Chapter 10 #2
There was a larger chair off to the side of the group, with its own canopy stretched over it, and my gaze collided with my sister's.
She looked exactly the same.
Gwen's curls were looser than mine, falling around her face perfectly. I knew she would've fixed them with an iron, the way she always had. I'd never bothered, hence my daily messy bun that never looked perfect.
Our hair was the same shade of buttery blonde, but she had more freckles than I did, and hers were darker. More striking.
Our noses were the same shape, our eyes were the same color, and our faces were incredibly similar.
Although we looked like twins, we were around ten months apart in age.
Our parents wouldn’t admit it, but we were pretty sure the age gap was from a birth control error during our mom’s first heat after she had Gwen.
Having children was dangerous for immortal women, so no immortals ever tried to have their kids so close together.
Not if they were sane, anyway.
The cost of the kind of magic required to even attempt to make sure everyone survived childbirth was astronomical.
Our parents were still paying off the bill from the unicorn midwife who had kept us all alive when my café became overwhelmingly successful.
I’d contacted the unicorn and paid her myself, so they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
I asked the midwife to just say she’d forgiven them after so many years, because I wasn’t trying to buy their love back.
As soon as we made eye contact, Gwen looked away.
I forced myself not to stare, despite the mess of emotion in my chest.
Sable was asleep, which was normal. But for once, I wanted her to distract me.
Glancing down the row of Cabinet members, I realized the conundrum we were about to be in.
Callum was still leading me in front of him, down the path and toward the chairs, but there would be nowhere for me to sit.
The crowd was loud, and I didn't want anyone near us to hear me ask him what he planned to do about the seating situation. Someone who loved their partner like I was supposed to love Callum would trust them to figure something out. So, I stayed quiet.
In one way or another, I was about to be really embarrassed, or really uncomfortable.
Maybe both.
Hell, probably both.
Unsurprisingly, Callum didn't greet a single person as we reached the empty chairs. There was no moment of hesitation on his side when we did.
He sat down.
Then pulled me onto his lap, so I was sitting on his thigh.
If werewolves were the type to be scandalized—which we absolutely weren't—it would've been quite the scandal.
As it was, I could feel many sets of eyes on me.
I leaned against his chest, and he pulled me closer. It wasn't incredibly comfortable, as far as seats went, but it would do.
Liv's foot was tapping, her hands in the pockets of her jeans to hide what I was now confident were fidget toys. She looked extremely uncomfortable.
My attention turned to the gathered crowd, as I tried to find Jonah.
"He's over there." Liv nodded to the edge of the group directly to our left.
Jonah stood in a cluster of men that I recognized as his MMA fighter friends.
They'd all stopped in the cafe from time to time to chat with him when he was with me, and pretty much all of them had either flirted with me or asked me out.
The flirting was harmless, but I politely turned down their requests, blaming it on work.
There was definitely work to do, but ultimately, I just wasn't interested in them. Particularly not with a fae bargain hanging over my head, or the heats I'd spent with Callum.
Looking back, they were probably only alive because I hadn't gone out with them.
If Callum considered me his since the first night, he probably would've killed anyone I tried to date.
That was alarming.
There was no way around it at this point, though.
Jonah met my gaze, and nodded once.
I nodded back.
We could've communicated with the pack bond, but didn't.
When it came to Gwen, our feelings were very different. Regardless of all the other shit, she had dropped our entire shared business’s debt on my shoulders without bothering to apologize or wish me luck.
She had broken Jonah’s heart when Simon made her end their engagement, but she hadn’t cheated on him or betrayed him. He could probably forgive her and move on. He absolutely still loved her.
I was the one who had been fucked over to the point of trading my soul.
Callum's arm tightened around my waist, but he didn't say anything else about my boyfriend.
A few minutes passed.
Darius and Merrily slipped into their seats on the other side of Liv just as Gwen stood.
She walked to a microphone I hadn't noticed was set up a few feet away, and cleared her throat.
The noise died down immediately.
"Welcome to the Beta Challenges," Gwen announced. "Before we get started, let's take a moment of silence for our beloved Simon, who is no longer with us."
Callum and I were hit with at least a hundred pairs of eyes. Mostly angry. Some neutral.
The silence was far from comfortable.
I tried not to react, but the fae king went still behind me.
He was upset. His icy magic swelled in response, cooling me off perfectly.
"Don't," Liv muttered. "We need the wolves to like us."
Darius snorted. "That went out the window two days ago."
Callum stood, calmly setting me on the chair we had both been occupying before he strode over to the canopy.
"This is not good," Merrily whispered to Darius.
"Eh, it’ll be fine."
"For future reference, your job is to stop him from doing shit like this," Liv told me, as Callum reached the microphone.
He plucked it from Gwen’s hand and stepped closer to the edge of the pit. His ice-cold gaze swept over the gathered crowd slowly.
The silence grew louder, somehow.
"Your beloved Simon is no longer with you because he fucked with my mate. The next person who tries will wish for a death as fast and painless as your Beta’s.
Spend your moment of silence considering how lucky he was that I let him live as long as I did.
" After another threatening sweep of his eyes, Callum handed the microphone to Gwen, and walked back toward us like he was in no hurry at all.
"Your face is the color of a tomato," Liv whispered.
I ignored her, standing as Callum approached.
Instead of taking the seat, the way I expected him to, he tugged my body to his and kissed me deeply, in front of the crowd.
I kissed him back. There wasn’t a way around it, but honestly, the kiss was more instinct than choice. It just felt right.
When he pulled away, he sat back down in the seat, setting me on his lap again.
With his bargain markings showing beneath the sleeves he’d rolled up his forearms, I noticed that ours was a slightly softer shade of gray than the others. Not as dark, and a little more shimmery.
Maybe he’d already used part of it when he forced me to move in with him?
Hmm.
I tried unsuccessfully to process many different feelings while Gwen announced the start of the challenges, and the first pair went out to fight.
Every day would cut the number of challengers in half, giving the fighters two days to recover before the next round. There were nearly nine hundred to start with, so there would be multiple fights going on at the same time, and it would still take the rest of the day to get through them.
The last thing I wanted to do was watch wolves tear into each other for the next handful of hours, but at least the werewolves were catering, so the food would be good.