Chapter 67 - Are You Really About to Do This Now?

— Elaeya —

I took long inspirations, letting it out slowly.

I knew this was the place I should be, it didn’t change the fact that thousands of people were waiting for me. People, in most cases, I had never seen, and that came here with expectations.

My father rolled his chair in. He was wearing an elegant suit, his hair perfect, his beard trimmed. I had never seen him look this sharp. He beamed at me when he saw me.

He just opened his arms wide with a smile, his jaw tightly closed and his eyes watery.

I bent to hug him, but my dress was restraining my movements so much, and it ended up being easier to sit on his lap that to bend forward so low. He rocked me a little.

“I cannot believe how things have changed so fast, how you have grown so much. It was not so long ago that I would rock you like this and you would fit in my arms,” he told me.

I was careful not to mess my hair or anything else as I laid my head on his shoulder.

“You are so beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said. “It was a lot of work.

He laughed a little. “I’m sure it was.

I just indulged in this hug for a while, closing my eyes. We have not indulged in many displays of affection in the past. There were always other more important things to do, get food, raise shelter, runaway, train, always something.

But right now, there was nothing else. It was my father and his little girl, so much taller than she felt, enjoying each others company.

There were a few people that came, probably to make me do one thing or another, to correct my already perfect hair, or check for preparation. But each and every one of them turned around or went past us once they saw us.

I appreciated the gesture.

It was like being inside a gigantic bee hive, everyone busy buzzing in all directions.

“I worked hard on something today,” he told me. “I thought it could be better than the wheelchair.

I straightened my spine, allowing him to reach behind his chair and grab two lofstrands crutches. He had used crutches before. His legs were not completely paralysed, they just could hardly support his weight, and I supposed he didn’t feel like wheeling himself in on my wedding day.

I smiled at him.

I knew it would probably be harder on him than the wheelchair, but I could understand and respect his pride.

Kaden’s grandparent, followed by his parents, uncle and aunt and my mother had marched into the venue from the same place I would, signaling to everyone that things were about to begin. I could hear applause and the cracking of cameras everywhere on the other side of our makeshift room.

The ranked members of Blakemore had followed—except family—then followed by every Alpha couple of the packs of Blakemore. Between each group there would be pauses, some music—everything was official and formal.

When the music changed the last couples began walking in one after the others.

Darren and Eva were first. A friend of Kaden named David accompanied, Nadine. Sam accompanied a giggling Lisa, then Jasmine and Jean-Philippe. Gwen came in with her boyfriend Alfie who looked like it was the greatest thing in the world to ever happen to him, and greeted the picture takers like a celebrity. Amy was accompanied by her cousin Soren, who was around Kaden’s age and they chatted all the way. Soren’s sisters were next. Emani, who was recently divorced came alone with her two-year-old daughter throwing flowers everywhere to everyone’s cooing. And Naomi, the youngest of the three came holding Emani’s young son.

I straightened my father’s tie and wrapped my arm around his, careful not to impede his progress with the crotches.

We walked in when it was our time. The camera shutters clacking in a cacophony that made the music little more than static in the background, then I spotted Kaden.

He had ditched the beard and shaggy hair that was nearly all the way to his shoulders to a shorter, cleaner cut. It made him nearly unrecognizable, but his eyes were the same, and they were glued on me, and they spoke to me not of what this moment was, but of what usually comes after. My belly clenched and legs tightened instinctively.

I could not stop myself from smiling, and everything else in this room faded.

At one point my hand was put in his, and the same electricity that I had felt the first time we had met and every other times we had touched was still there, immutable, like an eternal truth that would shroud the rest of my life that this was my place.

I barely listened to whomever was speaking.

We did all that was asked of us, all the words, and everything. It mattered little to me. What mattered was that we were there together, it could have been in a desolated land or in the midst of a storm, we could have been dressed in rags with no more than the moon as witness, and it would have still been right.

