03. A Pair Of Scheming ‘Couple’

Esme’s POV

After a fitful and truncated night’s sleep, I woke early when my personal assistant, Amy, entered the room. “Ah, here you are. I’m done with all the tasks you gave me yesterday.” I looked into her eyes, grateful for her reliability and our relationship. My father found her near death and rescued her when I was five, and we’d grown up together. Like Stella, she was like a sister to me.

Just the thought of Stella made my heart ache. An unbidden image of her naked on top of Calvin formed in my mind. I shoved the memory aside and addressed Amy. “Are the gates open yet? Some of the guests like to come early.”

“I had them open the gates at dawn, and several packs have already arrived.” She looked at me with a furrowed brow. “But that’s not important. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, sounding lackluster and unconvincing, even to my own ears. Amy raised her brows, clearly not buying that. My shoulders slumped. “I’m just tired from working around the clock these last few days,” I lied.

Her face scrunched. “Then why are you in a guest room? Do you know how hard it was to find you without my awakened senses?”

Poor thing. She was eighteen and still waiting for her wolf. She must have had to search everywhere.

“I’ll tell you after the festival,” I said.

Amy looked at me like she was afraid I would run off. It took five minutes to convince her I wouldn’t before she left to get my dress. She came back several minutes later with two girls and my ball gown.

I had my dress made in blue, my favorite color. It looked good, and after putting it on, it finally felt like something was going well since I got the contract.

It had been dark when I arrived home the previous evening, and I hadn’t seen the beauty of my pack then. But that morning, standing by the window of the guest room, I couldn’t help a small smile. At least the planning had gone well. Every instruction I had given Stella had been carried out, and the pack looked exactly as I had imagined when I drafted the plan.

I took a deep breath to control my emotions. Even if I didn’t have Stella or Calvin anymore, at least I had my pack. It had been Papa’s gift to me, and regardless of anything else, I would always have them.

“Let’s go,” I told Amy, who was now wearing a light pink dress that made her look her age for a change.

As we walked into the garden I had remodeled to welcome the guests, I overheard some of our pack members talking.

“Stella went all out in the planning of this ball.”

“I know, right? I didn’t think the garden could be used this way. It’s so beautiful.”

“It is. And thank Moon Goddess we have Stella, too. Without her, it would be impossible for our pack to host a festival this huge.”

I frowned. The grand plan for the entire event, including the garden’s design for the festival, were things I had created. Yet it seemed Stella had carried everything out in her name.

On a normal day, I wouldn’t have noticed. Because she was like my sister, I wouldn’t have cared if I had noticed. But after finding her in bed with my husband, I couldn’t help but feel like it was deliberate on her part.

“If it isn’t the ever-absent Luna of Howell Pack,” said a luna from one of the invited packs as she stepped out from the crowd. “I didn’t think we’d see you today since Miss Stella attends to us every time we come.”

I kept my smile in check despite my raging emotions. “Well, that’s as good as meeting me, since Stella works for me.”

“Esme, you can’t make it sound like I’m your subordinate,” Stella’s voice rang out from behind me. “Working for you and doing work you should do are two different things.”

Several people chuckled, and I turned to her, clenching my fists to contain my fury.

“Now, I don’t mind doing so much of your work for you since we’re best friends. And Alpha Calvin really needed a helping hand. But you shouldn’t just waltz in on the show day and claim all the glory for yourself.”

“What are you talking about? I designed everything here!”

Stella scoffed, her gaze filled with ridicule.

“Esme,” Calvin said as he approached, “Stella would do anything for you, but you can’t take the credit for how hard she worked on this. It’s not right.”

I turned to him, my eyes narrowing. I couldn’t believe they were working together to sabotage me. Did they forget they were on their last chance?

Giggles rang out in the crowd, along with whispers from nearby visiting pack members and their lunas.

The heat of anger crept up my neck. I’ll set these two straight. I stood face-to-face with Calvin. “What in Moon Goddess’s name do you two think you’re do—”

The pack’s bell tolled, the sound reverberating through the air. As soon as it quieted enough to hear, a herald called out, “The Vicious Canine Pack has arrived!”

“Alpha Silvan is here?” Someone whispered, and the crowd that had gathered around us rushed away toward Silvan and his procession.

I wanted to scream in frustration. Not that I wanted the other packs and their lunas listening to Stella and Calvin’s lies, but three years before, my pack was the strongest. Then Silvan and his pack came along. Not only did they seem to have endless resources, but their alpha had won my late father in a bet and automatically became the strongest in our region.

Now, everything revolved around him and his pack. Even us holding the New Moon Festival was only because Alpha Silvan had decided my pack would host it instead of it being held in the forest. The project win the day before had been my first chance of gaining any ground against him, and I couldn’t even get to be happy about it.

With everyone drawing back, the path cleared enough for me to see the devil-wolf himself, standing with his men and looking at me with that all-knowing smirk of his. Then he sauntered to me and asked, “Is there a reason we aren’t starting yet?”

Calvin rushed forward. “We were waiting for your arrival,” he said.

Silvan sent Calvin a sideways glance before walking to the seats we had reserved for him and his entourage. The crowd’s attention followed him, and my chance to prove I had been the one to draw up the plans for the festival escaped. However, with Silvan’s arrival, no one was thinking about that anymore.

“He’s even more handsome than the rumors say,” a girl behind me cooed.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, a flawless face to make his cruel heart look alluring.

Joel, the man I had selected as the host for the day, climbed onto the small stage under the lights of the projector I’d had set up. It displayed the stage so that even people at the far end of the garden wouldn’t miss a thing.

Joel cleared his throat and got everyone’s attention. After a quick greeting, he said, “As we all know, the humans recently released a new project to improve the technology that supplies electricity to them. Today, we’d like to announce that, after an endless amount of work, our luna, Luna Esme, was able to secure this project!”

The crowd broke into cheers. I took a deep breath before standing to give my brief speech and an appropriate opening to the ceremony as planned. All eyes followed me as I approached the stage. But then, when I was halfway there, Calvin shot up from his seat and rushed to the stage before me. His eyes met mine, holding a sinister look as he took Joel’s position.

A bad feeling crept up my neck.

Calvin shifted his eyes to the crowd. “We can’t accept a project that was obtained through underhanded methods.”