Chapter Forty — Gwen
Alvaro's Point of View
The morning of my mating ceremony smelled like flowers I hadn't ordered.
Roses, predominantly — white ones, enormous and excessive, arranged in formations that suggested someone had consulted a very enthusiastic florist and then ignored every instinct toward restraint. They were everywhere. On every surface in the great hall. Lining the corridor outside my chambers. Someone had even placed a small arrangement outside the door of my private office, as if the flowers themselves were trying to get a meeting with me.
I stood in the doorway of the great hall and looked at what had been done to my pack house and felt the particular exhaustion of a man who has made a practical decision and is now being forced to live inside someone else's emotional