Instead, in was in a gorgeous clearing, with fairy lights everywhere and more projected in the barren trees giving a magical look to the scene. The night was beautiful, the supermoon bright, the sky cloudless. Vines with flowers of purple and red adorned every section. Everyone was dressed for the red carpet, impeccable and graceful.

The path to the altar and been paved with large quartz stones so that I could walk unimpeded in my footwear. There are surely grand hotels not as luxurious as this forest was tonight.

We kissed to much applause and shutters clicking and flashing in all directions.

The place was soon transformed into a reception hall, under the night sky.

“Will we have to dance?” I muttered at Kaden from behind my teeth.

“Stars and night, I hope not,” he muttered back. “I can’t dance to save my life.

“I cannot help you either,” I told him.

He looked around, then gave me a wolfish smile.

I quivered.

He bent down and took me in his arms to the surprise of the few beside us.

“Start the party without us?” he said. “We’ll join you later.

And he took me away to laughter and catcalls.

I tried to get hold of the train so it would not drag on the dirt ground as we left the venue for the more secluded woods.

“Are you really about to do this now?” I asked appalled.

“You can’t be wearing that and not have me thinking about it,” he said matter-of-factly.

I was probably in no position to argue.

When we reached somewhere secluded enough, he put me down.

I looked at him questioning his plan. There were trees, a few big rocks, definitively nothing of comfort.

“At least we’ll skip any possibilities of dances,” he said.

That had me smiling. “Well, you better think carefully about this because I am probably wearing a small country’s GDP. I cannot damage it, what if they want their GDP back.

“Can’t have a country’s GDP rolling in the mud,” he agreed and he pressed his hands on me, turning me around to undress me.

“And I did not dress by myself. I am fairly sure I cannot put this back on, on my own.

“I’ll help,” he said pressing his lips on my neck.

“Then look at what you are doing, because it would be embarrassing to call on your mother to come and help me dress back up.

That had him hesitate. He fondled with my dress for a while.

“How does this work?” he asked me, clearly struggling.

I couldn’t help it, I had a giggling fit.

“Maybe just get this up,” he said about my skirt which obviously wouldn’t work as the upper part was so tight, but I just kept giggling, unable to tell him.

Seeing it was not working, and I was not helping, he gave me a look, which only had me giggling some more.

He didn’t look as amused as I was.

I kissed him, trying to calm myself down, and cheer him up, which worked perfectly and rapidly I was tearing at his clothes.

He pulled his head away from mine.

“It’s not the greatest idea to work me up if we can’t take care of that dress,” he told me.

I suppress further giggles as I thought of how things went and I focused my mind on the task. It took me a while to be serious enough, but I managed to focus enough to guide him a little, and he figured the rest on his own.

It took us a lot longer than expected and he deposited the dress carefully on one of the cleanest-looking boulders.

“How do we process now?” I asked him. He turned his head and took the sight of me in, carefully, his eyes ablaze.

“Please don’t mess my hair,” I begged as her got closer.

“Yes, Mam,” he said and kissed me.

We figured it out.

— Kaden —

The evening was a grand affair. We returned after a fashion to a lot of applause. Elaeya blushed, it was cute on her.

We ate, people partied. And we would be interrupted all evening by guests asking for short audiences. We had to get used to it quickly, and Ela took everything in stride. She never complained about anything not working out how she imagined it, not that I ever heard what she imagined for a wedding or if she even imagined anything. It’s just that being raised with six sisters, I had heard those talks before.

But everything was uncomplicated with her tonight.

She was perfect.

She met my extended family. My maternal grandparent and their family came, my niece and nephew came to eat cake with us. And there were probably enough gifts for us to make opening them up a full-time job for two weeks straight.

I had kind of hoped I could delay everything for a while and run off with her for a couple of weeks to some remote island, but it was evident it would not happen, and with everyone here, it led to more business talks that I would have liked.

We finally went to bed late and exhausted, but we knew the following days would be more work than leisure with our guests here. But I was glad I would not be facing this alone.

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