Chapter 16

Chris POV

"What are you doing here?" I heard Ava say as I passed through the open doors to the gray stone balcony.

"Ethan," I said as I joined them. "You are non-Pack and have no right to speak on Pack matters here."

"I was invited to this shindig before you returned with all your fanfare," Ethan said, and a slight slur in his words and an off-kilter quality to his tuxedo made it clear he'd indulged in the champagne. "I explained to them that I am no longer Acting Beta, but they said they didn't mind."

"But I'm guessing you didn't tell them you're no longer a Pack member."

Ethan waved his half-empty glass around as though to wipe away my words. "The Humans wouldn't understand the significance anyway." He smiled smugly. "They just wanted the pleasure of my company."

"I'm sure."

He looked at Ava then, sneering.

"So you're his date, are you? I had no idea you were so shameless when we were married. Tell me, was that why it was so easy to discard me? Should I have been checking for scratch marks on your bedroom door?"

I opened my mouth to tell him where he could stick his bedroom door when Ava got there ahead of me, stepping up into his face.

"Easy to discard you? You broke our bond to show off for Olivia and were going to make me you omega house slave!" She took a perfectly manicured finger and poked him in his Hugo Boss shirt.

"You're the one without shame! You're the one so greedy for power you didn't care whose life you ruined or what you had to tear down to proclaim yourself the mighty Alpha! Did you really not see how relieved the Pack was when you lost?" She spit the next words: "Chris should have killed you in the Square and refused to bury your bones."

"I knew it," he retorted with a hiss. "I knew the two of your were in it together, expelling the true leader of Moonstone Pack for this child!" He turned on me then. "What kind of thrill are you getting out of this, calling someone almost old enough to be your mother your 'date' for the night?"

"I would watch my next words wisely, Ethan," I said, making sure my hands didn't curl into fists even though my claws begged to be released. "Very wisely."

Ethan snorted. "I suppose you plan to take her away from the Pack? Install her here in some apartment like your own plaything?"

The way he talked about Ava made me furious. "If Ava lets me bring her to the civilization of the Human World, she will do so as my mate."

Ethan laughed, throwing his head back as though he were about to howl. "Ava would never leave the Pack!" He looked at her. "Would you?"

Ava just looked at him without a reply, for which I was again grateful.

"Unlike you," he said next. "Ava has pledged herself to Moonstone and would never leave, and if you didn't realize that back when you were a child, let alone as an adult-wannabe, you're more than an idiot. You're a fool."

I tried to keep my expression neutral, but my dismay must have shown through,

Ethan laughed again. "Did I hit a nerve?" He looked down at the champagne flute in his hand, tossed the rest of the drink back, then turned and threw the crystal against the wall, where it shattered.

When he whirled back around at us, he swayed, and visible spittle flew from his lips when he all but shouted, "She will never leave the Pack she serves, and you will never be able to serve as a true Alpha! You can try to make her as Human as you like." His right hand waved at Ava's outfit. "But you will never make her yours, not like she was mine until I decided I didn't want her anymore!"

Two security guards appeared at the door, no doubt drawn by the sound of breaking glass. Ethan whirled around on them as well, and openly staggered. I calculated he was about five minutes from passing out.

"Sir?" one of the guards asked me. I recognized him from earlier corporate "shindigs," but I'd never learned his name. But I knew both he and the heavyset woman next to him were lethal and discreet, and that was all that mattered.

"Ethan needs to leave," I told them. "He's had enough of the party tonight."

Meanwhile, Ethan was taunting Ava. "Acting Luna. Can you help me pray to the Goddess while your marriage was a sham?"

"It really is time for you to leave," she said calmly, but I could see the high flush on her cheeks and hated it.

The two guards reached Ethan by the end of his rant. Each took an arm and began dragging him to the door.

"Out the front," I told the guards. "I know it's not in your assigned duties, but I'd like to everyone to see the esteem in which Moonstone Pack holds this creature."

Ethan let loose with a stream of curses at my language, but the guards nodded calmly.

"Oh course, sir," the male one said, and they both dragged Ethan out the French doors, through the ballroom, and then, I presume, down to a cab. Unfortunately, that didn't stop his words from reaching us all the way along.

"I'll be back soon enough! Moonstone Pack knows their true Alpha! And wait until they hear about the two of you! A date? She's unworthy! You're unworthy!"

He repeated this a few times before he was out of earshot.

I looked at Ava with uncertainty, but to my relief she looked murderous.

"Jackass," she muttered. "I can't believe I thought he was a servant to the Pack. I can't believe I thought he was, well, what I thought he was!"

She looked at me and shook her head. "I can't believe any of this."

I walked over to her in two strides and wrapped my arms around her. Goddess, she felt good.

"It will be all right," I said, feeling helpless. Perhaps I should have killed him. Maybe my time among Humans had made me less able to serve as Alpha, and what I thought of as mercy was weakness. I didn't know. I just knew I wanted to make her feel better.

She hiccupped a little laugh.

I held her a little tighter. "I will see he never returns to the Pack. I swear it."

"I know," she said, but I could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

I felt an overwhelming resentment then, and it took me some effort to realize it was against myself. The woman in my arms was the love of my life, yet I couldn't protect her, not in the way she deserved to be protected.