Chapter 1: Sister Drama

Cassie POV:

            I wasn’t sure what to think when my younger sister Megan called me shortly after her 18^th birthday.  She was upset, and she told me that she needed to see me right away.

            Megan had always been my parents’ golden child.  Unlike me, she followed my parents’ rules to the letter.  She did not date, choosing to save herself completely for her mate.  She wore the clothes my mother picked out for her, and she even seemed to enjoy the endless supply of pink and feminine prints my mother insisted upon.  She obediently took home education classes in high school, and she made sure to practice her socialization skills by becoming a cheerleader and homecoming queen.

            My parents had not allowed Megan to visit me in the human world.  They believed my bad influence had the potential to corrupt their precious daughter.  So when I got over the shock that my sister wanted to meet with me, her request that we meet at a coffee shop in my human town was a very big clue that something was very, very wrong.

            The shocks did not stop there.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that by the end of our coffee date, a human doctor would have written me a prescription for a pacemaker.  During the course of our 45-minute conversation, I learned:

My sister met her mate.

My sister was pregnant.

My sister’s mate was the father of her baby (thank the goddess)…

But… my sister was 8 weeks pregnant… and my sister had been 18 for just 4 weeks.

Considering my parents had very strict rules about pre-marriage relations –even with one’s mate—these facts created quite the difficult situation for my sister.  Megan had never been in trouble with my parents before; she had never even earned a time-out or grounding.  In her confusion and desperation, she decided to seek advice from the only person she knew had experience getting in trouble with Mom and Dad –i.e., me.

In retrospect, I probably should have told her that I was the worst person to ask for this kind of advice and sent her elsewhere for help.   I didn’t.

I wish I could say I didn’t because of the love and affection I have for Megan, but that wouldn’t be completely true.  Don’t get me wrong; I do love my sister and I always have.  But if I was acting completely out of love, I would have recognized the limitations of my ability to give good advice and sent her away.

No, I fully embraced the situation and proudly put on my “advice-giver” hat.  I did that partly because I liked being needed by my sister.  Having her there, asking for my advice, made me feel less like the black sheep of the family.  Regardless of my aloof exterior, and regardless of what I told myself, there would always be a part of me that secretly wanted my family to love and accept me.  Helping my sister gave me an opportunity to feel loved and accepted, even for a fleeting moment.

Of course, I also did it because it made me feel vindicated.  Black Sheep Cassie didn’t get pregnant at age 17 outside of wedlock; Golden Child Megan did.  Even if my parents never found out –I certainly wasn’t going to tell them—I would know that they were wrong to place all their bets on my sister.  That secret knowledge pleased me immensely, and I could not get enough of the details… because I am a horrible person.  Alas.

In any event, the answer to Cassie’s problems was fairly obvious.  Although the beginning stages of all pregnancies are the same, the overall length of a werewolf pregnancy can vary greatly depending on werewolf rank, ancestry, strength, and other factors.  As long as Megan marries her mate before she begins to show, Megan’s secret would be safe.

Getting married right away was a solution that Megan should have been able to come up with on her own.  I suspect she eventually would have come up with it, once the shock of her situation wore off.  However, in the moment, Megan saw me as some sort of miracle worker. 

She immediately gave me a hug and announced to the crowded human coffee shop that I would be her maid of honor.  She also insisted that I be by her side for every step of the wedding planning process. 

I wanted to tell Megan no way, no how.  When I said I could not get enough of the details, I did not mean wedding details.  I hate weddings. 

But Megan’s loud sobs had turned into pure happiness and excitement.  I didn’t want to say “no” and break her heart.  Plus, saying “no” would have caused a scene.

F--- me.  Looks like I’m headed in to wedding hell.  It must be the karma I get for secretly enjoying my sister’s pain, even if that enjoyment was quiet and brief.