The sound of a crying infant pierced the quiet of the grove. I looked around at oak trees far more ancient than any I’d ever seen before. Their limbs were so old and thick that they rested on the ground. Green moss streamed from their top branches, and the breeze moaned through the forest.

I absorbed the scenery of the unfamiliar forest, amazed at the beauty of the place Malcolm’s brother brought me to. Arista’s child was crying in the distance, and I pitied the child that only wanted its mother. I studied the grove, feeling magic untamed as I turned away from the piercing cries. His father would be there to soothe him.

We’d all been terrified when Arista passed out after giving birth, but she’d soon awakened, refreshed and ready to name her child. Galen was the name they chose, because it meant peaceful and calm, just like their little son. He was a beautiful child, and now his mother and father were getting married in an old grove filled with ancient magic.

“Willow,” that voice called out my name.

I turned to see Henry there, waiting for me. He irritated me with his charming smile and his arrogant manners.

He was my mate, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Oh, Arista thought I didn’t know, but I did. He’d fascinated me the first time I saw him, but since then, as he hung around to heal me and keep his own strength up, I’d come to find he irritated me.

He always talked about how rich he was, how he could buy anything he wanted, and he’d been all over the world. I had nothing to compare that with. I could get him a gallon of milk and show him the Wal Mart twenty miles away, but that was it. I would often stare at him and wonder if he did it out of some odd habit, or if he thought the brags would attract me?

His charming grin was in place, flashing at me as he found me alone in the grove.

“It’s all ready then?” he asked me, his gaze raking over me.

I felt the heat of desire but ignored it. I didn’t want to feel desire for Henry, I just wanted to heal so I could get back to my real life and the real world. Arista might be on the way to her wedding, but that wasn’t in my stars. I was meant for other things.

“Yes, as soon as the guests arrive.” I spoke to him in a monotone voice, one that didn’t invite further discussion, but also didn’t tell him to piss off like I wanted to.

Not exactly, anyway.

“I’m going to have a wedding like this one day,” he hinted, his eyes on me.

“That’s only because of the…” I stopped myself before I went too far.

Maybe if we weren’t mates I’d feel differently, but we were. I wanted love because it was driven by passion and need, not a physiological reaction to something fate decreed. Would he feel the same if he wasn’t my mate? Would he still dream of weddings and the future?

I was healed now, I wanted to get back to playing the piano and composing symphonies. I didn’t want to think about babies and weddings.

He came close, his eyes burned into mine.

“You can have your symphonies, Willow, and you can have your passion, if only you’d give in to what we can’t deny.” His words were a confrontation, a confrontation I didn’t want to have right now.

I pushed him away, or rather, I tried to, but my hands only drew him closer. His eyes were so beautiful, and his lips, they looked so inviting.

I felt a shiver go down my spine as his hands ran over my bare arms. Want filled me, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t think I’d be able to say no to something. To Henry.

I moved closer to his lips, wondering how long it would be before the wedding guests arrived. Was there time to slip away, let him give me the physical satisfaction I craved, and then come back?

I waited, my lips parted in anticipation of this first kiss, and tried to make a decision.

“Willow? Arista needs you.”

I turned away, the sound of Malcolm’s voice a welcome interruption. He was dressed in a hunter green kilt with a white shirt and a hunter green jacket. He looked rather handsome, even if he was a dragon.

“Thanks, Malcolm. I’ll go see what she needs. Bye, Henry.” I didn’t turn back, mainly because I was afraid if I did, I wouldn’t leave.

I made my way to Arista inside of the cabin they’d set up for the wedding. She was in the bedroom, wedding gown on, hair done perfectly, and a veil of soft lace in place. She should be radiant but instead, she had tears in her light-brown eyes so like my own. We could be sisters we looked so similar. We were both tall with slim waists but full figures, and both had light-brown hair and light-brown eyes. She was a year older than me, and her nose tilted where mine was a straight shot all the way to the tip. I also had a rounder face than her.

“What’s wrong, Arista?” I rushed to her side where she sat on the bed and took her hand. “Why are you crying?”

“I need to pee! I can’t go on my own. Mom has Galen, your mom is with her, and Mary’s outside somewhere, I don’t know where. Can you help me? It’s so hard to do with this thing on! I can’t hold all of the lace and silk and keep my balance!”

“Girl, come on. I’mma help you get your pee on.” I put on a funny voice and it did the trick. Her tears dried up as she grinned.

“I’m sorry, I’m an emotional wreck today. It’s only a wedding, I don’t know why I’m like this.” She dabbed at her eyes and I helped her clean around her eyes with a tissue. I touched up her makeup and stood her up.

“Come on, you have every right to be weird today, cuz. You’re about to be a wife!” I gave her a hug, and then I helped her do what she needed to do before we made our way to the front porch. I could see, off to the right and in a glade, the place where we’d set up an arbor and seats for the guests. There weren’t many, Malcolm and Arista both wanted a small wedding, after all. No more than two dozen people were invited.

A short while later, I watched my cousin walk up the aisle with a grin. Arista was my savior in the end, because she’d brought the dragon mate that I needed to survive to me. Even if I did hate him. I shot a glare over at Henry, who stood by his brother’s side, and wondered how I was supposed to get through life shackled to him.

