Page 51 of The Rusalka and Mr. Right

I put a hand to my chest. No, my heart is still beating. Didn’t die. This isn’t Marina’s version of Heaven—or Hell, for that matter.

“The mother of the bride is Farrah Fenclan. And over there? That’s Madge. There’s Tessa, you met her husband, Leo, the other night. That is Alban, he’s a warlock. And of course, Jakob.”

It sounds like everything is underwater.

Maybe someone spiked my protein bar at lunch? Am I on a trip?

“I couldn’t ask them to help us withourceremony until after the wedding. Farrah, Madge, and Jakob were all involved in the event. I will ask if we can have it at Jakob’s library. Something small. Intimate.”

“Warlock? Like witches?” I finally manage to speak as I’m hoisted to my feet and shuffled out of the rows of seats as the ceremony ends and the reception begins.

“I think saying the vows privately would do it, but Big K is very powerful. Magically enhancing the bond would be good. I was going to ask Calder and Janet to come, too.”

Calder. Calder is her best friend, she says. She points to him now, and I almost scream like a girl in a horror movie.

Tentacles.Tentacles. Dude has tentacles—long and blue and gray, and he’s walking—maybe writhing is a better word—across the grass with his arm around the waist of a sexy brunette in a hot pink dress.

“I gotta sit back down.” I stumble into the nearest vacated chair and look up at Marina.

She doesn’t look like a monster. She looks gorgeous. The moonlight makes her glow. She glows.

She’s not just my beautiful disaster, she’s my beautiful monster, and she’s not dangerous—just dangerously attractive.

Marina waves at some people she knows, calling to them that she’ll come inside in just a moment. She sits next to me and takes my hand, silent and supportive.

“Why are the people on the groom's side like eight feet tall and green?”Tell me they’re not. Tell me I’m hallucinating.

Wait, that’s worse.

Worse than the world being full of monsters and you’re living with them??

Marina looks vaguely surprised. “Green. You can see that, hm?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” My tone is short, like the amount of time I have left before I freak.

“They’re Orcs.”

“Like... They escaped from aLord of the Ringsconvention?”A cosplay wedding. That’s cool.

“Shh! No! Lord, no, and keep your voice down. We don’t need to bring up harmful Orc stereotypes,” Marina shushes me.

I gulp. “Is your bestie riding an octopus around the lawn?”

“Calder? He’s a kraken. The tentacles are all his.”

“One guy had wings!”

“Yeah. Lennox. Mothman. He only moved to town in February, but he’s a sweetie. He does the gardening here. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

I bury my face in my hands. “I need a doctor.”

“Oh, darling! Where’s... I just saw—there he is! Eddie!”

I look up in time to see a muscular brunette with a cocky grin racing over, suit jacket pulling off as he approaches. “What’s the matter, ‘Rina?”

“Kevin. He’s feeling faint.”

“I’m feeling like someone slipped something into my protein bar!” I snap. “What the hell is—” I look hard at the man now kneeling in front of me. I know him. I’ve seen him around the hospital complex, getting coffee in the staff lounge. He’sdefinitely a human, an EMT, I think. No weird pupils, no funny teeth.

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