Chapter 5

Venus's POV

I watch as we successfully send off the moonstone baton to the next werewolf pack so that they can celebrate the next Full Moon as their own Full Moon Festival. And our pack has to wait for another year to celebrate it once again.

I catch the scent of salt and the ocean. I turn around to find Edna Adams. Her gray eyes warm as they look at me, and a smile so gorgeous that I can definitely say she is prettier than me.

"Future Queen," Dorian bows to her and if only he knew what I am to Alonso!

"Oh please. I am not one yet and that's still a long way," Edna smiles at Dorian, pushing a few strands of her blonde hair away from her face.

"I am bored. And everyone in the pack house told me that the King is especially close to you," Edna pauses as she takes my appearance in,"Beta"

Something about her screams differently. Because there is no way a girl can be this soft. And she has everything sorted in place. Her attire, her hair, her posture.. as if she had been groomed for this all her life.

"Alpha and Beta, obviously you can expect that," I say, afraid I held up the conversation too long for people to start noticing.

"Gamma Dorian!!" I hear someone scream from behind and Dorian walks away as he bows to Edna once again.

Edna tilts her head towards the pack and I nod, taking the hint. We are at the borders now and I still have no idea how she found me. Unless she caught my scent, which is impossible because even though werewolves have a distinct smell.. When we are not connected to other wolf through bond or pack, one cannot smell them by their own unique smell. For example now I don't have any bond with Edna or her brother. So I smell them both as Salt and Ocean, that describes their pack.

Edna walks at an incredibly slow pace, either to irritate me or she is asked to walk that way. Or maybe, she has another motive.

"What does your King like?" Edna asks me, breaking the thin ice between us at the moment.

"He likes his space," I answer without taking an extra second to think about it. She might think I am just being sarcastic, but it is what it is.

I cannot be nice to a girl who just came into the picture out of the blue to marry my mate! He has an excuse to give but I don't have one to listen to.

"I don't know anything about him. And I am just pushed into this political marriage for a life debt. I don't know how it's fair on his part or mine," Edna starts rambling and I got stuck at one point that she mentioned just now.

"I am sorry, come again?" I ask her again and she looks at me, blinks her eyes once totally taken aback by the base of my voice but that's least of my concerns.

"Life debt?" She asks me back and this time, I am the one doing the blinking with no talking thing.

"Yes. Apparently that's the reason my father gave me at the very least," Edna says again.

The pack with the largest Naval Fleet. Life debt. Alonso is The King with no second in line or heir apparent.

Oh no. Was that what he wanted to tell me the other evening before Edna came along and I left? But this doesn't make sense. How does Alonso's father owe a life debt to Alpha John Adams?

The distance between our two packs is immense and it usually takes a person a two day travel to go from the capital pack to The Ocean Howlers Pack and vice versa.

"I am sorry I cannot accompany you at the moment. But I will see you around. You need a friend, obviously" I give Edna a fake smile that she so graciously caught on but chose not to say anything.

I didn't wait for her to say something. I stormed off but turned around just once to see if she was still there or already gone. And I am surprised to see that she is now walking at a steady pace. There's no one around and she is not walking slowly anymore.

I turned around and started walking just when I sensed she was about to turn around. If this is all something strange, then I don't want her catching me this fast.

I moved all around the pack trying to catch Alonso's scent and it led me to the pond. The place where we last talked to each other a night ago.

"I thought you had nothing to talk about anymore. Other than the Beta stuff," he says as he slowly turns around to look at me.

His scent of musk and citrus is making me and my wolf go crazy. Even though his marriage was publicly announced, neither of us still decided on rejecting each other.

"I gave my wolf a name," I tell him, trying my best to beat around the bush until I am sure enough to talk to him about the main issue.

"Dawn," he says, totally surprising me.

"I remember you naming your blonde doll as blondie and your white pet cat as snow. So I figured you would name your wolf Dawn based on her bright orange fur," he smiles a little.

I am at a loss of words at this point. I realized I do love this man. Maybe the mate bond kickstarted this feeling in me and maybe I have had this in me all along. But I do love him.

And that is the moment I decided that I am not going to back off that easily. This man is my mate and I would do anything to find a loophole in the rules or whatever shit our ancestors wrote.

When Alonso glanced at my lips before looking at my eyes, that's when I also realized that the feeling is mutual. So I did not waste another second before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and pulling him towards me for a kiss.