I glanced at Blake. Did Scarlett upstage me before I even got started?

Blake must have read my panic in my gaze, because he cleared his throat. "One more thing, Scarlett."

"As many things as you want," Scarlett gushed. An even prettier smile flitted across her lips. "You know how much I enjoy our little chats."

My tummy twisted into knots. The way Scarlett said things was suggestive and innocuous at the same time. If this woman could rake me over the coals, then plunge me into icy water with a fake smile, what would happen when she used her claws?

"I feel it's fair to tell you before the public announcement," Blake said.

"Oh?" Her lips puckered far more than was needed to produce this simple sound.

Blake wasn't immune to her charms—I could physically sense his shoulders stiffening. But he didn't forget how to speak, or whatever else Scarlett had hoped he would do in response to her seductive airs.

"Despite our courtship, I have prayed to the Moon Goddess to reveal my fated mate," he said.

I relaxed a little. A guy like Blake was bound to have an ex. As long as Scarlett could take a hint and accept that she was an ex...could she?

"Because that's how these things should be done," Blake added after a slight pause.

Scarlett's red mouth parted, then closed. It was such a pleasure to see her stumped for an answer! Alas, it didn't last long.

"That's so unexpected, Blake!" she exclaimed, then puckered her lips again. "But also so incredibly, wonderfully, insanely romantic!"

"Romantic? Possibly." Harold scoffed. "But unexpected?"

I was so involved with watching Scarlett and Blake, I forgot all about Harold.

All of us did, judging from how Blake and Scarlett also whipped their heads to look at the Beta. He inflated with their attention, but held on to the expression of arrogant disdain.

"My dear cousin, that's our Alpha through and through. If Blake Villar was to find a mate, it had to be in the most traditional, honorable, impossible to fault way known to the werewolves." Harold explained, while his sneer broadened into a huge toothy grin. "Honestly, anything but a fated mate wouldn't do for him."

Scarlett's gaze searched Blake's face, which was far less transparent than Harold's. Then she nodded slightly. "You're right, Harold."

Imaginary ants crawled all over my skin. Could Blake just tell this woman he was done with her, and I was his fated mate?

"As exciting as this is for me personally," Blake said, "the pack's business won't stop because I'm waiting for the Goddess' will to become apparent."

So, no, Blake wouldn't come out and tell her straight up. Because, his Beta was right. Blake wanted things just so, and honorable behavior didn't include making scenes in public.

"Blake, I'm so thrilled for you!" Scarlett pressed her hands together in front of her chest to show just how thrilled she was.

Right.

"Thank you." Blake charged across the lobby toward the heart of the hotel. "Harold, I believe we have that security briefing at ten."

Blake didn't say anything to me, but I had no choice but to keep up with him. For starters, I had no idea where to go. And I didn't want to leave his side even if he sent me away.

Strangely, Scarlett didn't pursue Blake. She just stood, tapping her lips delicately with one manicured finger.

Her cousin did take off, but, weirdly, Harold didn't follow Blake. The Beta wanted to talk to me. That was the first, for sure, an attractive man hovering behind my shoulder, hoping to chat.

"I wanted to tell you that there are no hard feelings about the position, Omega," he said. "I never wanted extra workload, and you would make a marvelous lifestyle manager."

It was great to hear, even if he didn't mean it. If he did, it would be awfully nice. If he didn't...I could do nothing about it. "Thank you, I appreciate your vote of confidence."

"As a token of my good will, here is one more thing you need to be aware of." Harold squeezed my elbow lightly to slow me down. He seemed to want us to fall a few steps behind Blake, which wasn't hard. The Alpha's strides were extra-wide, and the marble lobby was enormous.

Curious, I let Blake further outpace Harold and me. Despite the difficulties cropping up faster than mushrooms, life among the werewolves was exciting. "What is it, Mr. Beaumont?"

"Harold Almarr. Scarlett and I come from two different branches of the family. Distant, actually," he corrected me.

"I...I'm sorry for assuming."

He gave his head an impatient shake. "Distant cousins or not, I know Scarlett well. She always gets what she truly wants. She always did, she always will. And the honorable Alpha is a fool who doesn't understand what he's just done. Do you?"

We were already slowing down, and now I froze in my tracks. "Blake...ah...I thought that Alpha Blake implied they're through. Can't Scarlett get a hint?"

Harold's face was a study in contempt. "You're as naïve as Blake is honorable." He made honor sound like vice, not virtue.

Deep down, I realized that I shouldn't be talking to the Beta. But his words oozed bitter truth, at least Harold's version of truth. I couldn't help it; I wanted to know.

"What are you trying to say, Beta? Blake didn't? Or she can't?"

"Oh, he thinks he did. And she can."

Then everything went well? I didn't ask, because I didn't want Harold to blast me with disdain again. Him, or anyone else, for that matter. I was starting a new life with the pack, and I wanted it to be completely different from my life among humans.

Besides, Harold would tell me anyway if I waited long enough. Guys like that, the betas, couldn't resist showing off their wits before their lessers to harvest their admiration.

