All Chapters of The Alpha’s Unwanted Mate: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

Cassandra's POV"She is already here," Mira said, appearing in my doorway while I was still pulling my hair back for the meeting, which was a piece of information I had not asked for but which settled unpleasantly in my chest nonetheless. "She arrived an hour ago. She is in the north receiving room and she brought two people with her.""Two," I said. "Sebastian said she was coming alone.""She said she was coming alone," Mira said carefully. "She brought two wolves who she is describing as administrative staff."I looked at Mira in the mirror. "Administrative staff," I repeated."Her words," Mira said.I finished with my hair and turned around and looked at myself for one moment in the full mirror, which I did not do often because it was not something I found particularly useful, but which felt necessary this morning in the way that looking at yourself before a significant thing feels necessary. I was wearing the deep green that Soren, the senior female who had handled the clothing wh

Sebastian's POV"You are going to stand there and let her walk in first?" Kaden, the Alpha of the river pack, said from beside me in the corridor outside the summit hall, with the expression of a man who was asking a genuine question and framing it as barely-concealed challenge, which was his particular style and always had been."Yes," I said."Why?" he said."Because she is the reason half the people in this room came," I said. "And she knows it. And pretending otherwise by having her follow me in would be an insult to her intelligence and a miscommunication to everyone watching."Kaden looked at me with the assessment that had been part of every interaction I had ever had with him, the specific measuring quality of an Alpha who trusted nothing he had not verified. "She handled Isolde," he said. "Word got around.""How did you hear about that?" I said."Isolde told the Graywater Alpha last night at dinner that she had met your Luna and found her interesting," Kaden said. "Coming fro

Cassandra's POV"This is not a day," I said, looking at the picnic that had been laid out on the ridge where we had stood together the first time I had seen the full territory below, with the morning light coming through the clouds and the wind moving through the long grass. "A blanket and food does not constitute a structured day off.""It constitutes the beginning of one," Sebastian said from behind me, where he was setting something down that Mira had apparently packed without telling me, which meant Mira had been in on this, which meant I was the only person in the house who had not known what today looked like. "Sit down.""I am looking at the view," I said."You have seen the view," he said. "Sit down."I turned and sat down on the blanket because the alternative was continuing to stand and pretend I was not extraordinarily pleased by this, which would have been unconvincing anyway since the mate bond was carrying it clearly. Sebastian sat beside me and opened the basket Mira ha

Cassandra's POV"I am going to open them now," I said to my reflection in the bathroom mirror at seven in the morning, two days after the ridge, because the day had ended and then another day had ended and the messages had stayed unread and I had run out of good reasons to keep them that way.My mother had said wait until you are ready. Cael had said information withheld is rarely better withheld. Sebastian had said he would sit with me. I had not yet told Sebastian this was the morning, which meant I either went and found him now or I opened them alone, and I stood in the bathroom and looked at my own face and decided that alone was not the right answer today.I found him in the kitchen, which was where he was most mornings before the day made demands of him, and he looked up when I came in and read my face immediately."Today," he said. Not a question."Today," I said.He stood up from the table without hesitation and filled a second mug with tea and set it across from his own and s

Cassandra's POV"You are smiling," my mother said, appearing in the doorway of the library where I had been reading for the past hour with a cup of tea and the specific quiet satisfaction of someone whose morning had gone better than expected."I smile," I said."Not like that," she said. She came in and sat across from me and looked at me with her eyes that were shaped like mine and an expression that was both maternal and deeply amused. "What happened?""Nothing specific," I said."Cassandra," she said.I put the book down. "Sebastian and I are doing well," I said. "Specifically and consistently well. That is what you are reading."She looked at me for a moment. "You love him," she said."I have told him so," I said. "Plainly.""And?" she said."He said he loves me and intends to spend considerable time showing rather than telling," I said. "He has been following through on that with some thoroughness." I picked the book back up. "That is all you are getting."She made the sound tha