Chapter 16
Caitlin and a group of carefully selected werewolves, all recruited by Twyla, had spent the past several days working on her bridal shower from early morning to late at night. Kristofer had lamented that he’d barely seen hide nor hair of his bride to be. If only he’d known the real reason why Caitlin was working so hard, he might have been even less pleased. That’s why she didn’t tell him. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, she’d decided.
The mayor, of course, was delighted that she had invited all the press to the bridal shower – she knew he was peddling exclusive deals all over town. He was still angry that his daughter had been pulled off the wedding planning, but publicly, he’d managed to spin it that Melodee had too many previous obligations and could not dedicate the time needed to planning the Verhold wedding.
Keeping the mayor happy was a benefit, of course, but it wasn’t the reason that Caitlin was holding this bridal shower.
She just hoped she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
The reception hall looked like a showpiece from a magazine. Swags of flowers twined around the wood beams, glass mason jars full of flowers adorned the tables, and the turnout had been fantastic. There were over a hundred female werewolves in attendance, along with Paige and Lottie. Caitlin had invited her family, but they’d refused to come.
Reporters crowded the room, eagerly snapping pictures. Some of the females had shifted to wolf form, and, wearing collars of flowers, they paced the room carrying baskets full of snacks, were a huge hit.
And Caitlin was ill with worry. Was she going to get her new friends in trouble? She’d soon find out.
Twyla stood next to her, holding a tray of raspberry cupcakes, each topped with a berry and sparkling with a dusting of sugar. “Go ahead,” Twyla said, nodding encouragingly. “It’s okay. Whatever happens, it was worth it.”
Caitlin took a deep breath, strode over to the podium at the end of the room, climbed up, and stepped up to the microphone. Instantly all eyes were focused on her, as was every camera lens in the room. She still found it unnerving.
Frank, the only male in attendance, stood at the book of the room, his expression as inscrutable as ever.
“Ahem,” she said, clearing her throat. “I hope you all enjoyed the bridal shower today, and I have a special announcement to make.”
Paige and Lottie gave her an encouraging thumbs up. She swallowed hard, and then continued.
“There are a great number of very talented people here in the Verhold Pack,” Caitlin said. “Some of them are unrecognized geniuses. For instance, Twyla here currently works as a maid, but she is a brilliant cook, and I’m hoping that she can work in the Alpha House kitchen from now on, as a baker. In fact, she and several of her friends made all of the refreshments that you have enjoyed today.”
There was a moment of stunned silence among the female werewolves, followed by a growing murmur. Caitlin and her friends had been working in secret, and she’d refused to tell the Bridal Planning Committee who was in charge of refreshments and décor for the bridal shower…until now.
Caitlin stood her ground, and proceeded to introduce every single werewolf who’d cooked the delicacies for the bridal shower. None of them were from the Chef’s clan. She saw several women that she knew were from that clan, muttering angrily to each other.
She also saw, with enormous relief, that a number of the other female werewolves looked surprised and delighted. Some of them were holding up the little sandwiches and cupcakes and miniature pies and tarts they’d been nibbling on, and examining them with fascination, and nodding with approval.
“Miranda here works in the accounting department, but she’s a brilliant floral designer, so we had her do all of the floral arrangements,” Caitlin added, gesturing at a pretty, round-faced redhead with a generous spattering of freckles. Miranda blushed and waved at them.
Then she waved at someone who’d been just walked in the door, as she’d requested earlier that day. She hadn’t even told Twyla about this.
“This is Pierre,” she said to the reporters. “He’s a chef in the kitchen at the Alpha house.” Pierre was holding a ribbon-wrapped bouquet of wooden cooking utensils, and blushing furiously.
“Since this is a bridal shower, and love is in the air, I thought this would be the appropriate time for Pierre to ask Twyla something that he’s been wanting to ask her for a long, long time,” she said. She could feel the entire room drawing in their collective breath. The reporters eagerly trained their cameras on him, their eyes shining.
