My Family Thought I Married a Rogue

“Hazel, Ethan’s motorcade needs a driver. Why don’t you send Julian? It beats teaching history to a bunch of high schoolers!”

Bella had just stepped out of the mating gown she’d been trying on. She looked down at me like she was tossing a bone to a stray dog.

“No thanks. Julian isn’t looking for a new job.” I smiled and turned her down.

There was no point telling them who Julian really was.

In three days, under the Blood Moon, the whole North would know.

Dad frowned. “Hazel, your sister is trying to help you. Why are you always so ungrateful? Half the young wolves in Silver Creek would kill to get into Blackthorn’s motorcade, and you turn it down without even asking Julian?”

Mom chimed in. “Your father’s right! Bella says Ethan is close with people at the Royal Court. With the Court behind him, it’s only a matter of time before he’s Alpha of Blackthorn. Wolves will be begging to drive for him!”

I stared at Bella.

Julian had told me all about Ethan Grayson: a spoiled playboy who got so drunk at the bar every full moon that he couldn’t shift back. His father had given up on his youngest son long ago and still hadn’t named an heir.

As for the Royal Court, Ethan couldn’t have found its front door with a map.

Something nasty flickered in Bella’s eyes, but her voice stayed sickly sweet.

“Okay, driving isn’t glamorous, but it’s a job with a future. If Julian works hard, maybe one day he’ll make Ethan’s personal guard! Oh, and you should come to Blackthorn with me and help me run the house. I couldn’t stand being apart from you.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Mom said at once. “You two can look out for each other.”

Look out for each other. How sweet.

Translation: I’d go to Blackthorn as Bella’s Omega maid, and Julian would go as Ethan’s chauffeur.

I said nothing. My hands curled into fists at my sides.

Bella had been sickly from birth. The pack healer said twins fight over nourishment in the womb, and I’d taken her share.

After that, Mom and Dad gave her all their love.

I grew up believing I owed her. Whatever she wanted, I gave up. Whenever she got sick, I sat by her bed.

I kept hoping that if I were good enough, useful enough, they would someday love me the way they loved her.

But in their eyes, I always came second.

Grandma had been the last wolf in Silver Creek who knew how to weave moonsilk. Before she died, she finished one final bolt, and her will was clear: it went to her two granddaughters, half each, for their mating gowns.

The gown Bella had just taken off used the entire bolt.

Two bitterroot blossoms on a single stem were embroidered across the skirt. Three years ago, Mom had drawn that pattern for me, because she said I had a quiet soul.

My gown hung in my closet. An eighty-nine-dollar dress off the clearance rack.

This time, I was going to say no and mean it.

Before I could open my mouth, the doorbell rang.

Ethan stood outside. As always, he had eight hulking Blackthorn warriors at his back, and the heavy musk of wolf flooded the entryway.

On his way in, he tossed his jacket at me without so much as a glance. “Hang that up.”

Last month, at a bar in Missoula, he’d thrown a drink in an Omega server’s face for calling him “Mr. Grayson” instead of “Alpha Grayson.” His father was still alive. Ethan wasn’t Alpha of anything.

Bella threw herself into his arms. “Babe, I missed you so much!”

They kissed right there in the entryway in front of everyone, and Ethan made a show of burying his nose in the side of her neck, staking his claim.

I was about to slip back to my room when Mom grabbed my arm.

“Go pour Ethan a drink! The twenty-year bourbon on the top shelf. One ice cube. Just one.”

From the day she heard Ethan would inherit Blackthorn, Mom had memorized every one of his preferences.

Julian had been to our house more times than I could count, and she still didn’t know whether he drank. She always put him at the kids’ table and served him yesterday’s leftovers.

She was the same with me.

She remembered that Bella hated cilantro and the color blue, but she could never remember that I was allergic to nuts. Every Thanksgiving she brought out a whole pecan pie, then asked, all innocence, why I wasn’t eating.

I went to pour the drink. When I came back, Ethan had an arm around Bella and was talking to my parents.

“Bella, we need to push our mating ceremony back a week.”