiled.

  Seth has sprung them on me the night before our wedding. He redid the art on the tops of my Chucks just like he had done in the back of the truck that day. “At Last” on one side and “My Love” on the other. Such an amazingly sweet gesture when he knew how upset I was that they were ruined. And it was practically his vows, wasn’t it? At last, my love.

  “But more than destiny and purpose is love,” Dad continued, his voice strong and ringing with conviction. “The love one feels for his significant is bigger than any ocean, deeper than any well, more powerful than any storm,” I mouthed them with Dad and felt my eyes begin to well as I told them to Seth, believing them to my core. Seth took one of his hands from around my back and cupped my cheek, wiping my tears away. “When we join these significants today, they are telling us that they want no one else, they’ll always be here for each other, and they will never part from their soulmate.”

  Ah, that dress…at least there are no tights.

  I smirked. I was wearing Mom’s dress that Gran had made for her. No, just skin.

  His face changed as he thought about that. Mean.

  After we said our vows, he kissed me so hard and long, his arms and hands reaching around me to press me to him so tightly. Truly it was as if the world around us didn’t exist at all. People left us alone for a little while and eventually we danced. And no one did jigs; we just danced. All of us together.

  There was no oil and water, no Watsons and Jacobsons, no Romeo and Juliet.

  Just Seth and Ava.

  The End…For Now

  Please continue on with us to the next book in the series, UNDENIABLY FATED,

  as the Jacobsons continue to fight for their family and their significants.

  Information on release dates, these books and Shelly’s other series, giveaways, and all the ways to reach her on social media, on the author’s site

  www.shellycraneauthor.com

  Now you can own the Significant song written for the first book in the series, Significance, by Kerrigan Brianne Arnold! A fan of the series and a songwriter and singer, she wrote and recorded this song for me and sent it to me. I fell in love with it and we decided to have it produced for you guys so YOU could enjoy this beautiful story in song that depicts Caleb and Maggie, or any significant’s love story, so perfectly!

  Go and get your copy of this single today!

  iTunes: http://apple.co/109LfOU

  Amazon: http://amzn.to/1A53Psk

  Playlist

  Sunday Kind Of Love : Etta James

  (Theme song) Surround You : Echosmith

  Fire Escape : Sounds Under Radio

  Looking For You : The Lone Bellow

  Life Is Beautiful : Vega 4

  Something I Need : One Republic

  Black Bear : Andrew Belle

  Movement And Location : Punch Brothers

  Invented : Jimmy Eat World

  Drown : Carolina Liar

  Infinite : House of Heroes

  Some Kind of Beautiful : Tyler Ward

  The Funeral : Band of Horses

  Thinking Out Loud : Ed Sheeran

  The Fog : Biffy Clyro

  Day Will Come : Keane

  I Only Have Eyes For You : The Flamingos

  Wings : Birdy

  Miss America : Carolina Liar

  Love Don’t Die : The Fray

  Photograph : Ed Sheeran

  No Good In Goodbye : The Script

  Shut The World : The Royal Concept

  Rolling Waves : The Naked And Famous

  New Love : Maroon 5

  Pas de Deux : Graham Moseley Brown

  At Last : Etta James

  Shelly is a NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY bestselling author from a small town in Georgia and loves everything about the south. She is wife to a fantastical husband and stay-at-home mom to two boisterous and mischievous boys who keep her on her toes. She hoards paperbacks, devours sweet tea, searches year-round for candy corn, and loves to spend time with her family and friends, go out to eat at new restaurants, sight-see in the new areas they travel to, listen to music, and, of course, loves to read, but doesn't have much time to these days with all the characters filling her head begging to come out.

  Her own books happen by accident and she revels in the writing and imagination process. She doesn't go anywhere without her notepad for fear of an idea creeping up and not being able to write it down immediately, even in the middle of the night, where her best ideas are born.

  Please feel free to contact/follow Shelly at the following avenues.<
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  www.facebook.com/shellycranefanpage

  www.twitter.com/authshellycrane

  www.shellycrane.blogspot.com

  http://instagram.com/authshellycrane

  And now enjoy an exclusive excerpt of KISS OF FIRE from Rebecca Ethington

  ONE

  Everything changed on my fifth birthday while my parents were in the backyard hanging the “Happy Birthday Joclyn” banner that was surrounded by yellow and blue streamers. The colors danced through the trees as the wind blew them around. My parents laughed and joked as they decorated while I danced in the doorway as I waited for my friends to arrive.

  I stopped to watch a brilliant blue trail of glitter as something small flew around me. I only caught a glimpse of wings before a sharp stabbing pain shot into the right side of my head. It left me feeling like I had been slammed against a brick wall. The sensation burned like acid that spread quickly through me. I dropped to the ground as the pain coursed throughout my body. The hot current flowed under my skin like boiling water in my veins. My vision faded to black as the sensations grew into a torrent that split my bones apart. A buzzing silence filled the world around me until the sounds of my own screaming filled my ears.

  I remember my mother panicking alongside me; my father on the phone with 911. I remember the sound of the ambulance siren, my vision a never-ending black, and my body filled with the stabbing agony that incapacitated me. Trapped in my prison of unrelenting tortures, I drifted in and out of consciousness. No matter what the doctors did, what medicines they pumped into me, the pain didn’t go away. I couldn't move past it; sometimes I couldn't stop screaming. Eventually, I slipped into a coma.

  The first thing I saw when I woke up was my mother's face filled with worry. My father looked sick with fear. Even at five, I knew something was wrong. I had been in the coma for months, and no one knew what had happened. The only signs of anything having changed was a change in my eye color, from green to a colorless silver, and a small mark that appeared right below my right ear. It was the size of a penny, the skin vivid red and raised like a brand, while in the middle a small indistinguishable figure stood out in vivid black. I ran my finger over it for days. It didn't hurt, but it was ugly. The doctors assumed that I had been bitten by some sort of bug and had an allergic reaction, but deep down, I knew that wasn't right. Besides, something like that wouldn’t have affected my eye color.