Chapter 4

He said it like I was nobody, and he wasn’t just watching me from the clearing like a creep earlier.

The ceremony is that way, miss. Not even a full sentence worth of attention and then he was gone, back to that chair, back to looking like the room owed him something. I could still feel my skin getting goosebumps as he left his presence sent cold shivers to my body.

I found Priya in the crowd and got back to her before she could come looking for me.

“You okay?” she said.

“Fine, just went to clear my head.”

She did not push it. “I understand all this is quite new to you but trust me you will enjoy it,” She said holding my hands.

We turned back to the raised area and I crossed my arms and tried to look like someone who was supposed to be here, and tried not to look at a certain dark blue-eyed individual.

Darius stepped forward and the crowd got into an uproar. Everyone of them was excited to see himband some girls were sending him kisses from were they sat. “we love you Darius,” one petite female screamed. Darius smiled back at her then took the microphone.

“Tonight we honor what was built before us.” His voice carried without effort, the kind of voice that had never needed to try. “The blood of this pack, the strength of this pack, the future of this pack. It lives in this ceremony. It lives in this moment.”

The woman standing to my left pressed her hand flat against her chest.

Someone behind me said something low to the person beside them and I caught the word blessed and nothing else.

“He’s good,” I said quietly to Priya.

“He knows he is, he will make a fine king” she said, and there was something in her voice that was not a compliment.

Darius smiled at the crowd and it was a real smile in the sense that it reached his eyes but there was something behind it that the smile was doing a job for. Like the warmth was load bearing. Like if he stopped producing it something underneath would show.

My eyes moved to look at the dark blue-eyed prince. He sat in the same chair as earlier . One arm resting on the side, the other hand loose in his lap, watching his brother the way you watch something you have already figured out. His face gave nothing. Not boredom, not contempt, just nothing, the particular blankness of someone who stopped being surprised a long time ago.

He did not look at me.

“For this pack, for this bloodline, for the future that stands before us,” Darius continued, opening his arms slightly like he was making a gift of himself to the clearing, “I stand ready.”

The crowd responded. Not applause exactly, more like a sound, collective and full, the kind that comes from a group of people who believe what they are hearing or have decided to. The woman to my left made a soft sound in the back of her throat. Two girls near the front straightened their shoulders at the exact same moment without looking at each other.

An older woman appeared at Priya’s elbow. Small, grey haired, the kind of face that means I am hear for business. She leaned close to Priya and said something directly into her ear.

Priya’s jaw went tight. One short nod and the woman was already moving away, sliding back into the crowd without looking at me once.

“What was that?” I said.

“Nothing. Werewolves business.”

“Priya.”

“Zara.” She said my name the same way I said hers, flat and final, and turned back to Darius.

I turned back to Darius too but my eyes went sideways almost immediately.

Caius was looking at me now.

Not the full open stare from across the clearing earlier.

But making me aware he was staring at me I think he is challenging me to a staring contest. I stared back at him not one to back down from a fight.

The ceremony is that way, miss.

I do not know why those six words were still sitting in my head. He was a stranger. This whole town was full of strangers and I had considerably larger problems than one of them treating me like a misplaced guest. I knew what I was here.

He broke the staring contest first and looked away from me to Darius.

Darius was still speaking. The fire crackled to my left. The woman beside me had not moved her hand from her chest.

Priya’s fingers found my arm. Light grip, just contact.

I left them there.

Caius did not look at me again for the rest of the ceremony. I noticed every time he did not.

“I thought this was supposed to be a mating ceremony but I am yet to see a female by his side,” I asked looking at Priya.

‘Don’t worry the main show is about to begin she is about to come out,” She said smiling.