ARIA’S POV:
”You look heavenly,” Nicolle’s image in the mirror showed me her stunned face.
“I’m just about done here.” The makeup artist sprayed my face and began to pack her bags.
“You look…” Nicolle was star-struck.
I couldn’t blame her.
I could not even recognize myself.
I looked completely different, but in a good way.
Every part of my body reflected that I had undergone a transformation.
“Thank you very much, except my dress is not here yet.” I reported.
“What?” The instant panic was the same one I had been building for hours.
“It’s thirty minutes to the ceremony.” She paced about the room.
“He knows better. He was supposed to be here two hours ago,” I stood there, blaming myself.
I should have trusted my guts when we left the fashion house and I felt he was going to sabotage the day.
“What do we do now?” I asked Nicolle, who was in no position to answer, since she was devastated as well.
“Alpha Draven would kill me.” I did not try to stop her from panicking, after all I was equally in panic.
The only difference was I was on the spot, while she paced about.
“Okay. We’ll wait,” Minutes later, after Nicolle calmed down, she said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“He knows better than to disappoint Alpha Draven. He knows the consequences are drastic.” She sounded more like she was trying to get me not to panic.
Nicolle and I sat in silence, staring at the minutes count down, until we now had only ten minutes to the start of the ceremony.
With five minutes left and no sign of a dress, Nicolle resumed panic.
“Alpha Draven would lose his mind if we’re late. He hates tardiness.” I was quiet the entire time.
‘Maybe the moon goddess doesn’t want this.’ I searched for a deeper meaning to the unfolding of events, but none of it made any sense.
“Nicolle? Nicolle are you there?” It was Ragner.
The men had disappeared the entire day and Ragner was only just showing up.
Nicolle rushed to the door.
“Have her get dressed and you both meet up at the venue as soon as possible.” I heard his voice, but couldn’t see him, because the door was opened halfway.
Nicolle walked in with the exact dress I had chosen, but even more decorated.
“What is happening?” I probed,”I have no idea,” Nicolle hurriedly tried to get the dress on me, “but we have to join them,” The sense of urgency only made everything more disturbing.
“Something is going on,” I was quite convinced.
The man at the fashion house insisted he was going to deliver the dress himself.
Not only was he late, he did not deliver the dress.
“It’s ceremony day,” Nicolle responded.
At the beginning of the day, I was excited by that, but now it seemed like there was more to all of this than I was aware of.
“You look heavenly,” Nicolle drew my attention to the mirror, after she was done fastening my dress.
I smiled at the mirror.
It made the burden a little lighter.
“I’ll walk you,” she took me to the door, adjusting my dress every step of the way.
“An angelic bride indeed.” Logan’s presence and unexpected compliment startled us.
“Sir Logan,”
”Please, call me Logan,” I smiled.
“Shouldn’t you be in the hall?” I probed.
“The bride doesn’t walk down the aisle without a worthy male company,” Logan said.
My smile grew dimmer.
“And Draven thought you were…”
”Who better to do it than myself,” Logan had a charming confidence and a smile that looked like it had the power to stitch and heal wounds.
“I’ll take it from here, Nicolle.
Hurry to the hall and let them know she’s on her way.”
”Yes sir,” Without any hesitations, Nicolle bolted.
The journey to the hall was definitely longer than it would be on a normal day.
Logan maintained a slow and steady pace that was just right.
I favoured the slimming lower part of my dress.
“Did you see that?” I probed.
We were just about to take a turn to the hall and I saw a shadow quickly move by us.
“No. It’s nothing.” Logan’s response was quick.
“I saw something dash past…” I was going to debate when his reply registered in a deeper consciousness.
Logan hadn’t tried to look at what it was I was pointing at and he was suspiciously quick to dismiss me.
“What is nothing?” I stopped, “You didn’t even take a glance, and how did you know it was nothing?”
”Uhm…what I meant was no.
I did not see that.” Logan quickly adjusted.
For a second there, I was forgetting about my suspicion, but now I was coming to the realization that something really was going on and whatever it was, it was huge, because there were more people in it than I initially thought.
“You did not say that and I know for a fact that was not what you meant.” I debated.
“You said…”
”Trust me, I’d more than like to have this debate with you, but Draven would lose his mind if we are late and if you know when Draven is mad, you’d know we can’t afford that today,” Logan interrupted me.
Despite wanting to push further, because of how I felt, I strongly knew otherwise.
I looked in the direction I was sure the shadow had passed, but found nothing.
So, I took a deep breath and took Logan’s hand, which he was now holding out, waiting for me.
We completed the journey to the hall entrance in complete silence.
My gaze bolted from one end of the hallway to the other until we arrived at the giant wooden door with a dome top.
I knew that behind that door was the entire pack out to witness the start of something that was meant to be a happy ending.
“Are you ready?” Logan asked, but between a fake ceremony and a hovering feeling that something was terribly wrong, there was no way to answer that.