Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles by Georgette St. Clair

asked.
                  “My mother and father are coming out for the wedding. You’ll meet them then. I already sent them pictures of you, and they congratulated me on my good fortune.”
                  Dear. God. Did he have to be so sweet and nice and charming?
                  “Where did you get pictures of me?” she wondered.
                  “I have my ways.” He grinned devilishly.  “As you know, I’ve had my eye on you for a while.”
                  His gaze roved over her slowly, appraisingly.   It was almost like a physical caress, and she couldn’t help but remember what it felt like to have his hands moving over her body.
                  Quick, change the subject, she thought.
                  “Taddeus was the old Alpha’s son, but he wasn’t chosen as Alpha. They chose you,” she said. “Why was that?”
                  Kristofer’s expression grew somber. “It’s best if you don’t speak of it in public, but there were a number of complaints about him to the Alpha Congress, so he was brought before them for a formal review.  They didn’t release the reason for his rejection, but I suspect it was leadership.  He’s known as a fierce fighter, and he’s got a good head for business, but he has an imperious manner and is not well liked by most. There are some hard core old school types who do like him here, but they’re in the minority.”
                  “You named him as your Beta.”
                  “Tradition,” he said, which seemed to be the final answer to everything here.
    She leaned over and trailed her fingers in the water. “When I was younger, I thought I could see women who lived in the water, just below the surface. Beautiful women, who I could talk to. I could hear them singing.” The memories were so vivid that she frequently thought she must have she’d seen something like that in a movie that she just couldn’t remember.
                  “Your lake must have had nyads in it,” he said, with an expression of interest.
                  “Nyads? Like from the Greek myths? You think they’re real?”
                  He laughed. “I know they’re real. Some lakes have them; this is one of them. Just like dryads, tree spirts, are real. Some trees are inhabited by a human spirit.”
                  “Why wouldn’t other people be able to see them, then?”
                  He leaned back in the boat, soaking in the sun. “Humans have spent centuries rejecting the magical and the mystical, and embracing the rational.  You don’t let yourselves see the magic around you.  The only reason that you accept werewolves is because we’re right there in your face, and you can hardly deny our existence.”
                  He glanced over at her. “Also, not all humans can see nyads or dryads. To see them, you’d have to have a trace of magic in your blood as well. That’s maybe ten percent of the human population.”
                  “I don’t see them any more,” she pointed out.
    “That’s what happens. As you grow older, you lose that ability to believe without question. You could see them again, talk to them again, if you really tried. If you let yourself believe that they’re real.”
                  She fell silent, pondering this, and, leaning over the edge of the boat stared hard into the water.  Nyads are real, nyads are real… for a brief moment, she thought that the swirls of water deep beneath the surface were forming patterns. They looked like people, didn’t they? Did she see women swimming hand and hand, long hair streaming behind them?
                  She blinked, and the illusion vanished.
                  She sat back up, and looked at him. “How would I have magic in my