Slave to Destiny

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“What about pink dresses for the brides maid’s?” Claudia questioned me clutching a clipboard in her pale hands.

The urge to smack my head against the dining table was quickly becoming too much to take. For whatever reason Cole decided to leave wedding choices completely up to me. “No,” I told her shaking my head. My answer didn’t seem to please her in the least as she pouted. “How about green, forest green dresses,” I muttered. I was already so over this wedding thing.

“Hmm it will be difficult to find a designer willing to make them on such short notice, but I will manage,” Claudia muttered to herself while marking wildly on her clipboard.

“What do you mean short notice? We haven’t even decided on a date yet,” I told her glaring ever so slightly. This entire mess would be easier if I’d been normal and dreaming of a big extraordinary wedding sense I was a kid.

Claudia glanced her hazel eyes full of amusement as she explained, “Oh honey, didn’t you know? The wedding will be in two weeks. We have to bring the peace quickly. Did Daniel not mention that to you?”

I’m pretty sure I was seeing red. No Daniel hadn’t mentioned it to me, and something tells me he wasn’t going to mention it to me until the day before. It was so tempting to storm off around the castle like a little kid looking for Daniel so I could scream at him. I’m sure everyone would really appreciate my evident maturity, but come on, I’m a freaking eighteen-year-old girl. “Now let’s talk about dresses. I personally think a mermaid cut would be rather flattering, but maybe that’s just me. Do you have anything in mind? I’m sure you’ve been dreaming about this day considering you’re a princess and all.”

I physically slammed my head against the table causing Claudia to let out a shot, fearful squeak. Timidly she continued, “I have some pictures. We can pick it out and we’ll pick a designer.”

She dropped an envelope full of lovely girl adorning outstanding dresses while still magically maintaining their girl next door kind of vibe. My eyes scanned the pictures looking for anything that even remotely caught my fancy. It would be so much simpler if I handed the pictures to Cole and demanded him to pick my dress.

One thing to note about the wedding rituals in the Otherworld is that dresses were never white. In fact it would be considered quite strange to have a white dress. It didn’t fit with the way we viewed the world. Night was our sense of life, it would only make sense to respect it by wearing dark colors. “I want a red dress,” I told her upon first glance. Something about the deep scarlet color drew me to it. It was so warm and familiar.

“Are you sure? Most of the queens have worn the traditional black,” Claudia interjected.

My eyes rolled without permission from my brain. “Perhaps you didn’t catch on to this, but I am far from a traditional Queen. For one I’m a werewolf. Two I’m rather progressive if you haven’t noticed. And three I’m not nearly as impressed with the black as the red.” Claudia had said the wedding was all up to me, but for some reason I felt like I would be fighting her for every step of the way.

“Strapless,” I muttered flipping through another picture. Having learned from her lesson, Claudia was now focused on writing down all my demands on a notebook. “Full ball gown.”

The words were coming out of my mouth with ease. Maybe this wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as we originally suspected. “I want some silver jewels around the corset and stuff.”

“Is that all?” Claudia muttered suddenly sounding bored out of her mind. My skin itched to transform. The wolf inside of me wanted to push my dominance on her very being. How could she not see she was testing my limits. There was only so much I could take in my crazy mind. Everything was so jumbled with the recent events I could barely comprehend an ounce of what was going on.

It was at this moment that Blaire took it upon herself to enter the room. She was completely dolled up with her long blond hair curled up to perfection. She looked positively stunning. One glance at me and Blaire could see that the current situation was physically hurting me. “Claudia, why don’t you take a break? My mother desperately wants to talk to you. Gabby and I will work on the wedding,” Blaire explained as politely as she could possibly muster.

Claudia looked as though she was about to reject her, but when she saw my narrowed angry eyes she was quick to reply, “That sounds wonderful,” before scurrying off out of the room. Something told me that she may have planned all the royal weddings in the past years, but she definitely wasn’t going to have a say over mine.

Blaire leisurely wandered over to the table and plopped down beside me. Quickly she scanned over the notes and grinned. “I know the perfect designer for this. Tabby and I totally met him when we went clubbing once. I can’t wait,” Blaire piped up happily.

It was a relief to have someone optimistic about my ideas for once. “Let’s talk guest lists,” she continued.

By the end of the day I was completely exhausted from planning. Slowly I climbed into the cushiony heaven known as Cole’s bed. It was so warm and welcoming. I hardly could bring myself to kick out of the jeans. Moments later I could feel the pressure on the bed shift as Cole climbed in beside me. His arm quickly traveled across my waist as he tugged me closer.

“I heard you positively terrified Claudia,” he whispered in my ear with a deep husky voice.

A small grin played on my lips as I buried my head into his cool, chiseled chest. “She was annoying,” I replied earning a small chuckle from Cole’s lips.

“I love you Gabby,” he whispered in my ear as my eyes fluttered shut and I drifted off into my dream world.