“Twyla, umm…” Pierre glanced nervously at the crowd, and then back at Twyla. He walked over to her and abruptly thrust the bouquet of cooking utensils at her.
“These are for you. I carved them myself.”
She grabbed them and clutched them to her chest, her eyes huge.
“And I, the question that I wanted to ask you was, well, I just wondered if I could take you out to dinner. Or cook you dinner. Because I know we come from different clans and everything, but ever since we were cubs, I thought you were the prettiest wolf I’d ever seen, but until Caitlin suggested it, it never occurred to me that I could ask you out. But she’s given me her blessing. So I – did I say something wrong?”
Tears were running in rivers down Twyla’s face. “Of course you can cook me dinner!” she cried out, and then turned and ran, out the back door and down the hallway, still clutching her cooking utensils to her chest.
Pierre, whose face was bright red now, took a step back as flashbulbs exploded in his face.
Half the room broke into wild cheers. Was it half? Caitlin looked around. At least half of them. More than half. Most of the women there seemed really happy. Some of the reporters were clapping and cheering. Who didn’t love a love story, especially one that defied all the odds? She even thought she saw Frank cracking a faint smile. Good lord, it was a day for miracles.
“My sister’s in love with someone from the builder’s clan, but we’re from the medical clan,” one of the women whispered to her. “Maybe they can get together now!”
Then Caitlin was swallowed up by a mob of reporters shouting questions, so she put on a brave face and did her best to answer them.
About fifteen minutes later, the door flew open with a bang and Taddeus and half a dozen pack members stormed in to the room. Caitlin’s heart sank. A number of the newscasters were broadcasting or tweeting live, and he must have heard about it already.
He looked every bit as furious as she’d feared.
“This press conference, which was not approved by me, is over. You will all leave at once,” he said loudly. “There will be no further press conferences, and the press coverage of the wedding conference is cancelled.”
Shouts of protest arose from the reporters as his pack-mates began rudely shoving them towards the door.
Alexander, and a group of men from the pack patrol, came in through a side door, and started yelling at Taddeus’s men. Frank rushed towards Caitlin, climbing up on the stage with her and standing protectively in front of her.
Caitlin climbed up on the stage. “The press coverage is not cancelled!” she yelled to the reporters. “And Taddeus doesn’t speak for me!”
Taddeus turned to glare at her. “You do not speak for the pack. You do not represent our pack,” he said, and his face went hairy. She saw his bones rippling and melting. Photographers were snapping pictures. One of Taddeus’s men, a werewolf named Jackson, slapped a camera out of a female reporter’s hand and sent it crashing to the ground, and she shrieked and cringed away from him. Alexander lunged forward and sent Jackson flying. Jackson shifted halfway through the air, and landed on the ground with a thud and a yelp.
Alexander stood over him in human form, but thick gray fur covered his body.
“If I see you lay your paw on a woman again, I will separate your head from your neck,” he snarled at Jackson. Jackson rolled over submissively and waved his paws in the air, and Alexander stalked off in disgust, as
Caitlin and Frank climbed off the stage.
Taddeus and his men followed after the reporters, who climbed in their cars and news vans and drove off, tires screeching. Most of the female werewolves began gathering their purses and leaving too, but a lot of them were casting sympathetic glances at Caitlin and looks of anger and contempt at Taddeus’s group.
Alexander glanced at Miranda, who was standing defiantly by the one of the tables, arms folded. She’d gone so pale that her freckles stood out in sharp relief against her skin, but her jaw had a determined set.
“I’m not sorry,” she informed him. “And that whole scene right there is exactly why Taddeus’s not the Alpha. And even if I get stuck back in accounting forever, at least I got to do what I loved one time. It was worth it.”
“I understand, but it’s best if you go now,” Alexander said to her. Miranda glanced over at Caitlin, gave her a slight smile and a nod, and headed out.
“Kristofer is on his way,” Alexander informed Caitlin. “He wants to talk to you.”
