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I HATED THESE kinds of things, and I usually did my best to ruin them in some way. Not in an overt way, not exactly, but in little ways. I’d usually refuse to wear the clothes they set out for me or show up very drunk or insist on bringing some trashy plus one.
This time, I’d played it straight.
For Eleri, I guess.
Because it was her debut, and I wanted it to be perfect for her. And maybe because Rohan seemed fine with playing the game, following the rules, all of that.
Even so, this tie I was wearing was tight around my neck, and I kept yanking on it. Rohan hovered close around me, which I didn’t mind, not exactly, except I had a suspicion he was just waiting for me to screw things up.
I’d been going to therapy.
It was easy to make it happen if I wanted it. I only had to speak to someone in the staff, and by the same afternoon, they had brought someone in who sat with me in a room in the palace and guided me through experiences where we delved into my past.
The therapist talked about how I had young parts of me that were taking control, parts of me that had never healed from trauma. Inner children who were hurting and lashing out.
Usually, I would have said it was all bullshit, except it was kind of helping.
I didn’t want to say it was all about my mom, but, well, I’d lost a parent as a child, gone through my grieving in the public eye, and never really had any time to work through it in a healthy way.
So, I was doing better. I still wasn’t smoking, and I wasn’t going out and getting wasted every other night, taking handfuls of pills, that kind of thing.
Whatever the case, though, I did not want to become boring, and this whole ball was basically the definition of boredom.
The only part of it I enjoyed was when I got to dance with Eleri.
She was practically floating, and that dress of hers looked like something created by an AI image program—too pretty to exist in the real world. She was so beautiful that she seemed to be lit by an inner light, as if she glowed wherever she went.
Or maybe it was just the sequins and the way they reflected the lights.
At any rate, she was breathtaking.
I hadn’t seen her since the day that she came to Rohan’s room to tell us that she wanted to go to a ski lodge directly after the ball, because she wanted all of us to bite her there.
Rohan and I had been surprised.
Things with Devlin were frosty. I was perpetually at odds with Devlin, obviously, but Rohan’s attitude towards him had soured quite a bit recently. Though there had been a point in time when he’d said he was going to make peace with Devlin because Rohan “knew how to talk to him,” that hadn’t come to pass.
Whenever Rohan did talk about him, he seemed even more angry with him, and I felt bad about this. I hadn’t meant to mess things up with the two of them. They’d been together in some fashion for years. All evidence to the contrary, I didn’t actually wish Devlin ill.
So, this was what I talked about with her as we took our turns around the dance floor. We were dancing with all the other couples now. She’d had a dance alone with Devlin, but then, for her subsequent dances with each of the other alphas, everyone had started dancing. I’d been annoyed about that. Why shouldn’t she have a solo dance with each of us?
But Rohan had said it wasn’t worth making a fuss about. There were certain traditions, and Devlin was the heir, and I should let it go.
“Are you sure this idea of yours with all of us in Nilthin is a good idea?” I said to Eleri.
“Um, no, not sure,” she said with a rueful laugh. “But I’m hoping it is.” She fixed me with a look. “You’re still in love with Devlin.”
My lips parted. I didn’t even bother to deny that. What was the point? I knew it was true, even though most people wouldn’t think it was. They’d think that the way I behaved towards him proved that I hated him or something. I had been in love with him since the first time I laid eyes on him, I thought, since I’d knotted for him. That hadn’t changed.
“He’s still in love with you, too,” she said.
“No,” I said. “I fucked things up with him. He can’t ever love me again.”
“He wouldn’t be the way he is with you if he didn’t love you,” she said.
“Has he said something to you?” I said, clutching her tighter to me as we danced.
She hesitated.
