Page 49 of Knocked Up By My Fated Alpha
I bristled, my wolf incensed and far from satisfied with their lacklustre apology, but Raven was already responding to them.
“Thank you.” Her smile stayed polite until her soft emerald green gaze found mine, and her lips tipped into a wider, more genuine smile,the sides of her eyes crinkling with poorly hidden amusement at the Everfrosts’ expense, and my breath caught.
By the Goddess, she was stunning. What wouldn’t I give to have her look at me like that every day? To share inside jokes and feel her breath against my skin when she laughed. To hold her forever—
“You can let go now. They’re no longer watching,” Raven whispered, her words jarring me out of my thoughts as she nodded in the direction of the alpha couple who were now conversing with other guests. “You should get to your meetings. I’ll be at the buffet.”
I let go of Raven, a bitter taste on my tongue. Of course. This was just an arrangement. An act. Raven would never really be mine. Not that I wanted her to be. It was my wolf who was obsessed with her, not me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said gruffly, unable to look at her as I turned away.
“All this wartalk is bad for business,” Alpha Seth commented, his disposition dark.
His pack was to the north of mine, and any human war would potentially spill over to his territory. I nodded grimly. As I’d expected, most of the alphas were ill at ease with the possibility of war on the horizon.
But with the murderer unknown and my sources in the Sky Pack unable to come up with any proof that Alpha Matt was behind the murders, it was an eventuality we had to prepare for nonetheless.
“You know you have my support, if you ever need it,” Alpha Seth clapped his hand over my shoulder. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
Hopefully. With that said, Alpha Seth shuffled along, and Sinclair stepped up to my side.
“You called, Alpha?”
“Our alliance with the Silverstone Pack will be suspended henceforth, and all our business deals together cancelled. Make the necessary arrangements for that.”
Sinclair paused, a baffled expression on his face.
“But with the projects underway that could potentially bankrupt them—”
I met Sinclair’s gaze.
“They’ll manage. Get it done.”
I wasn’t doing this because I’d seen the pain their betrayal had caused Raven in her starry gaze. It was just the principle of it. Once a traitor, always a traitor. The mettle of an alliance was tested in hard times. If they’d betrayed Raven so easily once she was down, how could I ever trust their loyalty?
Unbidden, my gaze unerringly found Raven across the hall, as though despite my efforts to keep her out of my head, I couldn’t help but know where she was at all times.
She was smiling at something a lady was telling her when she suddenly went still, her gaze rising to meet Elias, who’d just moved in front of her, his hand outstretched, an intimate, confident smile on his lips.
An uncontrollable dark rage rose within me, and my world narrowed until I could pick out Elias and Raven’s voices in the crowd as though they were next to me.
“Shouldn’t you be dancing with Ivy?”
“I only want you,” Elias took another step towards Raven, his tone ardent, uncaring of the fact that his fiancée, Ivy, stood several feet away, a bitter, vindictive look on her face as she watched them. “I know you, Raven. You were crazy about me. There’s no way you got over me so easily.”
I couldn’t read the look on Raven’s face.
“I’m engaged to your uncle.”
Elias took her hand in his, his gaze burning with earnestness.
“You were engaged to me first.”
At that moment, it didn’t matter that Sinclair was next to me, trying to get my attention, and that Elias was my only family left. All I could see was his hand on hers. I lost myself in an incandescent blaze of fury, stalking towards them only to feel a grip on my forearm forcing me to a stop.
“It’s been a while, Blackwell.”
I looked at the hand on my arm to the face of the only person who was audacious enough to attempt to reach me when I was in a rage, the alpha of the Sky Pack, my former brother-in-law.
