Werewolf Wedding by Lynn Red

upsetting hunting trophy of... an elk? Gazelle? I can’t ever really tell large antlered herbivores apart from one another. Anyway, this enormous room with a fire the size of some beach bonfires I saw in college, blazing away in the hearth, somehow, the entire world seemed to be about six square feet in area.
    “This is crazy,” Jake said. He had my hands in his. I hadn’t even noticed. “Everything about what I’m going to say is completely, totally crazy.”
    “Is that an elk?” I asked, already burning with embarrassed blush. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but every single time someone is going to do something nice for me I get a terminal case of jittery blushing, and then I force myself to do something stupid to undermine it. Self-sabotage... the greatest of all friends, the most reliable of enemies. “Sorry, I just can’t ever tell.”
    I tried pulling my hands away from his, but Jake held tight. That’s about the time my eyes caught a tiny orange flicker. “Candles?” I asked. “When did that happen?”
    “Barney lit them on the way out. And yeah, it’s an elk. Most people think it’s a gazelle for some reason. One idiot thought it was a reindeer.”
    “That was you, Master Somerset!” Barney’s urbane voice came from the kitchen, followed by a hearty chuckle and a loud sigh.
    “Someone’s been drinking!” Jake called back, and then turning to me said, “it’s fine, I told him he could have a few nips of brandy. In this ridiculous world of mine, with all the backstabbing and the politics and the... well, the whatever, Barney has been a rock. He was there for my dad, there for my uncle in his short-lived interim alpha reign, and now he’s here for me. I... couldn’t do it without him.”
    I took a drink of the wine that had magically appeared with my free hand and cocked my head. “Did you just say alpha? That’s... kind of a weird word to use for the head a family.”
    Jake cocked one of those smiles – the same kind of smiles that he gave me about thirty seconds before he made me come without taking my underwear off. “It’s... kind of a weird family to be the head of. But there’s plenty of time for all that kind of stuff later.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    I took another swallow of wine. It was good – really good. Although, I can’t explain why. I’m a six buck bottle girl, I don’t taste oak or peat when I drink Malbec, I just taste wine. For while. Then I taste spinning and glee and giggling. Or wait, those don’t have a taste.
    “Just...” Jake squeezed my hand. I looked up, into those steely, burning eyes as his skin burned against my palm. “Listen, I—”
    “Master Somerset?” Barney broke in, with a slightly worried waiver in his voice. In the past couple of hours, I hadn’t heard him speak any way other than completely collected and together, so the switch was slightly worrying. “There’s something I need to, er, can you come with me?”
    “Does this have to happen right now?” Jake asked, his eyes still burning into me. I could tell his mind was decidedly not on whatever serious business Barney wanted to discuss. “There are other things going on right now.”
    The older man leaned in close and whispered something into Jake’s ear that made him stiffen up and purse his lips. The eyes that had seconds before been serene and charming, turned to raw rage. “He knows,” Jake growled. “That son of a...”
    His hand was still in mine, so I squeezed it. “It’s just us here, Jake,” I said in my most soothing, calmest voice. “Just the two of us, three,” I said with a smile to Barney. “There’s nothing to be angry about. If your brother tries anything we’re safe, you can deal with him later.”
    Jake blinked hard and pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn’t grasping mine. He turned his head to the massive bay window to our left, and stared through his reflection, into the infinite blackness stretching out