Riven (5 page)

The box was open
now, sparkling with reflected candlelight, but I refused to look
directly at it, instead meeting Alec's gaze squarely. Alec took
another breath and then smiled, but it wasn't like any of the smiles
I'd seen out of him lately. This one was pure happiness and if I'd
had any doubt about the sincerity of his proposal that smile would
have burned those doubts away.

"Adriana
Paige, will you please consent to become my wife?"

Adriana Paige
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

The ring was
gorgeous, but I didn't even notice until nearly an hour later. I said
yes to Alec's proposal, although it might have been fairer to
characterize my response as a joyful scream. Alec slid the ring on my
finger and pulled me into a kiss while my head was still spinning in
astonishment that it had happened.

On the one hand it
felt like we'd only known each other for a few days, but on the other
hand it seemed like I'd been waiting for Alec to truly claim me for
ages. This was an unmistakable sign that I belonged to him and he
belonged to me.

I was still giddy
with excitement when Alec noticed that the cooling air had me
shivering. I wanted to stay out in the gazebo all night but Alec
sternly refused my plea.

"You
collapsed just a few hours ago. We need to get you inside and keep
your body temperature regulated. The last thing that you need right
now is to come down with something."

Alec was
apparently still just as immune to my pouts as ever. Less than
fifteen minutes later all of the candles had been blown out and we
were headed back to the house.

Given how little
sleep shape shifters needed, it wasn't late enough for everyone else
to be in bed, but we didn't run into anyone on our way back which
suited me just fine. There would be plenty of time to enjoy being
'officially' engaged. That part could go as long as I
wanted it to, but this part would only last for a few more hours or
at most a day or two. Right now it was just Alec and I who knew and
that was somehow more perfect than anything else I could imagine.

Once we were back
in Alec's room with the lights turned down low I finally looked down
at the ring and gasped. It wasn't just a ring, it was jewelry
perfection. An almost obscenely huge trilliant cut diamond looked up
at me from a white setting that I was pretty sure was platinum. The
setting cradled the triangular diamond so that none of the sharp
corners were exposed but left the large face and most of the edges
out where the light could get to them.

There was no
questioning the beauty of the ring, but I also got a surprising sense
of history as I looked at it. It was shiny and new-looking, but it
felt old.

"Alec, where
did you get this ring?"

"It was my
great-great-grandmother's on my dad's side of the family. There are
four or five rings that have been in the family for centuries and out
of all of them this is the one that I thought best suited you. Mom
has one of the others and Rachel has had a third ring picked since
she was seven."

It was too much.
I'd been in shock up until now, but the longer I thought about it,
the more I became convinced that it was too much. Alec stopped me as
I tried to pull it off of my finger.

"Adri, this
ring is yours now, unless you're telling me that you don't want to
marry me."

"No, I still
want to marry you, but I can't wear this. Not only is it an heirloom,
it's got to be worth some serious money. What is this diamond, like
seven carats?"

Alec shook his
head, still holding my hand so that I couldn't pull the diamond off
of my finger.

"It's
something like four and a half carats, Adri. The setting is platinum
and if you disregard the history bit of things, you could buy one
like it for less than fifty thousand bucks. It's a really, really
nice stone, but on the scale of really excessive jewelry it's only
about a six or a seven considering that you'll make many, many times
this each year from your trust fund. Trust me, we've got much more
expensive rings in the family, I purposefully chose a more sedate
option for you."

Logically I knew
he was right. I was ridiculously rich now. The fact that I hadn't
earned any of it didn't make the money any less real. It just seemed
so crazy. I'd spent weeks despising all of the really rich girls at
my school in New York and now I was one of them. I would have said
that nothing would have made that worthwhile, but I was realizing
that there was one thing that could make me willing to enter into a
world that I knew I was profoundly unprepared for.

I debated between
a couple of different responses for a few seconds and then looked up
and met Alec's gaze. "There's nothing I can do to convince you
to buy me a cheaper ring with a normal-sized diamond?"

"I'm sorry,
Adri. I know that you're not exactly comfortable with the idea of
marrying a billionaire, but honestly this ring is almost too
restrained. You need a visible symbol that you're mine. The girls who
are going to be coming through here need to be able to see that I
value you, that I'm invested in you. Money doesn't prove that, but if
you've got a thousand-dollar ring some of them will automatically
assume that I'm not taking our engagement seriously. The fact that
the ring has been in my family for so long will go a long ways
towards offsetting the fact that it's not nearly as expensive as you
might otherwise have expected to receive."

Every time I
thought I had a handle on what it was really going to mean to be with
Alec he threw me for another loop like this. I didn't like his
conclusion but I couldn't argue with his logic.

"Okay, I'll
wear it, but only on one condition."

"Name it and
if I can reasonably do it for you then I will, Adri. You know that."

I took a deep
breath and then nodded. "I don't want a long engagement, Alec.
If we're going to go through all of the craziness that I suspect is
headed full speed towards us, then I want to do it as man and wife."

I didn't realize
I'd looked away from Alec again until he tipped my chin back up so
that he could see my face.

"Are you
sure? That is moving really fast. It means that we've got to get your
mom to buy off on the idea, that or we'll have to proceed with
getting you emancipated. I'm okay with that, I just don't want you to
rush into anything."

I nodded. "I'm
sure. A month, two at the outside and then I want us to be married. I
don't want to risk something happening before I get a chance to marry
you. I'd thought about us before now, but it wasn't until you
proposed tonight that I realized that not only is it exactly what I
want, there's no reason to wait any longer than I have to."

