Maddox must have heard it, too, because he tilts his head to the side slightly. He is obviously pretending not to have noticed us yet.
“That’s why he was...“ Daniel lets out a deep breath. “When I talked to him yesterday to console him about his father, he was surprisingly at peace. Now it makes sense.”
“I doubt it’s because of me,” Charlie mutters.
“It’sdefinitelybecause of you,” Felix says.
I nod. “I believe so, too.”
Charlie shifts around, her cheeks flushed. “We have been standing around here way too long. We should say hello to the others.”
I bet she doesn’t care so much about the others, but about seeing Maddox.
Daniel smiles. “It’s just been getting interesting,” he explains. “The elder from the Council, a man named Bernard, arrived earlier today, and they have been discussing the fate of the pack.”
“Mateo is really innocent?” I ask while we finally continue our walk to the small group around Maddox. They have noticed we are approaching and turn towards us.
“It seems like it,” Daniel says. “It’s hard to say for sure, but he definitely appeared completely in shock when he heard what his alpha did. He also had no idea what had happened to Marina, unlike our former gamma.”
“They really will need to restructure the whole pack,” I mutter.
A group of younger pack members passes us, and I barely pay them notice until one of them suddenly halts. “Gwen?”
I would be able to tell that voice apart from any other, mainly because it makes my hair stand up. “Brandon,” I mutter. “What an unpleasant surprise.”
“Oh, that’s Brandon?” Felix asks, putting an arm around me and pulling me close.
Brandon stares at him, before his gaze wanders to his hand around my shoulder. “You are the royal lycan who visited the pack.”
Daniel gestures towards Liam. “He is Alpha Liam’s brother.”
“And a friend of Maddox,” Charlie adds.
I smile sweetly before pulling down my sweater slightly to reveal my neck. “He is someone who deemed me worthy enough to be a wolf’s mate.”
He has such a punchable face,Felix mutters.Let me punch him.
I would love to see him get hit, but I think hearing that Maddox prefers you over him, and that youmarkedme, is pretty much a knockout already.
Felix pulls me into his arms and kisses me, before he turns us around to meet Maddox, Liam and Dante. Charlie doesn’t waste any more time and is instantly next to Maddox. Fortunately, he doesn’t disappoint and takes her hand.
“I am so happy to see you,” he says to her.
“I wish I could have been here yesterday,” she says. “Actually, I still think I should have.”
“No way,” Dante and Maddox say in unison.
Liam just looks amused. “Well, you already found one thing in common,” he teases. “But really, Charlie, we had Maddox’s back, as promised.”
“Everything went surprisingly smoothly,” Maddox agrees. “You should have seen my father’s face when he realized I was his downfall. Right, Daniel?”
Daniel nods. “He was stunned.”
“He always thought of me as useless,” Maddox muses. “So, it was kinda funny.”
Judging by Liam’s and Daniel’s expressions, nothing about yesterday’s altercation was funny, but I guess it’s Maddox’s own coping mechanism. Somehow, I can sympathize. I used to do the same – pretend that Brandon wasn’t as bad as he was, that my relationship with him wasn’t that bad, that the pack wasn’t that bad, that I wasn’t that unhappy – all to protect myself.
I just hope Maddox can find a way out of this loop, too.
