My chest ached with the memory.
What would our lives have been like if she hadn't agreed to become the Alpha? Or if she hadn't withdrawn from the loan at the last minute?
There was no point in dwelling on it, but of course I had wondered.
I'd done what I had to do for the sake of my cafe, but it had changed my life drastically. There was no way around that.
Before, I'd been surrounded by a pack I loved and people I loved, planning to run The Werewolf Cafe with my sister, who I was incredibly close with. Most of our friends, who made up our pack, were in college at the time. They all had plans to help with the café, either by working part time, helping with marketing, or just coming to visit so the place wasn’t empty.
I lost all of those plans when Gwen left.
I lost all of those friends, too.
Even our family had sided with her. Other than a few holiday texts and strained phone calls, I no longer had any relationship with them.
Gwen made her choice, they made theirs, and I made mine.
I definitely hadn’t expected my choice about the café to end with me being forced to mate with a fae king, though.
My gaze skimmed the trees, looking in the direction I knew the Villa was located. Itwas only a few miles from the pit. I could see the building peeking over some fruit trees, and couldn't stop myself from remembering what it had been like the last time I was there.
Callum and I didn't speak during the walk, or as we approached the pit. The space around it was so packed with men who had come to compete that I couldn't see anything but gigantic, soaking wet male werewolves.
The rain was only a drizzle, but it seemed safe to assume they had all been there for hours, being told the rules and assigned their places.
The dirt around the bowl-shaped dip where the fighting occurred sloped downward, making it easier for large groups to watch. Not that the slope was effective if you were a female immortal, given the sizes of most of the males.
Challenges between werewolves tended to be both quick, and dirty. They weren't like the carefully run fights Jonah participated in professionally. They were short, bloody attempts to take out the other person, purely and simply.
Long ago, werewolves had challenged each other for many reasons, but now, it was typically only done when someone wanted to force their way into a beta position in a pack, which was rarely a good idea.
As I'd told Callum, an unhappy alpha female could just leave.
Betas had more purpose when you were in a seat of power, like my sister was, or if you lived outside of Rumor. Humans knew about immortals, and did their very best to kill us out there, which made having a strong beta pretty much necessary for any alpha female outside.
Because of the wards, we’d become much more domesticated. Living in Rumor was a privilege, honestly. Hence the Cabinet's many rules.
There were twenty-two seats in it, and most of the larger types of immortals had one. The fae, wolves, demons, spellcasters, and monsters were the only groups who had more than one. Other than the fae, each of those possessed two seats, which meant two votes.
The fae had four.
They were too powerful for anyone to try to stop them, and their magic kept the wards alive, so they were untouchable.
That didn't mean everyone liked them, of course. It was safe to say that most people didn’t.
I didn't know the specifics about politics or drama, because everything online was biased in some way, but I assumed therewerepolitics and drama.
Callum's magic chilled the air as we approached the edge of the group around the pit. People turned to look at us, and quiet, urgent voices carried through the crowd as it parted quickly. One large werewolf dude stumbled into another, and nearly took him down.
I was used to people’s attention since my café had become so big, so I stayed calm and quiet despite their alarm as Callum tucked me in front of him and propelled me through the gap the crowd had made. It widened, as we walked through it.
No one wanted to piss off the ice king.
No one even wanted him to notice them.
They couldn’t have missed the hand he had on my hip, though, or the way we smelled like sex.
As we approached the paved path leading around the edge of the pit, I saw twenty folding chairs placed in two rows along the curved edge straight across from where we stood, with a large awning stretching across the entire group to keep them dry from the rain. The four chairs on the far end of the front row were clearly reserved for the fae royals, with Liv occupying one. The other three were empty. Every other seat was already filled.
