The lined white lace blindfold lay across the bed, mocking me. Even the bed mocked me with its pristine white coverings and golden accents along the wrought iron frame.

I wondered if this would be my bedroom—our bedroom.

“Is he that ugly? I don’t get this tradition.”

My best friend Samantha snickered from the corner of the room. “It would be easier to name the ones we do understand. I think this is more of a Havenwood Falls thing than a shifter thing.”

“Is he ugly? Is he mean? Will he hate me? I hope he does.” My voice held a desperation I hadn’t known I was capable of. At this point, one might expect my mother to speak up and give me a few words of encouragement. As was usual for her, she remained silent, oblivious.

“You do not,” Samantha said. “And even if he is ugly, you can just reap the rewards. I mean, there’s the status and the money. Hell, if he’s that big of a prick, you can get your needs met elsewhere, you know. I’m sure there’s a yummy jester around, just waiting to make sure the future alpha’s queen is satisfied.”

My best friend was not a prude, that was for sure.

“There’s no jester, Sam. This isn’t the Victorian era.”

She scoffed. “Could’ve fooled me. All these rules . . . and that dress costs more than my rent for the year.”

At least she could do that—pay her own rent. I was sure I’d never have to pay another bill while I was here. It was a little thing, but I liked the little things in life.

She was right about the dress. Swarovski crystals and pearls cluttered the lithe fabric from shoulders to hem. The style was modest to the point of almost being old-fashioned. There wasn’t an inch of skin from my wrists down to my ankles that peeked out. The lace around my collar was crowned with a string of heavy pearls. They weren’t as heavy as the deal I’d made to marry a stranger.

“It isn’t worth it.”

She turned me around to face her. “Don’t say that, Atlas. We both know what this means to our people. The classes won’t be divided anymore. There won’t be the rich shifters and the poor shifters. You are changing everything. Trust me, it’s worth ninety days of pain and punishment.” She laughed, but I did not.

I sighed and looked at myself in the mirror. I was a cinnamon bear shifter, and we were considered the lesser of the two types of black bear shifters, even though we were technically the same species. Cinnamon bears simply didn’t change from brown to black after puberty. Other than our hair color, we were the exact same bear. My light brown hair glistened in the sun that peeked through the moving curtains. The hairdressers had worked a full three hours on it. They didn’t touch the color. It proved what I was and the reason why I was marrying the Black Bear Clan’s next alpha.

“I don’t want to change everything, Sammy. I just want to find a worthy male who loves me. I don’t want to be an example or a bridge. Someone called me that the other day, by the way. She told me ‘thank you for being the bridge,’ like I was some inanimate thing that people walked over from one side of a dirty river to the other.”

I looked at the reflection of my mother, who was already three sheets to the wind and working on the fourth. She didn’t care. All she knew was the Xaviers had paid off our mortgage and my student loans—a dowry of sorts. The velvet lounge chair she rested in hugged her hips and gave her an excuse to keep chugging down the rum in her glass.

Sammy’s hands were on my shoulders before the crying could start. She always knew when I was about to crack open.

“You’re not an inanimate object, and anyway, I heard that Harrison is hot as fuck. And just as a bonus, he has a fine booty, too. They blindfold you so you don’t slobber on him during the ceremony.”

No matter how hard I tried, there was no fighting Sammy’s wit. Plus, the laugh made me feel better—a little. Laughing made my breath captive in the veil that began as an adorned piece atop my head and extended below my chin. I looked like I had a fishing net stretched over my face.

Hot or not, I just wanted to be a nurse, find a mate, buy a house, and have some cubs. “This isn’t right. I can’t talk to people. I can’t make decisions that will affect all of us. What if I fuck everything up?”

“You probably will. But, we all do, right?”

“Yeah, especially you.”

“Hey! I kind of like not being perfect.”

“I like you not perfect, too.” I wrapped my arms around my best friend and hoped to the Creator that it wasn’t the last time we would embrace like this. She’d be allowed to visit me, but only when I requested her presence.

Ninety days was all I had to last. That was the stipulation in the agreement. I didn’t know what was going to happen to the kingdom in those ninety days, and frankly, I didn’t care. Their offer of monetary gain and peace among our people was too tempting to pass up—even if I hated every second of this setup.

“It’s not that long. I can make it, right?”

She hugged me tighter. She was crying now, too. Her body shook against me as she sobbed. “They let me meet him last night, At.”

I pulled back, shocked by her confession. “What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me? I was wondering how you knew what he looked like. I thought you were just trying to make me feel better.”

“They told me not to. But I couldn’t keep it from you. He’s . . . he’s not what you think. That’s all I’m going to say. You won’t have any trouble lasting the ninety days. Treat this like a real mating. Trust me.”

I did.

I just didn’t trust my mate-to-be.

A knock sounded at the door. A pith of a girl in a pale pink dress told us that it was almost time. Almost time to go.

“Well, let’s not drag this out.” Sammy reached to straighten my veil again and kissed me on the cheeks.

“One day maybe . . .”

“Don’t even say it, Atlas. It’s just a few days, and then you will be free of this place.”

I fisted the sleeve of her dress, not willing to let her go yet.

“All of this is ridiculous. This castle. This wedding. This dress. These rules. What kind of alpha won’t let my best friend attend my wedding?”

“It’s all about numbers, Atlas. You know that. Your mom will be there along with some servants. That many cinnamon bears under one roof is probably making the alpha squirm enough without adding one more to the mix.”

She stepped away, but before her hand touched the door, she looked over her shoulder at me. “You have to change things, Atlas. At the very least, you have to try.”

The girl who had summoned me still stood at the door, staring at me as though I’d just given birth to an alien. “Is something wrong?” I asked, checking myself over in the mirror.

“No, ma’am. Is it true? You’ve come to help us?” Her question was barely audible.

Sammy and I looked at each other in shock. My stomach rolled as I realized the shake in this girl’s voice wasn’t from speaking to me, but rather what she alluded to.

“I’m going to try.”

Trying was the only thing I could promise.