Chapter 203

Violet’s POV

I swallowed my smile at Theo’s promise, hardly able to temper my excitement that we were so close to being reunited.

As the crowd began to dissipate, now that Theo had broken up the argument, I took a better look at the other people I noticed who had gathered to back up Ben. One of them was from the settlement based on his clothing, another was from the base according to the armor concealed under his dress shirt, and the other two I didn’t recognize at all. We all made eye contact with each other, offering subtle nods.

A kind of kinship as we acknowledged whose side we were on.

I’m impressed by your “systems in place” to protect the ex-rogues, I shared through my connection with Theo.

Let’s see if I can impress you in our bedroom tonight, too, he teased.

I smoothed out my dress to give my hands something to do other than go rip Theo’s clothes off. I’ll be impressed if we can pull all this off and get me back into the same bed as you.

I could practically hear his smile as he said, Then prepare to be impressed three times today.

Before Alpha Brash followed Theo, Ben, and Tyron or disappeared into the crowd, someone I didn’t know approached him. I lingered, trying to be discreet as I observed the interaction.

“Alpha Brash,” the stranger said, “as second to the Beta Dahlia of Midnight, I have been instructed to formally request that no executions take place by your hand for the remainder of today’s event.”

Alpha Brash scoffed. “Beta Dahlia couldn’t deign to come tell me herself? She had to send her errand boy?”

By the Goddess, this man deserved a trophy for disrespect.

I couldn’t help myself anymore. I stepped up to the two of them.

“Apologies for interrupting, Alpha Brash, but I thought it might be a helpful reminder that we are currently attending Beta Dahlia’s wedding. I assume that her second is filling in for her since she’s technically off-duty today, as is the case with my Beta’s second while Kincaid prepares to marry Beta Dahlia.”

Alpha Brash turned his condescending glare to me. “Ah, yes. I had quite forgotten it was your Beta who was marrying Nightshade’s Beta.”

Dahlia’s second offered me a subtle nod of gratitude as Alpha Brash smirked at me. “Can’t quite seem to get rid of all these men who reject you, can you?”

“All these men?” Lily repeated, surprising me with her sudden presence. “It’s still just the two, isn’t it?”

I turned to her with a relieved smile, which she returned full force before cocking her head derisively toward Alpha Brash. “It’s just so hard when you’re the strong Alpha of the wealthiest territory in the country to find a man who can keep up.” Then she linked her arm with mine and led me anywhere else before that asshole of an Alpha had a chance to respond.

I looked back only long enough to confirm that Dahlia’s second managed to scurry away without further entanglement.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lily said as she ordered two waters from the bar. With no publicly known mate and my backup date as the groom, it was entirely appropriate at this event for me to bring my Gamma. “Just a few last-minute fires to put out back in Darkmoon.”

“Anything I need to know about?” I asked as we were handed our waters. With the rumors already swirling about my pregnancy there was no point in hiding the fact that I wasn’t drinking.

Besides, everyone would find out the rumors were true soon enough.

“No, no,” she replied. “Today, you have much bigger fish to fry.”

My best friend looked me over as she took a sip of water, a smile growing on her face. “So…” she lowered her voice so only I could hear, “did he stare?” She glanced pointedly at my cleavage.

“Like a deer in headlights,” I whispered back, and she squealed in delight.

Then she looked me over again, her face sobering as she kept her voice low. “Did I miss any… symptoms?”

And this was the real reason she was my date when Kincaid couldn’t be: the hallucination protocol. As long as Theo couldn’t be with me, someone who knew about my hallucinations, meaning Kincaid or Lily, had to be with me at all times, especially in public, in case I started to hallucinate.

I shook my head, looking off into the crowd. I hated feeling weak and helpless.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, Lily clinked her water glass with mine. “To new beginnings,” she toasted, and it was admittedly a bit of thrill to know no one around us knew what she was referring to.

Horns sounded then from the direction of the gate to Mel Rimanea. The crowd parted to reveal Owen, standing on a red rug that hadn’t been there earlier. Meaning he had brought his own arrival rug.

Pathetic.

“Part of me was kind of hoping he wouldn’t show,” I muttered under my breath. I knew Lily heard. Knew we needed Owen here for everything to go as planned.

But she knew what I meant. He was just a pain in the ass – and that was being diplomatic.

The crowd quieted down at the sound of the horns that drowned out all conversation anyway. Everyone waited for the horn song to end, which was an unnecessarily long time. When the song was over, Owen stood there like he was waiting for something.

After an uncomfortably long moment of silence, he finally bellowed, “If the host of this wedding too good to come welcome the king to his event?”

I held back my eye roll, though Lily and I exchanged an annoyed look. Owen’s dramatics were tiresome and overdone.

But we still had to uphold appearances for another few hours, so Theo made his way through the crowd until he was standing in front of Owen. “Brother! You’ve made it just in time for the ceremony.”

I smiled at Theo’s slights: calling him “brother” instead of “king” and pointing out how late he was, albeit with a positive twist.

Easy, doher. We’ve held it together this long. We can make it a few hours more.

Theo didn’t respond as he watched Owen’s reaction. “I would have arrived sooner,” Owen replied, “but as king, I of course have much more pressing matters to attend to than a little wedding in a ramshackle town that’s not even on the royal map.”

The entire party tensed at that. Owen’s tardiness meant he had missed the nobles offering rides to ex-rogues, he had missed the reunion between friends and family, and he had missed the tours of Mel Rimanea that had changed everyone’s mind about what exactly the Shelter Project was. Shit talking it now was going to do him a lot less good than he realized.

But Theo and I would surely benefit from his ignorance.

“Despite my several requests to the royal cartographer to have it added,” Theo retorted, a polite smile contrasting his aggressive tone.

Don’t get sucked into his petty spats, I reminded him. He was running out of patience – we both were. But we needed just a little bit more.

Owen opened his mouth to argue further, but Theo pretended not to notice as he spun to face everyone else.

“If you would all be so kind as to gather in the provided seating around the platform in the middle of the square, the ceremony will begin momentarily.” Then he trotted off, ending the conversation before Owen took any more attention away from Dahlia and Kincaid’s day.