Paige and Lottie made their way over to Caitlin, and they both started clapping. “Bravo!” Paige said to Caitlin. “I am very proud of you. That was the most subversive bridal shower in the history of bridal showers. Do you want us to stick around?”
“Nah, you guys should head out,” Caitlin said, although she felt a tremor rippling through her.
She watched them leave and then sat down on one of the folding chairs to wait for Kristofer to arrive.
Chapter 17
Frown lines creased Kristofer’s forehead, and he fixed Caitlin with an angry look. The other men had stepped outside as soon as he arrived, leaving Kristofer and Caitlin alone in the room. “Did you think of consulting me before doing this?” Kristofer asked, arms folded across his broad chest.
“No, because I already told you about this when I first got here, and you brushed me off and ignored it completely.” Caitlin glared up at him with her hands on her hips. He towered over her, but she would not be intimidated. She refused to apologize for doing the right thing.
Kristofer shook his head, an expression of exasperation crossing his face. “No, I didn’t. That’s why I’ve been so busy. As soon as you told me that, I started visiting the different clans and talking to them. It took some time and convincing to get them to open up to me, but I learned that you were right. There were people who are unhappy and even unsuited to their profession. There are people who want to marry people in other clans, but have felt that they were unable to because of our customs. What you have to understand, Caitlin, is that we can’t change centuries of tradition overnight. It takes a delicate approach.”
Caitlin winced at that. She hadn’t taken a delicate approach. She’d trampled right over their traditions like an elephant.
“People were unhappy. They were trapped,” she protested faintly.
“I understand that. And I’m working to change it. Slowly. Through proper channels. Talking to the chieftain of each clan, scheduling meetings so that we can start coming up with solutions that are satisfactory to everybody…”
“You never told me that,” she said heatedly. “If you had, I would have held off. I thought you were ignoring me completely, and I just wanted to try to help the pack members here before-” she stopped herself. She’d been about to say “before the day I have to dump you and run back home,” but she couldn’t say that. “Before it went on too much longer,” she finished, staring at the ground.
“The Alpha doesn’t generally involve the Alpha Queen in pack politics,” he said. “It’s not…”
“Traditional?” she finished for him.
He nodded, then let out a long sigh. “I can see that I should have confided in you,” he said.
“I should probably have confided in you too,” she said. “Did I get you in trouble with the Alpha Congress? Or with Taddeus?”
He shrugged. “Taddeus is rallying the clan chieftains who are the most hard line and traditional, and they’re appealing to the Alpha Congress, demanding my immediate removal.” At her alarmed look, he added, “It’s about 60-40 in my favor right now. Don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, these issues needed to be brought to light.”
“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble.”
“Don’t be. You care deeply about the pack members, and you were willing to take risks to ensure their happiness. You will make an excellent Alpha Queen.”
Caitlin managed a weak smile, but now she felt even worse. She’d hoped that she would help Twyla and all the other pack members who were trapped in their positions, and then move on, having changed their lives for the better. Instead she’d poked a hornet’s nest, and then she was going to scurry off and leave them all to deal with this on their own.
“Really, don’t worry about it,” Kristofer insisted, mistaking the look on her face. “It’s fine. There’s an emergency meeting of the clan chieftains that I need to attend. Frank is going to take you back to our house, and I’ll be back in a few hours.”
* * *
Caitlin strode through the pine trees behind the Alpha House, with Frank following at a discreet distance. She was hoping to find a measure of peace here, to wrap herself in the same calm that she encountered when she walked through the woods behind her house, but it was eluding her. Was it because these weren’t her own lands, the lands that felt so safe and familiar to her, or was it because there was no solution to her dilemma today?
Images of her mother flashed through her mind…her mother, getting worse. Her mother, fading away. Her aunt and uncle and cousins living in a trailer park…
No. She couldn’t let that happen. She’d sacrifice anything to save her family…even her love for Kristofer.