Alec turned my
hand over so that we could both see the ring. "There was more
than one reason that I picked this particular ring for you, Adri. The
setting shields the points, protecting them, but more importantly
stopping them from cutting the wearer or others up. That is what you
do for me. You take the most dangerous parts of me and help stop me
from doing things that can't be undone."

I started to tear
up, but Alec wasn't done. "If you want to get married sooner
rather than later then that can happen. It's going to mean a lot of
work, but we can hire a wedding planner or two, and Rachel will
positively be in heaven at the thought of being able to help you
organize everything."

"Wait, you
didn't say anything about a big wedding, Alec. I was thinking of a
really small ceremony."

Alec's sigh was
eloquent and I suddenly realized that he would have preferred a
smaller event as well. "I know, but I'm afraid that, given all
of the recent changes, we're not going to be able to have what we
want in that area. I'm...well, I'm more than just another pack
leader. The things I said in Chicago more or less put every wolf in
North America on notice that I was choosing to pursue my family's
inheritance. I knew it was going to lead to these kinds of problems
down the road, but I couldn't come up with any other route that gave
me a chance at stopping the Coun'hij."

My knees weren't
able to sustain my weight anymore. I dropped down so that I was
sitting on the edge of Alec's bed. "So I'm not just marrying
Alec Graves, the billionaire, I'm marrying Alec Graves, the future
king of the shape shifters."

"I'm afraid
so. That means there is a certain level of pomp and ceremony expected
for these kinds of occasions. It might be smart to set the wedding
date out far enough that you'll have a chance to get used to the idea
before the actual day arrives, but I'll do whatever you want. Just
understand that once we start down a path there is going to be a lot
of inertia. We can't just change our plans at the drop of a hat, not
when invitations will be sent out to every pack alpha and half a
dozen governors and state senators."

Once again it was
hard to get the words out, but even as he'd been painting what was
for me a pretty bleak picture, I'd still known what my answer would
be. Alec was worth all of that other craziness.

"I understand
but I still want to go forward, both with getting married to you, and
with the ceremony happening soon."

Alec kissed my
forehead and then wrapped his arms around me. "Okay, we'll tell
the pack first thing tomorrow and then start the process. Donovan
will probably kick and scream at the impropriety of it all, but we'll
make the wedding happen in the next month or two."

"I guess I'd
better get busy planning then. A month isn't very long to work with
when you're planning the gala event of the year."

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Adri had spent the
night in her own bed, much to her frustration, but I'd insisted. We
were still under the threat of sudden death, but we'd made it this
far without doing anything inappropriate and I wasn't going to
continue to run the risk, especially not if our wedding was less than
two months away.

Most of the time
Adri seemed to think that my control was unlimited, but it was more
finite than I liked to admit. My beast seemed to have decided that
Adri was the one for me, and he didn't operate under the same set of
rules.

In addition to
keeping us both virtuous for the next two months, sleeping in
separate beds meant that I could come and go without worrying about
waking Adri up. As much as I would have liked to just lie in bed
listening to her breathe, I already knew that things were going to
get more hectic over the coming months.

It wouldn't be
light outside for another hour or two still, but I'd already gotten
what sleep I needed, and was now zipping around corners on my R1. I
couldn't afford to have someone follow me, so I'd left the
motorcycle's headlights off. There was just enough light from the
moon for my eyes to see the road. I wouldn't have tried triple digit
speeds under these conditions, but I could see well enough that the
trip only took an extra ten minutes over what it usually did.

I stabled my bike
in the usual place, waited fifteen minutes to make sure that I wasn't
being followed, and then made the hike to Mallory's cabin. Mallory
must have heard me coming because she answered the door within
seconds of my knock.

"Alec, I'm
glad you came back. I...I'm sorry for what I said last time you
were here."

Three weeks ago I
wouldn't have been able to accept her apology, but I'd worked through
a lot of things since then. I gave her a gentle hug as I stepped into
her tiny cabin.

"It's okay,
Mallory. To whatever extent you did anything wrong, I forgive you.
I'm sorry too. You weren't entirely wrong, I was just focusing on the
wrong pieces of advice. You were right, I needed to man up and deal
with the situation, I was just too conflicted at the time to do it."

Mallory gave me a
slow, appraising look and then nodded. "You're not conflicted
anymore though, are you?"

"No. On the
one side I had you and Donovan telling me that I needed to avoid
repeating my father's mistakes regardless of the cost, but something
inside of me agreed more than I wanted to admit with what Adri had
said. I know that you and Donovan have had to deal with all the
fallout from my dad's fight with Agony, but I think that he
ultimately made the right decision. Maybe he should have made
different decisions leading up to the fight, but once he was there
and faced with letting Agony kill Donovan I think he made exactly the
right decision."

I'd never seen
Mallory cry, but her eyes were suspiciously bright now. She nodded
her head and then cleared her throat.

"I've had a
lot of time on my hands to think about things since we last talked.
I...well, I think you've got something there. Kaleb fighting
Agony didn't have to be the end of everything. If I hadn't jumped
into the fight then Agony would have just killed your father and
left. That's all he really wanted, but I couldn't imagine a future
without your father."

We shared a few
seconds of silence and then she looked back up at me. "What's
happened since I saw you last?"

I couldn't help
chuckling. Not at her expense, but at the difficulty of encapsulating
the last few weeks into a few pithy sentences.

"Things got
bad with the dispossessed. The pack pretty much started to implode
and we got an offer of alliance from the Tucson pack."

Agony had savaged
Mallory's body, but there wasn't anything wrong with her mind. I
could already see her trying to fit the new bits of information in
with everything else she knew.

"You accepted
the offer of alliance and having Jaclyn on our side has solved the
problems with the challengers from the dispossessed."