Contract Renewed (Contracted Book 3)

by Aya DeAniege

  “Yes," I said, trying not to cry. "Damn it. I just got my face cleaned up.”

  “Ah, here they come,” Nicole said.

  With my hand out to accept the ring, I turned just slightly.

  And realized that Nathaniel hadn't meant that Mr. Wrightworth and Nicole needed a traditional answer. All the reporters were watching us with wide eyes. The cameras turned towards us. I turned back to Nathaniel woodenly as he slipped the ring on my finger.

  “They're filming this,” I said weakly.

  “Everything gets filmed,” Nathaniel said. “If you want, we can go to the park across the street and do it again, just the two of us. Or I could take you to Paris, at least what's open to tourists, and propose there. Supposedly it was once one of the most romantic cities on the planet.”

  “No, this works fine,” I said.

  “I could write it on the moon.”

  “Now you're just pulling my leg.”

  “You're right, but I could make it look like I wrote it on the moon,” he said with a grin as he stood and pulled me towards him.

  He kissed my forehead.

  In the end, it didn't matter where the proposal had been made because it was Nathaniel who had been the one who had done it.

  “Do we have a blushing bride?” Ezekiel asked.

  I jumped in place and turned towards the man. He smiled at me as he opened his arms as if to hug me.

  “Go on, it's practically a tradition," Nathaniel murmured.

  I accepted the hug hesitantly, stepping into Ezekiel's arms. Not because I didn't want to, but because I was confused as to where Ezekiel had come from and why. Behind him were several other members of the community, all of whom had testified at the trial.

  Them being there wouldn't out them, though it was still out of place. I hadn't spoken to most of them. They had testified about their interactions with Albert, not with me. I frowned at them, then turned to Nathaniel.

  “What's going on?” I asked.

  “I asked them to come,” Nathaniel said, then motioned to the courthouse. “Because I'd rather not put it off and have people think they can talk us out of this. That's just annoying.”

  Asked people I didn't quite know to come to the courthouse? That didn't make any sense to me. I asked myself why Nathaniel would invite members of the community there and not my friends. Though the reporters would still likely link anyone who showed up as part of the community, so my friends couldn't be there.

  But it still didn't make any sense why Nathaniel would invite members of the community to his celebration. He was free of the contract. If he had wanted a party with members of the community to be there, why didn't he just throw a munch at the estate?

  Where no one would have to worry about reporters or vanilla's getting in the way.

  “How did you even know I'd choose you?”

  Nathaniel winced. For only a moment he looked embarrassed.

  “I did take a gamble on that," he said, wincing again as Nicole gave him a look.

  There was something about that look that always made the subs around her cringe. Or in the case of Nathaniel, reminded him that he could be beaten into submission and she'd like to try.

  “Uh and... uh, don't be mad," he said, wincing once more.

  “Mad about what?” I asked.

  “She's even wearing makeup this time!”

  “Oh my God, you called my mother?” I snapped at him, then spun around and smiled at her. “Hi, Ma, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be working your job today?”

  She was wearing a dress herself, and not just any dress, a new dress. Somehow Nathaniel had called my mother and even gotten her to wear a brand new dress.

  And he still had all of his parts!

  Ezekiel looked wry as he moved aside, giving my mother plenty of room. I had a feeling that Ezekiel had found an opportunity to speak with my mother, as he had wanted to. He was probably the one who had talked her into the new dress, probably the only Dom who prided himself on talking women into clothing.

  “I got special dispensation to see my daughter's wedding," she said, grabbing me quickly to hug me. "We flew all the way up here, and then your father wouldn't leave the room they gave us, said it's too rich for his tastes. Everything's too rich for his tastes. Honestly, I think he's just embarrassed about what happened before, and he'll get over it."

  He never did.

  “She didn't know she was getting married today until a few minutes ago,” Nicole growled out, still glaring at Nathaniel. “Even he wasn't certain he'd be getting married today until a few minutes ago.”

  I looked between the two of them, not quite understanding what they meant. Then it dawned on me.

  Courthouse, witnesses, ring. Nathaniel had meant to get married then and there, not to put it off. That's what he meant by saying that he didn't want anyone to have the chance to talk us out of it.

  Marriage.

  I looked at Nathaniel, realizing that it wasn't that he was worried someone would talk him out of it. He was worried someone would try to talk me out of it. That at some point, some rich person would open their mouths and out would spill the age old saying: Rich can't marry poor.

  “I knew the moment I laid eyes on the two of them," my mother said with a wave of her hand. Then she stopped and jabbed a finger at Nicole. "You're Nicole. You're the nurse who looked after my Izzy when she was hurt."

  My mother knew about Nicole from me, as well as from news broadcasts. Nicole had had to sit the witness stand as an account of my wounds and recovery. She had been there the entire time, and also had the medical background to be able to describe the actual damage and even postulate where that damage had come from.

  “I am, yes,” she said.

  “Good, I like you,” my mother said, looking me over. “Now, we have something blue, the dress. Very nice. Do we have something old?”

  “We were just going to—” Nathaniel started with a motion towards the courthouse.

