Chapter 2
Sugar Pierce fiddled with the edge of her napkin as she listened to the conversation that flowed back and forth during the rehearsal dinner. Her adopted sister, Rai, was marrying a lion male named True. Sugar hadn’t been sure she’d ever meet a male good enough for her sister, but True was wonderful. He was not only a powerful lion shifter but he was also a gentleman at heart and very sweet with her sister. Rai, who had claimed at age twelve that she’d never marry a gross boy, was head over heels for the lion.
Sugar was so happy for her sister but also a little jealous. She wished she had someone special in her life. Although she’d dated over the years, no males had ever made her beast purr, and that was a must for her. She believed that the moment she laid eyes on the male meant for her, both she and her cat would be in total agreement. It wouldn’t hurt if he was sex on a stick, too. And a cat like her.
Not that she’d ever met any other snow leopards. As far as she knew, she was the only one in the states. After her family had been killed by a human hunting party when she was three, she’d been alone in the world. A social worker had taken her to Fell and Penny, who were alpha wolves. Penny had taken her in immediately, called her the daughter of her heart, and given her everything they’d given to their born daughter, Rai.
“You should make a toast,” Penny whispered, slipping an arm over Sugar’s shoulders. “Rai would love it.”
“Okay,” Sugar said. She pushed her chair out a bit and stood, tapping her fork on the side of her wine glass. The small crowd quieted, focusing their eyes on her. “I wanted to officially welcome True to the family. Tomorrow afternoon you get to make my sister your wife, and that’s pretty darn awesome. She’s amazing, and I know you’ll have a wonderful life together. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing what a strong mating looks like because of Fell and Penny’s example – so love each other above all else, never go to bed mad, and sometimes let your mate have the kill, even if you tracked it for days.”
Penny and Fell both chuckled, and so did Rai.
“To my sister and her mate. I wish you all the happiness in the world.”
She lifted her glass in the air, and Rai smiled at her with tear-filled eyes. Rai mouthed I love you, and Sugar repeated the silent words. The rest of the long table, filled with members of the pride and pack, lifted their glasses in toast to the couple. Sugar sat down, and her mom patted her hand with a smile.
Hours later, when the clock was nearing midnight and Sugar was waiting by the passenger door of her SUV, she tried not to hear the noisy goodbye kisses between Rai and True that had been going on for a while. The restaurant parking lot was nearly empty. Fell and Penny waited in their vehicle for Sugar and Rai to get on their way, and one of True’s pride members was waiting in his truck.
“It’s nearly midnight,” Sugar said loudly. For the third time.
“I heard you,” Rai murmured between noisy kisses.
“Okay, it’s just that you said that all the traditions were important, and that means you’ve got a hundred years of bad luck coming if you’re still pawing each other at twelve oh one.”
Rai squeaked in alarm. “It’s not a hundred years.”
“Tempt fate, see if I care. It’s not my marriage that’s going to be cursed with bad luck.”
“You’re so mean,” Rai said. She kissed True again and then sighed loudly. “I better go. Don’t want the fates against us.”
“I’ll be waiting for you at the altar, love,” True said.
“Can’t wait. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives,” Rai said.
They kissed. Again. And then said their mushy sentiments. Rai sat down in the passenger seat, and Sugar shut the door. With a wave at True and his friend and at her parents, she climbed behind the wheel and buckled her seat belt.
“He’s the sexiest lion ever,” Rai said as she waved out the window at True.
“If you say so.” Sugar put the SUV in gear and followed their parents out of the parking lot. Tonight, she and Rai were staying at their parents’ house in their old bedroom, a kind of last hurrah for their childhood.
“Don’t you have a single romantic bone in your body? You used to read romance novels by the truckload.”
“I’m plenty romantic, but I’m not peeping at your man. The minute you told me he was the one, he became a sexless creature in my mind, only alive to make you happy.”
Rai snorted. “He’s definitely not sexless.”
Sugar groaned. She and Rai shared an apartment in a pack-owned apartment complex. Sugar had great hearing thanks to her shifter genetics and even though the apartment was spacious, she heard pretty much everything that went on inside it. Which was why she’d invested in a two-hundred-dollar pair of noise canceling headphones.
Switching topics, Sugar asked, “What happened to True’s Best Man?”
“Maddox is the alpha, and there was a problem with a couple in the pride. True didn’t want to go into details, but the gist is that they weren’t mated, sort of just dating, and she’s pregnant and found him with another lioness. Maddox was handling the fall out.”
“Are lions like that?”
“Like what?”
“Cheaters?”
“Not at all. True said he hadn’t heard of a lion straying like that in his whole life. The female was a little older, like over thirty, and she wanted to have a cub. I don’t understand it all, because True was aggravated on Maddox’s behalf, but it sounded like the male was going along with things until another female showed interest in him. Lions who are mated are just like wolves who are mated – there’s no cheating. I think the guy in question was just an asshole and the female chose poorly.”
“That’s too bad. But I’m glad that lions don’t cheat. You and True are already mated. I’d hate to have to kill him if he even looked at anyone else.”
“You’d be in line behind me, mom, and dad if he did.”