My mother, Rachel, hadn’t needed a man to raise me, and she was actually happy with her life, man or no. For all I knew, Momma might have even liked women, but I doubt she needed a woman either. She was happy in her own little world, and that’s how I was now that I was well again.

My fingers clenched as I thought about the piano in the house. It was an old upright piano, all we could afford when I’d first learned how to play, and it was always a comfort to run my fingers over the keys. Before I became ill with the mating-sickness—lack-of-being-near-my-mate-sickness—whatever it was called, I’d been on my way to a career in music.

Classical music, sometimes a gig in New Age came up, but I’d been on my way. I was a composer by training. I’d scrimped my way through a bachelor’s degree for it, and now I was finally getting the flexibility back in my long-disused fingers. Maybe I could get back on track, maybe I couldn’t, it remained to be seen. That led me back to Henry.

Another, less baleful glance, showed he had a huge grin on his face as the magical being that officiated the wedding droned on and on in a language I didn’t understand. The man was a wizard of some sort with a long white beard that flowed down to around his knees over a purple robe with a face so wrinkled you almost couldn’t see his eyes. In contrast, Henry had on a suit, black with a silver cummerbund, and he looked stunningly handsome.

I wished he wasn’t my mate! If I knew he wanted me for more reasons than just this silly mate-bond that bound us together I might actually go for the guy. Well, no, I wouldn’t, especially not when he started to brag about his material wealth. I’d grown up poor, but fed, loved, and nourished in all ways. Material wealth meant little to me. For that reason alone, I found most of what he said to be insufferable.

“And so, today, as I join these two magical beings into one, one with each other, and one with nature that gives us all we need, I ask you all to share in their joy,” I heard the man say, but assumed he’d switched to English.

When none of the guests from my world reacted, I looked back at him.

“May you go into your future with peace and love, my children.” I understood that too.

The people from my world looked confused as the guests from Malcolm’s world applauded and stood up. What had just happened there? I’d either understood a foreign language or none of the guests had heard him. There weren’t that many that they couldn’t have heard his words spoken in a louder voice. Well, I’d just have to file that one away for later. For now, I had to follow along behind Arista as she and Malcolm left the dais.

They walked through the crowd but didn’t stop for too long, only long enough to gather up baby Galen, accept a kiss or a handshake, and then they flew off together. They were headed straight for their honeymoon, apparently a dragon tradition, and the rest of us were left behind to mingle. The tradition was fine with Arista, she’d said, she wanted out of that dress as soon as possible anyway. I’d laughed at the time, but now I felt rather sad as I watched them fly away, Malcolm in his dragon form with Arista and Galen cradled just between his wings.

She was off to her new life now, and I’d only just got her back. Her father had taken her away when Arista was young, believing her mother was insane, and she’d come back to our town when she’d run out of answers for her own bad health. We’d both needed our dragon mates, though we hadn’t known it then. That’s why we had become so ill, ill to the point of death.

Now that Malcolm and Henry were around though, we were both healthier. The gray color had left my long hair, and my skin had gone back to its youthful elasticity. I’d looked 20 years older when Henry had first come around and seen the age illness had given me. Now, I was the 22-year-old we all knew me to be. If only I could maintain it without the dragon around.

I sighed deeply and went to find my mother. I saw Eve and Ted, Arista’s parents, still in their chairs, their heads very close together. There was romance afoot there.

“That’s been a long time in the making,” my mother said quietly as she came up beside me.

“It has, Momma, it has. I still want to be mad at him for what he did, but I know it was all for Arista. He loved his daughter enough to try to protect her.”

“It’s a hard thing to forgive, but if Eve can do it, so can we.” My mother took my hand and we went off to the area where food had been prepared by caterers from our world.

There weren’t many people from my world, but there was some family who knew about the dragons, and a few people the magical world had brought along for the wedding. The rest were all from the magical world, but they’d been gracious in allowing us our own food. I mean, they’re magical beings, they could force us to eat some magical cow or something, couldn’t they?

I continued to ponder the food choices that could have been made as I walked up to a table and filled a plate with pasta salad and a yeast roll. I didn’t want anything else just then, so I turned to leave the table and find a drink. I bumped into Henry but managed to save the plate.

“Careful now.” He grinned as he held his hands out steady me. His fingers gripped into my shoulders and, again, awareness flowed through me. “We don’t want you to twist an ankle or anything.”

“Thanks,” I muttered and made to push past. I made it clear I didn’t want to talk to him by storming away.

I cast a look back, just before I walked into the cabin, to see him still there, a confused look on his handsome face. Tall with black hair and green eyes, Henry was more than handsome, he was gorgeous. He knew it too. Arrogance, a fascination with material goods, boastful, but still somehow charming… he wasn’t my type at all.

Not that I really had a type, but I knew he wasn’t it. I let the screen door slam as I turned away from him and told myself to ignore the hurt on his face that soon replaced the confusion. It wasn’t my fault we were mates. It also wasn’t my fault he was such a dick. If he’d been a charmer, charitable, and helped old ladies across the street, I’d have loved him instantly. Instead, my prince was a giant toad.

Which reminded me that Arista was now a princess, and her own son a prince. Wow, I thought as I sat down. From hillbilly to princess just like that. The world that used to be so uncomplicated, so average and run of the mill, had become a place that left me confused, angry, and often bewildered. I didn’t like it one bit, and unfortunately for Henry, I liked the idea of being a princess even less.