Page 139 of UNAwere

I stare at the plate put in front of me – crème brûlée. Picking up my spoon, I crack the caramel on the top, grinning. When I glance up, Jude’s gazing at me, his mouth smoothed into a serene smile. I gaze back, biting down on my bottom lip, giddy.

‘Okay, that’s enough gawking for now,’ Hannah murmurs, bringing my attention back to her. She shakes her head. ‘Did you even hear what I said?’

‘Oh! Um… the coast?’

She nods. ‘It’s great out there. There’s a cabin where you can stay, near the beach. In summer, the water’s still freezing, but it’s so isolated, you feel like the only person on the planet.’

‘That does sound good,’ I murmur. The sound in the room has been getting to me, and I’ve been trying my best to keep trained on her voice, to help drown out the ambience.

‘You all good?’ she asks, seeing the look on my face.

‘Yeah.’ I sigh. ‘Just get sick of loud rooms pretty quickly. The crème brûlée is delicious, though, so I can’t complain.’

‘Do you wanna go outside when you’re done? Get some air?’

I nod. ‘Maybe.’

Someone stands at the head of the table, hitting a fork against a glass. We all turn to Warner, as he waits for the room to fall into silence before he speaks.

‘Tonight, we’re celebrating the unification of our two packs.’ He gestures towards Nolan and me. ‘Luminaire. And Primrose.’ A smile stretches across his face, and I’m surprised by how calm and collected he appears. The perfect picture of an alpha. ‘May we be stronger together.’ His eyes land on me. ‘Bonded together.’

Everyone raises their glass to toast, and I quickly go to pick up mine, but knock it over. Water gushes out across the surface of the table, dribbling into the flower arrangements placed in the centre. Everyone stares as my glass loudly clatters across the wooden surface. I quickly pick it up and place it back down, but it only falls over again in my haste.

Hannah reaches over and stands it up.

‘Um, sorry.’ I get out of my chair, leaning over Hannah to get her napkin so I can begin cleaning up the water. ‘Sorry. I…’

Everyone still stares at me. The room has fallen into silence.

I keep my eyes on the table, cheeks flaming. And then another napkin falls on the table in front of me, a large, scarred hand wiping up the puddle of water. I look up, seeing Jude’s leaning over it, helping me clean.

‘I’ve got it,’ Jude says softly. ‘You’re okay.’

Hannah helps me sit back down, and I dip my chin, heart racing. But then the room seems to break again, because soon my ears are flooded with the sound of chatter.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s get you out of here.’

We get up, and she snags two beers off the table on our way out. She leads me to a back door, out onto a patio filled with chairs surrounding a fire pit. I follow her out to them, and we sit down before she hands me one of the beers.

‘Warner said—’

‘Fuck what Warner said. Do you want a beer? I think you need one, after that.’

I snort and take it off her. ‘I need a cigarette. Actually…’ I palm the pockets of my dress and grin when I feel the pack of cigarettes I left in there.

Hannah laughs when I pull it out. ‘You didn’t.’

‘I got Jude to buy these for me when I was fed up,’ I say.

I pull one out, and Hannah finds me a lighter that’s sitting on the fire pit. I light one and hand it to her. She shrugs and takes it, and so I light another, and we smoke together.

‘Bureaucracy,’ she says, exhaling a plume of smoke. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of it.’

I smile, taking a sip of beer. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you don’t like your alpha?’

She throws back her head and laughs, loudly. ‘How did you know?’

‘A few signs, sprinkled here and there,’ I murmur dryly. ‘Jude talked about Warner as if he wanted to respect him. But it was pretty clear that he couldn’t. I didn’t really understand why until now.’