  The motion was almost desperate in nature. Like a man motioning to the exit of a store as his girlfriend suddenly spotted the perfect pair of shoes to go with the dress she had just bought. So close, yet so far away.

  I felt like that then, but I knew my mother too well to protest.

  “You invited Ma. We're doing it her way," I said.

  “You don't marry a slum girl without following tradition,” my mother said, chiding Nathaniel with her words, even as she shook a finger at me. “Something old, do we have something old?”

  She knew that, given a chance, I'd skip the traditions as well. It wasn't that the slum way wasn't my way, but that I never quite felt comfortable about those traditions. They were about including people. Since my accident, no one had been interested in including me in anything.

  Tradition made me feel out of place, but it made my mother happy and cost me nothing to follow a few odd requests.

  “The ring,” I said. “It's even the something new too. See, the setting is old, but the stone is new.”

  “Oh, let me see, oh, isn't that fabulous. Bigger than any shiny stone I've ever seen. That's gorgeous. I'm betting yours isn't glass, mine was. A piece of a coke bottle sanded carefully to fit in a setting that your grandmother sold the stone from.

  “But we still need something borrowed. Do you have something borrowed?”

  “How about my patience?” Mr. Wrightworth growled.

  The man's hand roved close to his lapel, venturing towards the inner pocket of his suit. Going for the smokes again. Irritation stood out in every line of Mr. Wrightworth's form.

  “You knew she'd choose me,” Nathaniel said.

  “I have a bottle of vodka the size of my head, waiting for me at the restaurant,” Mr. Wrightworth said, motioning with his hands as to the size of the bottle. “I want to get drunk. Do you know how long it's been since I could do more than pantomime the motions?”

  Yes, all those times that Mr. Wrightworth had a drink in his hand, he wasn't actually drinking. He was pretending
to. At Nathaniel's munch when it appeared he choked on his drink, he had choked on his breath. He never told me what Ezekiel had said to draw that reaction from him, but I like to think that it was witty and on point.

  “You,” my mother said, jabbing a finger at Mr. Wrightworth, then to Nathaniel, “lend him your tie. He'd look good in purple, don't you think?”

  Mr. Wrightworth stared at my mother for so long that I was afraid what his response would be. Of course, she had no idea why the colour purple might be significant, or even what she had asked him to do. She was simply a vanilla demanding a grown man she didn't know hand something of his over to another grown man to complete a slum tradition.

  For a moment, I thought he would refuse, and we'd have to find something else to borrow, perhaps from one of the reporters. Ever so slowly he reached up and loosened his tie. The two, Nathaniel and Mr. Wrightworth swapped ties in silence as my mother watched.

  Mr. Wrightworth had to help Nathaniel re-tie the trinity knot. When he stepped back, both he and my mother seemed to inspect Nathaniel for any flaws. Finally, Mr. Wrightworth turned to my mother.

  “You're right, he should wear purple more often,” Mr. Wrightworth said with the smallest of smiles.

  Nicole let out a chuckle. I swore Nathaniel paled at the comment even as my mother frowned. She seemed to make the connection, though she probably connected purple with bruising, not with Mr. Wrightworth owning the colour and all the rest of the history that was between the two men at that point in their lives.

  I have no problem admitting that I was standing there like a statue. Completely oblivious to most of what was going on. It was an eventful day, and I was doing my best to stay on my feet. I would have been fine, I think, if it hadn't also been for the proposal.

  Which, technically speaking, shouldn't have happened if Nathaniel was bent on keeping his promise to not push me for an answer to the choice.

  It really shouldn't have been surprising when someone walked up and handed me a bouquet of flowers, but to my senses, they just appeared out of nowhere, handed me the flowers and disappeared again. I stared at the blue and green roses. Completely unnatural, but... our colours. I glanced at Mr. Wrightworth, now wearing Nathaniel's blue tie, then back at the bouquet and finally down at my dress.

  Just as I had to leave, I had been debating between two dresses. One was blue. One was purple. I hadn't even thought of the colours as the reason for the debate. It was the embroidery and pattern. I should have questioned why there was a purple dress in my wardrobe, but I suppose I had assumed that it was a special day, and therefore I was allowed to wear it for this one occasion.

  I should have known better.

  “You all right, Darling?” Nathaniel asked as he offered me his arm.

  “It's been a long day,” I managed to get out.

  “I think it's been a long year for the both of us," he said, drawing me into an embrace. "You all head in and start the paperwork. We'll be there in a minute."

  The small group headed towards the courthouse with my mother telling them some story about my childhood and how I had refused to wear skirts to the point of stripping down and running around naked. I watched them go and then glanced at the reporters, who were suddenly moving away.

  Not away, as in away from the courthouse, but they seemed to drift away from Nathaniel and me as if to give us the space that we needed to speak.

  They might have wanted that extra shot, but they knew nothing was going to happen while they were still standing there.

  “If you're in a place, you need to tell me,” he said. “Because you can't consent if you're in that place.”

  “It's still... I'm still processing the trial. And the fact that I completely blanked on the first portion of the hearing. Not even the first portion, I blanked on pretty well the entire thing.”

  “Well, it's all on tape so you can watch it over and over again until it bores you,” Nathaniel said with a small smile. “That's not what I'm asking you, Isabella.”

