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I stopped by my room during the training session, deciding I had to change. If my father truly summoned me to dinner for some reason, he wouldn’t want me to show up in a uniform. However, the second I opened the door and stepped inside, Rianne was there.
I scowled. “I’ll come back,” I stated, not bothering to hide the annoyance I had at seeing her there. She stood over her bed, clothes in disarray over the surface, sorting through what she had. If we were on speaking terms, she would have asked me my opinion on the couple of outfits she had narrowed down. Though what she was doing, what she was dressing for, I had no idea.
“You better not,” she called the second I turned my back. “Your father would want you to be dressed, and quickly. He stopped by asking for you. As far as he’s concerned, you’re already late. Andshe’sgoing to be there, so, you know.” She shrugged. “Don’t let her win.”
“What would you know about it,” I snapped. “You like to keep reminding me how ignorant I am, how privileged. What would you know about what’s expected of you?”
Rianne frowned, and I knew I struck a nerve. I refused to feel guilty for it, even though tendrils of the emotion threatened to spill in my gut. She wasn’t allowed to make me feel guilty. This all could have been avoided. She could have taken my side, but she didn’t.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” she said.
I rummaged around my closet, not bothering to respond. This time, guilt did cut across me, but I ignored it. She was okay with me losing my inheritance. She was okay with me losingeverything.
I scowled at a particularly short dress and shoved it to the side. I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to acknowledge that they might actually like each other.
“You know, it doesn’t have to be this way,” she said, her voice tentative.
“Rianne, I don’t…I don’t want to argue anymore,” I said. “You took their side –”
“I’m making you understand –”
“You are fine with Chamberly taking my inheritance away,” I said. “I can’t…Maybe I could understand the marriage and the reasons why. Maybe I could even understand Chamberly and why he picked her. But I can’t…I can’t be okay with my father taking away something that was promised to me, something I’ve been working towards for so long. I thought…I thought you would understand, but I guess I was mistaken. And that’s unfortunate because besides you, I don’t have anyone else.”
“Adrya,” Rianne murmured.
“Don’t,” I said. “I don’t want to be part of this-this farce. I have no idea what Father is trying to do with this dinner, but I refuse to entertain her as a stepmother or go along with his desires when everything has been taken from me. I can’t even train anymore. I can’t learn how to protect myself, all because my father thinks he’s going to marry me off to some wolf –”
“He is.” Rianne’s voice was quiet but firm.
“Excuse me?”
Rianne looked up at me, catching my eyes. “I heard through the grapevine about it,” she said. “What do you think this dinner is?”
The only solaceI could find in this farce of a dinner was that Taskier was present for it as well. I didn’t feel truly alone. The only person missing here was Matthyw. I glanced at the empty chair across from me where Matthyw usually sat, and I sighed. I still didn’t know if he left because of some secret mission or if my father had sent him away for standing up for me, and I didn’t think it was my place to ask.
My father, dressed in all black with red trim – our pack colors on full display – sat at the head of the table, with Chamberly, also dressed in a black and red gown that was much lovelier than anything I had ever seen her own before to his left. If that didn’t state her position and where she was now, I didn’t think anything else did.
My eyes shifted over to Taskier, fiddling with the stem of his wine goblet. I wished I had some insight about how he felt about this. Did he have any opinion one way or the other? Did he even know I had been stripped of heir?
At that moment, a servant came bustling through the dining room entrance. He cleared his throat, puffed up his chest, and said, “Marcus Hancock, Alpha of the Obsidian Pack.”
I froze.
He wasn’t actually here, was he? Rianne hinted as much. Was she actually right?
My father slid into a standing position, with Rianne following suit. Taskier released his hold on the goblet so he could stand as well, forcing me to take action or look like I was incapable of following basic decorum. Part of me wanted that, to rebel against even the simplest of rules, because suddenly, I realized what this dinner was about, and instead of being informed prior by my father, I wasn’t. It was like a trap I couldn’t escape from.
At that moment, a man a few years older than I was, stepped into the room. He had his nose in the air, like he was part of one of the Four great packs that made up Bloodmoon rather than a minor pack with territory. He made his way to the empty seat – to Matthyw’s seat – and sat down without waiting for any sort of invitation to do so.
I narrowed my eyes, clenching my teeth together to keep myself from saying something I might later regret. Ever since my world had shifted, boldness had been easy to come by. I wasn’t the meek, docile girl I had been. Now, I had something to fight against. I just never expected it to be my father.
“Marcus,” my father said as he took a seat, though his blue eyes were narrowed at the lack of etiquette this supposed Alpha had. “So good of you to come.”
“Yes, well, my father said I needed to attend,” Marcus said, fingering the stem of the goblet. “I am duty-bound to find a Consort for my pack, and with this Marriage Law looming over us all, he insisted I look at all potential prospects and make the best choice.”
My father’s eyes narrowed slightly, as though he couldn’t believe I would be regulated as another choice when I was the heir to the Fire Pack.
Former heir, I wanted to remind him.