“You chose well. He loves you. It’s sickening.”
Rai squeezed Sugar’s forearm gently. “It’s only sickening when you’re alone. You’ll find your mate when the time is right. And maybe he’ll be a cat.”
“I don’t care what he shifts into, or if he even does at all, as long as he’s a good guy. Remember when we were eight and at the pack wedding for Ralph and Debbie? We talked about what our future husbands were going to be like?”
Rai laughed. “I wanted my future mate to be an alpha like Dad.”
“And I wanted mine to be a snow leopard so I wouldn’t be the only one.”
“Dad said he’d help you find other leopards. Why didn’t you ever take him up on it?”
“I don’t know. It just never seemed like the path my life should take. If I met a snow leopard, I wanted it to happen naturally, not me chasing after a group just because we happened to be the same type of shifter.”
She parked behind their parents’ car and turned off the engine.
“Whoever he is, he’s a lucky guy. I just hope that he doesn’t mind living close so we can still hang out. I plan for our kids to be best friends.”
Rai was leaving the wolf pack to join the lion pride. The pride’s territory was thirty minutes away from pack land.
“I hope our kids can be close, too. You’re the best sister I could have ever hoped for.”
“Aw,” Rai said, leaning over and hugging Sugar. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“Not trying to. Just love you.” Her own eyes were stinging with tears. So much was changing. In twelve hours, her sister was marrying a man and starting a new life with him. The apartment wasn’t going to be the same without her.
* * *
The next morning, Sugar took a small sip of champagne and watched as a stylist worked on Rai’s hair. In less than an hour, so much was going to change for Rai. She wouldn’t be Rai Pierce any longer; she’d be Mrs. Rai Hayes.
“Are you ready to get married?” Sugar asked.
“So freaking ready. I wish we’d eloped. Then I wouldn’t have had to spend last night without True.”
“If you tried to elope, your dad would have strung True up by his thumbs,” her mom said.
“That’s a good point,” Sugar said. “Dad would’ve been mad if he hadn’t been able to walk you down the aisle.”
Rai wrinkled her nose. “You just wait until you meet your mate, Sugar. Then you’ll know what torture it is to be away from him for even half a day.”
Sugar rolled her eyes but smiled at her sister anyway. It was her wedding day. She was allowed to be a nut.
“Oh, I have a surprise for you!” Rai said, clapping her hands. “It’s on the table in the pink bag.”
Sugar walked to the table in the corner of the dressing room and lifted the pink bag with the curling ribbon spirals on the handle and walked over to her sister. She reached into the bag and lifted out a crystal and pearl headband.
“See? It matches the clip for my veil,” Rai said, lifting the long veil that she held in her lap. Rhinestone flowers with pearl accents adorned the lovely, ornate headband.
Sugar leaned over and kissed Rai on the cheek. “It’s beautiful. I love it.”
She turned to a long mirror and slid it onto her head. It looked lovely buried in her long, dark brown tresses that had been painstakingly curled by the stylist.
Her mom came to stand next to her, resting her hands on Sugar’s shoulders. “I don’t want to make you cry, sweetie, but you’re so beautiful. I know your parents are looking down from heaven with big smiles on their faces.”
“I thought you weren’t trying to make me cry,” Sugar said, blinking rapidly to dispel the sudden tears.
Penny chuckled as she dabbed at her own eyes with a handkerchief after handing one to Sugar. Rai joined them, and Penny hugged both girls close. “My sweet girls. I love you both dearly.”
There was a soft knock on the door of the dressing room, and Penny hurried to open it. “They’re ready to start,” Fell said.
Sugar lifted two bouquets from the table. Rai had chosen a Christmas theme for the wedding, and the bouquets had been arranged to coordinate with the holiday. Nestled among the snow-white roses were bright red poinsettias. Sugar’s bouquet was a smaller version of Rai’s. Sugar’s knee-length, lacy gown was the same crimson shade of the poinsettias.
Sugar left Rai in the hallway with their dad, walking with her mom to where the pack and pride had gathered in one of the large banquet rooms before the ceremony. The doors to the room were closed, and two males, who were part of the pride Rai would be joining, stood outside of the doors wearing red vests and ties beneath black suits.
Soft strains of music filtered through the doors, and Sugar’s cat rolled inside her, purring loudly and making Sugar startle.
“Are you okay?” Penny asked.
“Yeah,” Sugar said, shaking her head and trying to push away her cat. She felt like she could shift at any moment, as if her cat was right under her skin, ready to spring forth. “I feel weird.”
“Now is not the time,” Penny said.
Sweat beaded on Sugar’s forehead, and her ears buzzed. Her vision tunneled as she gripped the bouquet so hard that the stems cracked. She glanced at her mom and realized she’d missed her leaving the foyer to walk down the aisle with one of the ushers. The doors had shut, and Sugar was alone with the lion males.
“What the hell?” she whispered to herself.
Her cat went silent for a long moment, and Sugar breathed deeply in relief. And then her cat went nuts; the whole world narrowed down to a male striding down the hallway toward her. He was gorgeous. He was alpha powerful. And he was hers.