Callum’s P. O. V

‘She’s here.’

On my way to the ballroom, with Brittany on my arm, I stopped in my tracks. Those were the first words Cade had spoken to me in months.

Brittany shot me a deadly look, “What is it?”

‘Why have you stopped in the middle of the hall like a fucking idiot?’

I smiled at her, “I forgot something in my room. You can go on ahead while I-”

Her nails dug into my arm, almost tearing the fabric, ‘Whatever you forgot can wait. I am not entering the Mate Ball without my damn mate.’

I nodded slowly, “Whatever it is can wait. I’ll get it later.”

We continued on, but my mind was looking for Cade in his dark corner, ‘What do you mean by she’s here? Who’s she?’

‘Our mate. She’s here.’

With the scents of at least two thousand different Werewolves, it was hard to pick a single one out. My thoughts went back to two days ago, when I’d smelled someone vaguely familiar while taking something to Harry in the Alphas’ side of the palace.

‘Do you mean the person we smelled two days ago?’ She’d smelled familiar, but months of crying into her torn clothes long after the scent had faded had branded every note of her scent on my brain.

That wasn’t the same girl I’d driven to death.

He didn’t respond, so I was left wondering why he would think that. I chalked it up to the essence of the Mate Ball.

I spent the next hour being led around by Brittany, in dances, to conversations, to prop her up in front of Alphas of important packs. Over the last few months, Brittany had pretty much cemented herself as the pseudo Alpha, even though the title had already been passed to Harry a few weeks ago. Not that he made it hard. To him, being Alpha was sitting in the main office with his feet up as he barked orders at me and the others next in command.

An hour in, Brittany ditched me to dance with the Beta of another pack, batting her eyelashes at him as he led her onto the dance floor. I let out a sigh of relief and looked around for a drink.

The sound of the grand doors opening drew my attention. A blonde wearing a yellow dress that made her shine like the sun walked in, and stepping in behind her was a raven-haired woman. The moment my eyes landed on her, my heart stopped and sped up all at once,

She wore a black and red dress that would make any man weak, with her hair a on top of her head, leaving her neck bare and me longing to mark it. As she passed a look over the ballroom and descended the steps, my eyes were glued to her form, watching every gliding step she took, every shift in the canvas on her face. I didn’t stop watching, even when she chose the Blue Alpha as a dance partner, amused and engaged as they exchanged words between twirls.

Then she announced herself as an Alpha.

‘Harry, Callum,’ Brittany called the moment the words left Ari’s mouth ‘I need one of you two to go dance with that attention whore. Her pack is new and weak so she’ll jump at the chance to ally with us.’

Harry started moving before Kylie grabbed his arm with a pouting complaint.

‘Let me do it.’ I told them, hoping my eagerness wasn’t apparent, ‘It won’t look good if our Alpha offers a partnership to them personally in front of everyone. Let me go as a delegate.’

Across the room, Brittany rolled her eyes, ‘Fine. Just don’t fuck it up.’

I weaved through the crowd of men looking for a dance, my heart beating and my hands shaking compounding with every step. Finally pushing through, I stood behind her and she must have sensed me, because she turned to look at me.

She was gorgeous from afar, but seeing her up close left me speechless. Her beauty was so striking that you couldn’t help but stare. She looked so much like the memory of Natalia’s face painted with venom that had burned into my memory on the night I lost her, but at the same time, like an entirely new person. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought them sisters.

I stretched my trembling hand out, doing my best to keep it and my voice steady, “May I have this dance?”

She regarded me, her gaze running to my feet and then back to my face.

The look on her face made something inside me wither.

“I’ll have to decline.” She said, sounding entirely uninterested in anything to do with me, then left the dance floor to mingle with the girl that had entered the ballroom with her and who I assumed was the girl’s mate.

Somewhat dazed at the rejection, I started walking back to where Harry, Brittany and Kylie were. Their conversation made me rethink the decision to join them just before I reached them.

“Who does she think she is, rejecting a Beta just cause she’s an Alpha?” Brittany grumbled.

“I bet I could’ve gotten her to dance with me.” Harry threw a drink back and looked at her sternly, “And I don’t think you should speak like that about another Alpha.”

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‘At least not here. People don’t need to hear you disrespecting an Alpha or they’ll think you disrespect me like that too.’ He added in our mind link.

‘You worried they’ll think you don’t do shit at the pack?’ Brittany quipped, then continued aloud before he could respond, “Callum suddenly started begging for us to let him dance with her. I thought you would be a better choice to do it, but your Luna was against it.”

‘I guess the bitch can’t handle what she dishes out.’ Brittany spat.

Harry’s head whipped towards her, ‘Watch how you talk about my Luna.’

‘Oh please. She can’t stand you dancing with someone else but had no problem sucking face with my fucking mate. I don’t know why you didn’t get rid of her when she obviously disrespected you by doing that. If not for the fact that she up and disappeared, I would have said you should pick Kirstin instead. At least she was useful before she ran off.’

