A Man With No Sense

Melindana’s POV

Luca was already at the bottom of the staircase when I came down and the first thing he did was look at his watch, then look at me, then look at his watch again like the two things were related to each other in a way that personally inconvenienced him.

“You took forever,” he said. “We are already late.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, stepping off the last stair.

He looked me up and down slowly, taking in my outfit, and whatever he saw apparently annoyed him because his expression went from impatient to something else.

“What exactly are you wearing to the King’s banquet,” he said. “You look like it’s your own party. Are you trying to seduce the Lycan King or something, is that what this is about.”

I tilted my head slightly. “I dressed appropriately for a formal evening. Is there a problem.”

“Nobody is going to look at you,” he said flatly. “Only a man with absolutely no sense would look at you in that dress and call you fine.”

I looked at him for a moment.

“A man with no sense,” I repeated slowly. “Speaking exactly like the idiot you are.”

His jaw shifted but before he could respond I looked past him and that was when I saw Hailey, standing slightly to the side near the entrance, one hand resting lightly on Luca’s arm. She was dressed simply, nothing remarkable, smiling in that soft pleasant way she seemed to have permanently arranged on her face.

And around her neck was my fucking pendant.

The same ornate piece Julie had spent twenty minutes tearing the room apart looking for this morning, the one in the photograph on the wall, hanging right there against Hailey’s collarbone. She caught me looking and smiled mischievously with satisfaction.

I smiled back at her.

She hadn’t even managed to get herself officially recognised as anything yet and she was already wearing the Luna pendant around the house. The woman whose body I was in hadn’t even gotten a divorce and Hailey was out here auditioning for her replacement in real time. The audacity of it was almost impressive.

I literally don’t give a single fuck about the pendant. Not personally. But the woman who had lived in this body before me would have cared deeply, and I was still wearing her face and her title and her life, so I stepped forward and reached out and took it off Hailey’s neck in one smooth motion.

“There it is,” I said pleasantly. “I was looking for this all morning. Julie was so worried.” I turned it over in my hand once and looked at Hailey with genuine curiosity. “How did it end up on you?”

Hailey’s eyes were filled with tears immediately, it was impressive the amount of water she could gather in less than ten seconds, it immediately suggested she had been practising, and she turned and pressed herself into Luca’s chest with a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

Luca’s hand went to her back automatically. He looked at me over her head with an expression that had moved well past irritation.

“I gave it to her,” he said. “It had nothing to do with her, she didn’t take anything. You are standing here making a grown woman cry over a necklace because you cannot stand to see anyone else happy for five minutes.”

He reached out to take it from my hand and I stepped back and put it around my own neck instead, fastening it without breaking eye contact with him.

“I am still the Luna of this pack,” I said simply. “Until that changes, this stays with me. Keep your mate in your sight, Luca.”

I walked past both of them and got into the car waiting outside without looking back.

The drive to the palace I spent looking out of the window while Luca and Hailey sat close together on the other side of the car doing whatever they did when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. I was really not paying attention. I was thinking about Blackthorn, about a father Julie had described as one of the most powerful and wealthy Alphas in the region, about what a life there might look like once I found a way out of this marriage and this pack and this entire situation I had woken up into.

The sooner the better.

Luca leaned forward as we pulled through the palace gates and dropped his voice to a very low tone. “When we get inside, you say nothing unless you are spoken to. You touch nothing. You do not wander, you do not make conversation with people you have not been introduced to, and you absolutely do not embarrass me in front of the King.” He paused. “He killed someone this morning apparently. Keep that in mind.”

“Killed someone,” I said.

“He is not someone you want to draw attention from. He is strict, ruthless, and has no patience for nonsense. So keep your clumsy self close, do not breathe too loud, if possible don’t breathe at all Bella. Do not speak unless necessary, and for the love of God do not spill anything.”

I looked at him. “You have a lot of faith in me.”

He turned back to the window without responding.

The banquet hall inside the palace was something else entirely. I had walked through the entrance and immediately understood why Luca turned into a different person the second we passed through the gates. The ceilings were high, the lighting was warm and calm, long tables dressed in white and gold running the length of the room, every surface in the place announcing quietly and very clearly that whoever lived here was not someone you tested.

I sat down at the table assigned to us and looked around openly just because Luca told me not to and also because the room genuinely deserved to be looked at.

Luca noticed and said my name once under his breath, like he wants me to stop what I’m doing without making a scene, but I didn’t stop

Then the doors at the far end of the hall opened and the guard at the entrance announced the King and the entire room stood and I stood with them and that was when I saw him.

Aurelius walked in like the room had been built specifically to frame him, he was so tall, dressed in all black, something about the way he moved with grace.

He walked through the room and took his seat at the head of the table, close enough to where I was sitting on the longer side that the distance between us was smaller than I expected.

His same face from the road two nights ago, the dark green eyes, gosh, the sharp jawline, the slight fall of hair at the sides of his face, except here in the full light of the palace he was something else entirely and my brain, completely without my permission, produced one very clear and immediate thought.

He is so fine. Gosh, the man is sexy.

I pressed my lips together to keep the laugh inside and it worked for approximately two seconds before it didn’t, a short giggle escaped before I could catch it, and I kicked my feet underneath the table trying to compose myself and my heel hit something and a full glass of water tipped directly off the table and emptied itself onto Aurelius.