  “You're asking if I said yes to say yes, or because you proposed in public and I was caught off guard,” I said. “You're lucky I feelings you, or I'd kick you in the crotch.”

  “You knee a man—”

  “I know that, but I'd put in the extra effort.”

  Nathaniel stared at me for a long moment and then nodded. “All right, I just want to make certain. I don't want you waking up tomorrow morning and regretting it.”

  “Gah, just marry me already,” I said. “People getting married don't check and double check consent. They just do it.”

  “We aren't most people.”

  “I know.”

  “And Izzy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Nathaniel.”

  And then he kissed me there on the courthouse steps. I swore my legs would go out from under me, but thankfully they didn't. That's the end, or so they say.

  Yeah, it's sappy, so what? Shut up about it.

  Sneak Peek of:

  Masked Intentions

  Daughters of the Alphas Book One

  I sat in the back corner of the metal holding cell as four others paced in various states of dress. My belt, shoes, and bra had been taken from me, but I still had my shirt, underwear, and pants. The bra was probably only taken because I threatened to use it to hang myself with if they put me in the cell.

  Maybe if I wanted to keep my clothing, I should have kept my mouth shut.

  The bra would have been useful at that point, it had had an underwire built into it, I could have used that as the start of a weapon. Or an actual weapon.

  What was it my father used to say?

  Everything is a weapon. You just have to know where and how to stab a man with it.

  His second favourite saying was usually uttered after taking down an Alpha pup, “Alphas, they're just like us. Except they whine and cry more when you beat the shit out of them.”

  If my father were still alive, I wouldn't have been in that position. He had been killed two years previous by the Dom because my father hadn't taken kindly to the Dom's eldest son humping my leg at a bus stop and then following me home when I tried to tell him to stop. A life for a beating, sure, that seemed fair.

  I pressed my hand against the cold, smooth metal. Looking out over the room, I couldn't find any creases. The room seemed to be made of one big piece of metal, moulded into shape. The toilet in the corner was the one exception, but that was just a lump welded into the opposite corner. It didn't even have a handle to flush it, just a sensor built into the wall behind it.

  No toilet paper, someone might use it to strangle themselves, others, or even to fashion a weapon.

  Leave it to Alphas to know what had to be removed because it might be used as a weapon.

  I turned my attention to the floor. Solid metal, but with a hammered finish to it which kept us from falling as we walked across it. In the centre of the room was a drain, one of those industrial ones that were in public showers. Eyeing the others, I pushed off the corner and moved towards the drain. I knelt at the drain, but the damned thing was also welded into the floor.

  They weren't taking any chances, but then, they probably built the room with crazy people like me in mind. Rubbing my finger over one of the slits, I pulled it away, then scratched at it with my nail. There was something caught in the slit. It popped off suddenly and fell into the drainage pipe, but not before I got a glimpse of it.

  A finger bone.

  Shit.

  I looked around, trying not to seem like I was panicking.

  The other four wore absolutely nothing that could be used as a weapon. Not unless I wanted to take a shirt or pair of pants and try to strangle an Alpha.

  The thing was, television shows got strangulation wrong. It didn't take seconds, especially not with Alphas. They processed air and water at slower rates than the average person. Trying to strangle an Alpha was like trying to kill a tiger with a feather. They were trained to f
ight, every one of them had served in the war that had ended only twelve years previous. It wasn't like you could just sneak up on an Alpha either.

  Heightened sense of smell, hearing, and instinct in general.

  Before the technological revolution, they caused, it was believed that Alphas were psychic.

  Not psychic, just highly tuned to pheromones and hormones, especially those that anyone with the G14 genetic marker gave off. Without the marker, you were just a civilian to them, you barely existed. As long as you paid your bills and didn't attack them or theirs, they left you alone.

  Live your life. However you please.

  But if you have the G14 genetic marker, your body produces the usual stuff along with an extra set that only really comes into play in a couple of instances. One hormone causes you to break, your mind shatters and you're re-created as something else entirely. Guided by an Alpha, a man could come through the break without changing in the least. They could also be turned into fuck toys for the Alphas.

  The women, however, are an entirely different story.

  I'll give you three guesses as to why the five of us were in that room, I'm betting you won't need all three.

  Sure, we broke 'laws' but so did lots of others. And in the new world, those laws could change on a daily basis. Such as the brand new law stating no one could give alms to a shunned one. Effective only in a fifty-mile radius from the Dom's home and unenforceable outside of that. The law that was brought into effect because some little brat told the Dom that I had been trying to lure my mother from the place on the street where she had been sleeping because he had decided she was Ig.

  Ig, meaning cast out or abandoned.

  Loranna IgOwen could find no reprieve from another Alpha because Alphas never stopped to ask why a companion had earned Ig, they assumed the worst and moved on with their lives. Of course, Owen AgDarrel was accepted, because right before the war, mutts were allowed to live and Owen's daddy forced him out because Owen was a mutt. Except Owen killed Darrel during the war, so no one was left to stand for the innocents and proclaim Owen a mutt. Alphas tended to believe their own over commoners or even companions.