Over a month ago, we’d woken to find Brittany ranting about Kirstin being missing when she needed her. After checking high and low, we’d concluded that she’d left the pack in the dead of the night. Her disappearance had puzzled everyone, seeing as she’d become indispensable to Brittany and proved her competence, but I knew better.

Months ago, when Kirstin had arranged for me to discover Brittany’s cheating, she’d confided in me about how she was unhappy with how things were done in the pack, and that she was on a mission to find out how deep our sins ran.

“Everything I’ve ever known is here.” She’d said, approaching me in those woods, “I need to know the truth so I can leave with confidence in my decision.”

After minutes of her pleading and prodding, I’d given it up. I’d started off with my own dealings with aconine at Harry’s request and gone right down to I suspected that he was connected to some Rogues. I hadn’t told her about the pack’s methods of systematically tearing others down, or anything else done on a scale higher than us, but when I finished talking, she thanked me for helping her make the decision.

That had been over a year ago.

‘Kylie is my mate and a good Alpha knows when to forgive.’ He didn’t even sound like he believed it.

She scoffed, ‘Did you forgive her or did your dick do all the forgiving?’

“This discussion is over. I’ll handle it, you go dance with your mate.” He finally said out loud.

“Fine.” She shot back, then made her way to me, dragging me by the arm to join the people on the dance floor.

I tried to see what Harry and Ari were up to, only managing to catch him trailing behind her out of the ballroom before I had to return my attention to Brittany to avoid pissing her off. They were gone for about half an hour, and by the time they returned, Brittany had finally let us off the dance floor and was rambling on about all the people she’d spoken to over the course of the night. As soon as my nose picked up her scent again, my eyes found her, buried away in a corner of the room silently observing.

Brittany noticed my divided attention and her grip on my arm tightened, ‘Don’t tell me you’re looking at that attention whore? You looking for another bitch to cheat on me with? I should have known…’

Her voice in my mind faded to a buzz when Ari’s tepid gaze suddenly locked with mine, catching me staring.

As quickly as she’d looked at me, she looked away, placing her champagne glass down before the drink suddenly spilled.

She spared one more look at me before leaving the ballroom for the night, my eyes drawn to her form up until the moment she slipped out the door of the grand entrance.

I didn’t see her for the rest of the night, or when we were leaving the next day. Brittany’s ranting in my head had given me a headache, but I’d long since learned that trying to argue her down only riled her up more. So silent I stayed, till she eventually slept off on the bed in our shared room while I curled up on the couch.

On my way out of the Palace to meet up with everyone the next day, my ears picked up gossip exchanged in hushed voices.

“Did you hear of what happened with Alpha Lightwood and Alpha Ari? I heard some of my pack mates mention them.” The first voice asked.

“Ugh, yes. I heard he shamelessly tried to hit on her on the balcony last night.” The second voice whispered scandalously.

“Really?”

“Yeah, even used that cheesy ass pick-up line of calling her more beautiful than the view.”

The first person laughed, “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“Yes!” The second giggled, imitating a deep voice with mockery, “He even told her he feels like they’ve met somewhere before.”

“Was she falling for it?” The first asked.

“Absolutely not,” The second said, the eye-roll reflecting in her voice, “honestly, she sounded so done and I don’t blame her.”

“Wait, doesn’t he have a mate?”

“That’s the worst part, he does! And apparently, they’re not even fated mates, just mating together.”

“Oh Luna. Of course, he’s a sleaze.”

“A sleaze that thinks he’s got power. He tried to offer to ally with her pack cause apparently, they’re new, but she hadn’t even heard of them. And after all his rambling and explaining, she just told him she’ll think about it but I seriously doubt it.”

They laughed, making fun of Harry some more, and I left with dread in my stomach. We were Werewolves, so our hearing was good enough that gossip and rumours spread like wildfire if you weren’t talking in the lowest of voices when we were within earshot. If I’d heard it, it wouldn’t be long before Harry would too. That is, if he hadn’t already.

My fears were confirmed when I joined the others, the dark cloud hanging over Brittany and Harry, and by extension, Kylie having nothing to do with the winter weather.

‘I told you to make them our allies!’ Brittany raged.

‘I tried!’

She scoffed, ‘Not according to what I’ve been hearing all morning. If you were going to hit on the bitch, you could’ve at least done it when no one was around!’

‘There wasn’t. We were on the balcony with the door closed.’

‘Well, obviously someone was close enough to hear you make a fool of yourself.’

‘Why do we even need them as allies? Her pack is puny, smaller than all the other ones we’ve handled. We should just forget about them.’

She looked at him, the question of if he was an idiot practically screaming on her face, ‘Have you not been paying any fucking attention? They’ve already got too many allies, and their dues to the Royals have been more than any of our spies speculated they’d be.’

‘Doesn’t mean we need them.’ He folded his arms across his puffed-up chest, ‘I’m officially telling you to drop this.’

She laughed in his face, belittling sound, ‘You’re officially telling me to drop this? On what authority?’

‘As your fucking Alpha.’

Her smile was wicked and Harry’s ego faltered, ‘You may be my ‘fucking Alpha’, but dad’s the one in charge. And he wants them gone.’