Chapter 28

“Wow,” I breathed and I truly meant it.

My usually unruly curls were flat ironed into sleek beautiful red hair. The light kept catching on it and made it glisten. My face had never looked so smooth. Planes upon planes of perfect skin. My jaw looked sharp and defined. Maja had lined my eyes with kohl. Their hazel color popped against the paleness of my skin. My lashes were long and darker than usual. They curled up and felt like fans when I blinked at myself.

The gown that Pietha had put me in was a deep mossy green. It was if the dress was made of millions of pieces of fabric, all woven together to form ropes. They curled and curved around every bit of me and accentuated my hips, waist and ass. One skimmed the underline of my breast then swirled down to my hip.

To pull it all together, there was a silver choker around my neck. It looked like vines had twisted their way around my throat. Every few vines, there were emeralds that were placed deep within the grooves of the vines.

I looked ethereal.

“Like a princess,” Pietha breathed, as if he could read my thoughts.

I turned around to look him in the eye. He smiled softly at me. He ran his hands over my shoulders as he did with Loren earlier.

“I did say I do my best work on redheads,” he mused. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. I flung myself into Pietha’s arms. “Thank you. Thank you. Thankyouthankyou—”

“Darling,” Pietha said. “I don’t want you smudging your make up before they get a look at you.”

I drew back quickly. He swiped a finger under my eyes. It came up clean. He smirked at his own work then dropped his hand to his side. He grabbed me by the biceps and steered me towards the door.

“Maja has the car ready,” he swung the door open. As he did, he put a silver clutch in my hands. It matched choker on my neck and the shiny silver shoes on my feet. “She’ll drop you off in style. Then, hopefully, you won’t return home tonight.”

“What does that mean?” I looked at Pietha with wide eyes. Pietha just rolled his eyes and shoved me out the door.

“Ta-ta, darling!” he wiggled his fingers at me. “Have a good night.”

Bewildered, I stumbled down the stairs and out into the night. Sure enough, the moon was high and bright in the sky. It was nearly at it’s peak, looming over the campus like an omen rather than a hopefully light.

I heard a horn and turned my head in the direction of the noise. Maja sat in the front seat of a long sedan. I stumbled into the car and huffed when I had to drag my dress into the car. Maja laughed from the front seat.

“Where to, Miss?” Maja said from the front seat in a fake accent.

I took a deep breath, preparing for whatever the night was going to give me.

“Mateball,” I said. “And step on it.”

Maja laughed again and I smiled softly to myself. I was beginning to think that maybe this wouldn’t be that awful.

The car rolled up to the Auditorium, a large stone building covered in the moon phases, and came to a stop. Maja got out and opened the door for me but that’s as far as they went. I ascending the giant stone steps all on my own wobbly feet. At the top was a great stone door with a howling wolf on it. Behind the door, I could hear music. With my final deep breath, I shoved the doors open.

Inside was what I’d imagined: a bunch of my fellow wolves in formal attire. Some were dancing, some were sat on the outside rim, perched on fancy looking couches holding champagne flutes. Others were chatting amongst each other in a circle around the dance floor. Some were dancing like it was the Victorian era, barely touching and looking longingly at each other.

As people noticed my late arrival, several whispers spun up around me. I tried to tune into the voices behind me with my wolf hearing. The whispers became louder in the back of my head.

“Who is that?”

“My, my she’s stunning!”

“—Is that a Pietha original gown? How did she get her hands on it?”

“She’s stunning—”

The voices became a bit much. I tuned them back out, shoving them into the back of my mind as Maximus taught me. But I still heard the way their conversations stopped and their heads turned. I shrunk in on myself as I had done before. I quickly ran away from the entrance. I b-lined it to the drink table.

“A glass of white, please,” I said to the unassuming bartender.

“Which white?” the bartender asked, bored.

“Oh, uh—”

“Try the Sancerre,” a low voice rumbled from my right.

My blood chilled in my veins. I knew that voice. I’d felt it drip down my ears as a snarl.

Stop dancing, pup

I gasped and whipped towards the source of the voice. My fears were amplified as I looked into a piercing set of dark gold eyes. The memories from my fight came crashing back into me. I slammed my eyes shut and tried to talk myself out of the swirl of anxiety building up inside me.

The man laughed. “First time a woman’s actually closed their eyes at the sight of me,” he drawled. “Usually they stare.”

I slowly opened my eyes and made eye-contact with Kairos Moonraiser. My heart was thrumming in my chest as his lips curled up into a smirk.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he drawled. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Kairos. Son of High Alpha Moonraiser.”

I breezed right over the pretentious introduction and blinked at him twice. He didn’t recognize me? His hand was reaching for mine. I sizzle of electricity jolted from his fingertips to mine. I immediately panicked and yanked my hand away.

Kairos frowned at me. He looked confused. His eyes looked back up and met mine. “What—” he started then his smile dropped.

My own pulse was so fast I felt like my chest was about to erupt. Slowly, his face worked it’s way into a snarl. A low growl escaped from his throat. He took his hand and balled it into a fist. He pierced me with his eyes before storming off away from the drink table. My heart skipped again and I let out a huff of a breath.

“So the Sancerre?” the bartender deadpanned.

So much for anonymity.