Writing about weddings gets me thinking about weddings, and lately I've been thinking of mine.
I'd never been a little girl who dreamed about a wedding. When I played dress-up, I often pretended to be a witch on her way to the stake, or—if I could steal my mother's black slip—a nun.
Annnnnyway....
My husband had proposed to me after I graduated from college by saying something romantic like, "you should go pick out a ring." I may not have been about a wedding, but I took everyone in my academic program down to the jewelers to try on rings. Ten giggling, swooning girls. I bet they loved us.
Then, like guys do, nothing more was said about getting married. Every day I waited for the proposal. Had he bought the ring? Had he changed his mind? Where was my ring?????? I didn't realize he was working things like a mad man behind the scenes. He'd just gotten notice he was being deployed to Iraq. Now things had to happen lickity-split.
Out came the ring I'd been dying for, and a proposal that included my cat (this worked for me).
A day later, we got married in our kitchen by a friend of mine who'd become an ordained minister online (we live in Vermont—most everything is legal in Vermont). Because we had to rush things, we told our families at a spaghetti dinner we hosted on our second floor walk-up. I was perfectly happy with this. I was married to the man who fit me perfectly, and all I needed was for him to return home, safe and sound.
Turns out though—weddings aren't always for the people getting married. When he got back, eighteen months later, my mother let me know in no uncertain terms, she expected a wedding. It happened (she planned it), and it was perfect. The end.
My book, The Ice Bride, is nothing like the story I just told you. It's a paranormal romance with a reverse harem twist. It does, however, have one strong mother. Here is the first chapter. Just for you.
Married. Wait. What? is available on Kindle Unlimited, October 3rd. http://amzn.to/2xNI3ga
You can follow me on Facebook at Ripley Proserpina.
On Twitter @Ripleyproserpin, or Instagram.
Prologue: Freya
Raising three boys alone would test the patience of any woman. I loved my husband, but if he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him for leaving me this way. It wasn’t that I minded being a matriarch. Even if he was with me, I’d have been in charge. It was the way I was built.
But there were times when I needed a little support. Someone who could listen to me and say, “You know what, Freya? You’ve had some good ideas and some bad ideas, and this is not good.”
This was one of those times.
My three boys were hurting, and they were at risk of making a mistake they couldn’t take back.
I watched the sleeping human, tiny compared to me and my boys, but big trouble. The moon reached a zenith, and I could feel it in my bones. It pulled at my power, and beneath my skin my magic hummed and ached for release.
I’d never done this before, not without the full consent and knowledge of the people involved. My mother had done it for me when I’d met my husband, but we’d been wide awake and preparing for the event for months before it happened. As a bride, I’d met my man beneath the stars and our mothers had thrown herbs on the fire and whispered the magic to tie our souls together in a knot so intricate only death had undone it.
And even then, sometimes I wondered if he was still with me. On the wind, I could smell his scent, and when the change came over me, ice covering me from head to toe, I swore I heard his voice whisper in my ear.
Creeping closer to the sleeping woman, I pushed her thick blonde strands away from her face and tucked them behind her ear. My magic began to gather, tingling like a bite of frost on my fingertips.
“It is time for you to know your mates.”
The girl released a breath, a puff of white in the quickly chilling air.
It was working.
Without a doubt, I knew it would find my boys and embrace them. They'd awaken, and the truth would be laid out. No longer would they be able to deny what they’d felt the moment they’d laid eyes on Betha.
Betha’s hand fell out of the covers, opening and closing as if reaching for something.
I knew what it was.
Her soul reached for my sons as surely as theirs reached for her.
I sighed. What would Om have said if he saw those boys of his push aside the person the universe created just for them?
You’ve done the right thing.
I smiled. My thoughts sounded in his voice, and I let myself believe it was him speaking to me across the cosmos, all the way from the afterlife where he waited for me.
If things went as planned, he’d be waiting a while yet. I’d have the children of my children to hold in my arms before I joined him.
The darkness began to wane, turning from black to blue and then gray. The smell of snow came in through the open window, and with it the moans of my three grown boys, awakening with the knowledge they’d been tied for eternity with their perfect mate.
There was a crackle, the sound of ice snapping and breaking. The change had come over them, and their magic would alert them to the truth they needed to face.
Next to me, Betha sighed in her sleep, and as I watched, her skin paled, icy blue lines running beneath her skin. Along her forehead, snow crystallized, the flakes growing and connecting—a crown for a new bride.
“What the fuck?”
“What the fuck?”
I could finally understand the human now, though I wouldn’t have needed magic to translate both her anger and frustration. Her eyes met mine while her hands pressed against her heart. I knew it ached. It would until she accepted what it was trying to tell her.
“Betha,” I said, proud of the strength in my tone. “Meet your husbands.”
Her eyes cut to my sons, her gaze softening for just a second before her eyebrows drew together and she looked back at me in confusion. “Wait. What?”
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