MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS

Chapter 145: THE CEREMONY (PART 2)

AMARIS

Darius was an attention whore who liked to make every moment about him and right now he was doing just that.

I had not even spotted Darius in the crowd, which tracked, because my brother had two settings his whole life, invisible when it suited him and impossible to ignore when it didn’t, and apparently tonight had tipped over into the second one.

He rose from four rows back, left side, the seat with the cleanest sightline to the platform, because naturally that was where he had put himself.

Of course it was.

Not one single time in our entire lives had Darius stood up for anything that was not, underneath all of it, somehow about Darius.

Across the platform Ryker had gone very still, watching my brother get to his feet. Rowan’s hand had drifted toward his side without seeming to realize it, the way it did when he was bracing for something.

And me, I just stood there with blood running down my wrist, already tired of whatever was about to come out of my brother’s mouth.

"I apologize for the interruption." His voice filled the space without effort. "But something needs to be said before this goes any further."

He looked at Corvin first, then turned to face the entire crowd, and I watched him pull in a breath and exhaled before he spoke again.

"Amaris Storme," he said, his voice carrying to every corner of the grounds, "is not the virgin she was presented as when this arrangement was made."

Someone in the front row gasped loudly.

"She was with someone before she arrived at this pack." He paused, just long enough to let it breathe. "What you are seeing in that bowl is the moon goddess confirming exactly that."

The front rows erupted first.

"What did he just say—" ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

"Did he just say she’s not a—"

"I knew something was off, I said it to you weeks ago—"

A woman in the second row pressed both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide and darting between me and Corvin.

Two older males near the aisle turned to each other shaking their heads slowly with the particular energy of men who had suspected something all along and were in no rush to hide their satisfaction about it.

Behind them a young female grabbed her companion’s arm and said something fast and urgent that got swallowed by the noise.

The noise was everywhere now, rolling in from all sides.

"The blood ritual doesn’t lie—"

"Who was it, does anyone know who—"

"The Alpha is going to—"

I stood on the platform in my very expensive dress with my bleeding palm and my bowl of very red blood and I thought, there it is.

I did not look at Ryker.

I did not look at Rowan.

I especially did not look at Corvin.

I looked at Darius, standing four rows back with his hands clasped in front of him, waiting for the room to finish reacting.

Lila lowered her hand from her chin when my eyes met with hers.

Whatever was on her face now was not a smirk.

She must be ravishing in my public ridicule.

Rowan’s head snapped toward Darius so fast it looked like a reflex his body made without asking his permission.

Ryker’s drunk looseness burned off completely, his eyes clearing and going very still and landing directly on me.

Corvin let go of my hand.

He turned to face Darius and when he spoke the people immediately around him went quiet to hear it and the quiet spread outward until it pulled the whole crowd down with it.

"I know Victor Hale was at Stormshadow territory last night." One step toward Darius, "So I am asking you directly. In front of every person standing here. Did Victor put you up to this. Is this his play."

Darius did not move back.

"I am not here for Victor." His chin stayed level. "I am here because it is the truth."

"Marco." Corvin said it without turning his head.

Marco moved and every Stormshadow sentinel in the space stepped forward at the same time and every Gravemoon sentinel rose to meet them and the ceremony became two walls of wolves facing each other across decorated ground with the crowd scrambling sideways and backward, chairs going over, the officiant pressing himself against the platform railing still holding the ceremonial bowl like it was somehow still relevant to the situation.

Rowan pushed through both lines with both arms out wide, his voice cutting low through the noise telling everyone to hold, voice steady in the middle of chaos the way Rowan always was.

I was still standing on the platform.

Corvin and Darius locked into each other. Two lines of wolves a breath from contact. The crowd a wall of noise and movement on three sides.

I thought about this morning.

Ryker’s hands on my face.

The click of my door after he left.

I thought about Nia, a day and a half gone now, nobody actually looking the way they should be.

I thought about Freya in the dungeon.

I just brought her in.

I thought about the white wolf bloodline and the heir and being a means to an end dressed in the most beautiful dress I had ever worn, standing here bleeding into a bowl while the moon goddess publicly announced to three hundred wolves exactly what I was and exactly what I wasn’t.

I almost laughed because I knew what I was about to do was going to be the death of me.

But I had stopped caring somewhere between when I first got here and now standing on this platform.

"He is right." I concurred my voice echoing through the room.

My voice cut through all of it and the noise dropped and every head that had not already turned toward me turned now.

I pressed my bleeding palm flat against the front of the ivory dress and looked at the wall of faces staring back at me and I did not look at Corvin and I did not look at Ryker and I did not look at Lila.

"I am not a virgin."