Chapter 6: The Function

Alex POV

Practice was exactly what I needed to get rid of all the tension stuck in my shoulders; nothing cleared my head like getting slammed into the boards a few dozen times and giving it right back.

"Our regular place?" Milo asked, and we headed toward the small, cozy coffee shop just around the corner from the rink, Ivy trailing along with us, still walking like her legs hadn't quite forgiven her for the last hour.

Once we were settled in a booth, Milo pulled out his diary, the pocket notebook he refused to give up no matter how many times I told him to just use his phone like a normal person. I guess some habits apparently outlived logic.

"Tonight is that party at your parents," Milo said, flipping the notebook open like he was consulting scripture instead of his own handwriting. "You don't have a choice; you need to be there. Else your father will drag you back by your ear."

The engagement party, or, in this case, the pre-engagement dinner, since apparently there were levels to this particular hell.

I'd been delaying the real thing for almost three years now, and if I had my way, I'd delay it another five. I was in the prime of my hockey career, and I had better things to do than shake hands with a woman my parents had picked out of a catalog like I was livestock at auction.

I still couldn't fully wrap my head around it that my own parents had sold me into a marriage proposal like it was a business merger, like I didn't get a say in my own future.

"Fine," I said. "I'll go."

"Good." Milo made a note like he was actually going to hold me to it, then glanced at Ivy, who was very deliberately pretending not to listen while stirring her coffee. "You should come too."

I looked up, surprised that Milo actually thought of inviting Ivy.

"What are you doing, Milo?" I mind-lined.

"Trying to get you out of your arranged marriage," he said.

"My father is going to freak," I hissed.

"Isn't that what you need?" he asked. "Show him you found her. Maybe he'll change his mind and understand."

"Milo's got a point," Max mused. "He can't force you to take that she-wolf if you already found your mate."

Max had a point, and I'll do anything to get out of this arrangement.

"You up for it?" I asked her. "A party."

"What? A party?" She blinked, caught off guard. "What kind of party?"

"Black tie," Milo said casually.

"I don't have anything fancy to wear."

That, at least, was a problem with an easy solution, one I would deal with later in a way that wouldn't make her feel like charity again.

"Did you find anything interesting on her background?" I mind-linked Milo.

He didn't look up from his hot chocolate; he kept his voice even like we were discussing the weather instead of digging through a girl's entire life without her permission.

"Nothing fancy or horrific," he replied. "Or worth worrying about." He took a sip of his hot chocolate, his gaze moving to Ivy. "She's an orphan and grew up in the system. She bounced through different homes before she came here. Her record's clean. She has no previous relationships listed, not even debt beyond the usual stuff. She is a clean slate."

I turned Milo's words over in my head while Ivy argued with Milo about whether jeans counted as "function-appropriate"; some part of me was quietly relieved there was nothing complicated hiding in her past, and another part of me, the wolf part, entirely unsatisfied by that answer.

A clean slate didn't explain the scent. It didn't explain why a human girl with no family, no history, and nothing supernatural on paper smelled like the other half of my soul.

I turned to Milo. "Make arrangements," I mind-linked him. "My future Luna needs to take everyone's breath away at the pre-engagement party."

Milo's eyes went wide across the table, even as his face stayed carefully neutral for Ivy's benefit. "You can't be serious, Alex," he said over the mindlink. "Everyone will know..."

"Just do it," I cut him off. "I'm not mating some random she-wolf when I've already found my fated mate. I need everyone to know that I'm not bending to their will..."

"Alex," he warned. "She's human..."

"She'll be fine," I said, watching her across the table. "She'll accept me."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

I'd been watching her all week. There was something different about her, and it wasn't only the scent, though Goddess knew that alone was enough to unravel me. It went deeper than that, it felt like something stirred just underneath my skin, like there was a light behind a closed door and that something was waking up, which was unfamiliar in a way.

Milo sighed and pushed to his feet. "Fine," he said for Ivy to hear. "I'll make the arrangements."

That got Ivy's attention. "What arrangements?"

"For a stylist," Milo said, already pulling out his phone. "Can't have you walking into a fancy gathering in just jeans and a t-shirt. What will the people think of us?"

Ivy's eyes widened. "Milo, wait!"

"We have a certain dress code to keep to," I said, finding her gaze and daring her to protest.

By the time we actually got to the shop, it was obvious this wasn't a place any college student could afford, not on scholarship money, not on three jobs' worth of tips, not on anything short of a small fortune.

"I thought you were just a broke college student," Ivy said, glancing between the racks and me like the math wasn't adding up. And it wasn't, I knew that, but she didn't need to know where my funds were coming from.

"I am," I replied.

"Alex, don't…"

"His parents cut him off financially," Milo said, cutting Ivy off. "Alex made sure the bit of resources he had were invested properly so that he could afford whatever he needed."

She raised an eyebrow at both of us. "You're not into something illegal, are you?"