Had she just dared to think that word? It didn’t matter. She wrapped up that thought in cotton wool and tucked it far away, in the furthest recesses of her mind. She had no choice. Maybe, on some level, Kristofer would even understand.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” an angry woman’s voice snarled at her, and she spun around. Elzbetka. She was standing by a tall lodgepole pine, her eyes sparking with hatred. She’d dropped all pretense of being the respectful, deferential lady in waiting.
“Aren’t you supposed to throw a ‘milady’ in there somewhere?” Caitlin was in no mood for Elzbetka’s bitchiness right now.
“Forget it.” Elzbetka’s lips were peeled back in anger. “You don’t deserve the title. You don’t deserve Kristofer. Because of you, he’s at risk of being removed as Alpha.”
Caitlin was painfully aware of that, but she wasn’t about to discuss it with Elzbetka.
“You’re not even supposed to be here,” she reminded her.
Kristofer had banished Elzbetka from the main section of the village, for sneaking Melodee in to his house.
“Yes,” Elzbetka said bitterly, “Thanks to you.”
“No, thanks to you and your bad decisions. What did you think would happen when you let Melodee in?”
“I thought he’d come to his senses and see that she’d be a million times better bride for him. She’s prettier, she’s more fashionable, and she would be a bride who would respect tradition.”
“Oh, like the tradition of bullying everyone who you perceive as your social inferior. Yes, I can see your point, she’d be good at that.”
Frank was strolling towards them at a rapid pace, scowling at Elzbetka. Caitlin glanced at him, then back at Elzbetka.
“I know that you’re in love with Kristofer. So why do you want him to marry Melodee?”
“Because it wouldn’t be a love match!” Elzbetka spit out. “Because she doesn’t love him, and he doesn’t love her! What’s best for him is to have a political marriage, and to let me serve as his advisor! We were soul mates. I would have won him back if you hadn’t come along. Don’t look at me like that. It would all be for the good of the pack. She’s a better fit than you are.” The light in her eyes had taken on a particularly crazed look. “I won’t let you marry him. I won’t let you destroy hi
m and the pack.”
“It’s not up to you, and I’m telling you for the last time, stay away from me,” Caitlin said.
Fur rippled over Elzbetka’s face, and fangs shot out. Just then, Frank reached them. Caitlin stood her ground, and Frank grabbed Elzbetka’s arm. She yanked angrily and cursed in Kerslavian, trying to free herself as he talked into his mobile radio, but he stood there immobile as a rock. Soon three werewolves showed up to escort her from the area. She stalked away disdainfully, head held high.
Disgusted, Caitlin headed back to the house. As she walked, her phone rang. It was her family’s ring tone, so she answered quickly.
“Did you hear what Melodee is saying about you?” Priscilla’s aggrieved voice shrilled into the phone.
“No, but this is Melodee we’re talking here. Who cares what she says?”
“Because, when she insults you she insults all of us. Her cousin’s in my class, you know. Her cousin posted on her Facefriend page that Melodee said that Kristofer really wanted to marry her all along, but you tricked him by pretending that you were pregnant. And all my friends saw it.”
Caitlin burst out laughing. “Thank you, Priscilla, you just made my day.”
“It’s not funny!” Priscilla said indignantly.
“It’s hilarious. A werewolf can only make a woman pregnant on a full moon. It is not possible for me to have tricked him into thinking I was pregnant. Melodee is desperate and pathetic and she’d do anything to be Alpha Queen. She broke into Kristofer’s room the other night, and tried to throw herself at him and his guards had to haul her out of there, naked. That’s the real reason that she got booted as wedding planner.”
“Oooh!” Priscilla perked up immediately. “Can I put that in my blog?”
“Only if you want me to literally, not figuratively, but literally, murder you. Okay, you’ve cheered me up enormously, but I’m going to have to let you go now. And stop worrying about anything that a Klinghoffer says. They lie for a living.”
Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles Page 12