Chapter 9 AURORA
Amy screamed.
I set the cup back on the tray. All of the wolves who’d been laughing the moment before now stared at me in shock.
I leaned into Amy and kept my voice low.
“You may have heard things about me in the past. Those things are no longer true. You will not disrespect me again, especially not when Evelyn Barclay puts you up to it.”
Evelyn had been there, up on the balcony, watching.
“Bitch!” Amy screamed. Her eyes flashed yellow. Her teeth grew into fangs and her fingers into claws.
“What happened?” Evelyn hurried down the stairs toward us. She looked at me in shock, too. She was a good actress. I was almost convinced she was scandalized. “You’re making a scene, Ann. You ought to be ashamed.”
She cut a glance at Amy, who retracted her fangs and claws. Instead, she put her face in her hands and pretended to cry, loudly.
“I am making a scene, Evelyn,” I said sweetly, but my smile showed teeth. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Evelyn spluttered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I looked out at the crowd. So many of the wolves were watching us. Up on the balcony, we had the attention of the Alphas and Lunas of half a dozen packs.
I shivered with old fear, but I refused to let it control me.
Before, the only power I had was what I got from being married to Dane, and that was nothing. He hated me, so he let people treat me badly.
I knew now that power went to the people who took it. I was taking mine.
Evelyn had been Dane’s mistress for all of our marriage. She’d embarrassed me in public so many times when I was Dane’s wife. I hated her. But pouring wine over someone at a gala was already extreme.
I wanted people to know not to cross me. I didn’t want them to think I was out of control.
“I know you put Amy up to this,” I said. My smile never faltered, even though I was shaking inside. “I used to put up with your little pranks. Not anymore. Next time something red spills, it will be your blood.”
Evelyn gaped, true shock in her eyes now.
I’d never stood up to her before.
“What the hell is happening here?” Dane’s voice cut across the whispering crowd and Amy’s pretend sobbing.
Evelyn whirled so fast her skirt flared out around her. “Dane! Thank the goddess you’re here. Do something about Ann. She’s out of control!”
“That’s right!” someone piped up from the crowd of hangers-on and lackeys clustered at the bottom of the stairs. “Amy tripped on accident and Ann Reed dumped wine on her!”
“It’s all right,” Evelyn’s voice was gentle. She put an arm around Amy but gave me a fake sugary smile. “I think Ann is just nervous. She hasn’t been around a crowd of people this important in a long time.”
I let out a humorless laugh. If only Evelyn Barclay knew the places I’d been, the wolves I’d met—people who could grind her under their heel in a moment and never be sorry or think of her again.
“I have an extra dress, Amy,” Evelyn said loudly, so everyone could hear how “kind” she was being. “You can change into that. We won’t let this ruin the gala.”
“Oh, come on, Evelyn, darling,” said a new male voice, low and mocking. “We all know you were the one behind it. Don’t pretend to be nice when we all know you’re a two-faced hag.”
People audibly gasped, and everyone turned to look at the new arrival. He was a tall, lean man with artfully messy light brown hair, laughing blue eyes, and a wicked smile.
Like Dane, there was a magnetism about him. But Dane’s magnetism came from his confidence, his dark looks. This man—Holden Coleridge, Alpha of the Fall Line Pack—drew people in because of his charm.
When Holden Coleridge looked at you, it was easy to believe you were the only person who mattered in the entire world.
Dane hated him. Of all the Alphas in the Southeast, Holden was the closest to him in age, in wealth, in power.
But where Dane’s grandfather had to sweat and bleed for everything the Montagues had, the Coleridges simply floated by. They were old money—old, old, in the way only a handful of families in the world could claim.
There had been hard times in the last few generations, though. And while the Coleridges had seen their wealth decline, the Montagues were still on the rise, thanks to Dane.
“Alpha Coleridge,” Dane grated out. He’d turned to face the other man with a look on his face like he was about to take on an army alone. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“A change of plans,” Holden grinned. Then his charming smile disappeared, and the steel-strong power of the Alpha beneath rippled through the air. “Now, Amy, do you want to apologize to Ms. DeVere for what you did? Or would you like me to speak to your Alpha?”
“I’m s-s-sorry!” Amy squealed. She tore out from under Evelyn’s arm and ran away.
“I knew it.” Holden grinned and winked at me. “Besides, my Aurora would never lie. Would you, dear?”
My voice dry, I said, “Never.”
“Your Aurora?” Dane growled. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Holden laughed, a light, sparkling sound. Then he took my hand and pulled me close. “She didn’t tell you? What a modest woman. She’s my fiancé, of course. Soon to be the Luna of the Fall Line Pack.”