Indeed, Harold crooked his finger at me, in a universal, 'come closer, and I'll tell you a secret,' gesture.

I leaned in.

"By being so damnably forthright, Blake had yanked Scarlett's favorite toy from under her nose. Now, she wants him more than anything else."

"Wanting was more important than having for some people, right?"

"Criticizing Luna already? Aren't you an ambitious little mutt..." The Beta's sneer became very, very unpleasant. He knew he was worsening my misery, and he was enjoying it thoroughly. "Beware of the red apples, Omega. They are all poisoned."

"Harold!" Blake stopped a few paces ahead of us and turned. His brows furrowed. "Don't keep Celeste. She has a full day ahead of her before the welcoming banquet. And we have a meeting."

"Sorry to inconvenience you, Alpha." Harold tipped an imaginary top hat at Blake, then brought my hand to his lips. He paused for a quick moment, but long enough for both of us to see that it was trembling.

He mouthed 'beware, Omega,' one more time and kissed my knuckles.

Blake's jowls turned white.

Shaken by how heavily Harold's threat weighed on my heart and Blake's spiking anger, I yanked my hand away and dashed toward Alpha's solid figure. Scarlett had called me a stray to humiliate me, and I acted like one. A stray, plucked from a back alley, where she fed on garbage and froze to death in the winter, and brought by a prince to the royal apartments. Freaked out by everything around her.

Tears stung my eyes.

The damn Luna got into my head! I was losing my ground only a few steps into the werewolf world, and she was probably watching us from a distance and wetting herself from glee.

"Blake, Blake..." I gasped for breath when I finally caught up with him. "Why did the fated mates spell bring us together? Shouldn't I be matched with someone nobody cares about?"

"Did you want a fling with a forgettable guy?" he asked.

Wow! I searched his face, and my tears dried up as if by magic. It was such a perfect question from a potential lover, it should be on the matchmaking sites. I had an answer hidden in my heart all along.

"No. I want to love truly, madly, like a girl could only love once."

"Well, there you have it." Blake opened his arms wide to the sides, silently saying with his gesture that here he was. An unforgettable man, who wanted incredible things from love just like I did. "That's why the Goddess decided what she decided."

The Moon Goddess was right: Blake was my fated mate, but then...

Then why didn't she make it easy for us by making me a Luna?

Why?

And why would she pick someone as horrid as Scarlett to be her Luna?

"Does your Goddess prefer total bitches as her Lunas?"

"She-wolves," Blake corrected me with a faint smile, then flicked the fringe that fell into my eyes aside and tucked it behind my ear. Gently... "Remember, you're one of them now."

I wanted to catch his fingers and press them to my cheek, but not in public! "Point taken, but no matter what you call it, Scarlett isn't exactly nice. Why would your Goddess pick her and pass me over?"

"Our Goddess. And you can tell me once you get Marked. Talking to the Goddess is in Luna's wheelhouse."

Blake glanced at his phone. Something on its screen made him frown, and he sped through the last few yards separating us from the bank of the elevators.

A frustrated sigh hissed through my teeth as I ran after Blake.

He stopped in front of the express elevator going to the top two floors and pressed a card to activate it. The elevator dinged. It arrived so noiselessly, the annoying sound was necessary to avoid creeping people out.

"Celeste, you'll find your wolf. I'm certain of that," he said once the cabin sheltered us from public view.

A wave of pure strength went from him to me to keep me up. I didn't imagine it: the sensation was so clear and empowering, it made me gasp. "Blake! It's just..."

The cabin was as spacious as one could wish for. The floor to ceiling mirrors reflected my new suit from every angle and a high-res screen displayed headlines and stock prices. To me it felt as tiny as an elevator in a crappy apartment building. All these distractions--and I couldn't take my eyes off of Blake.

"You were saying?" he asked, making no attempt to break eye contact. The pupils in his eyes diluted again, blacker than obsidian. He gripped the railing around the mirror wall.

"I...yes. Why would you date Scarlett in the first place, Blake?"

"It may shock you, but I had no time for romance in my life. Too busy working my way up from my humble Gamma beginnings."

I was shocked, but by something else. "Gamma? You were a Gamma?"

He nodded, then backed himself into the farthest corner of the elevator. I could only describe the expression on his face as starved.

"Some mornings I still wake up and wonder if I'm delusional. Or if the pack had made a colossal mistake raising someone like me far above my station."

"Blake, that's Scarlett talking. Not you."

"I know. But that's part of the reason why..." He shifted uncomfortably, squeezing himself even farther back. "Scarlett is a daughter of the Californian Alpha. Mating her would give me legitimacy. Her connections would come in handy if the rogues start an all-out war for dominance with us. It was all clicking in place, until..."

"Until?" I asked breathlessly.

The elevator came to a smooth stop, and we exited into an executive space with a round sitting area.

Glass doors led to the boardroom and two offices. Breathtaking views spanned beyond every window; paintings, too vibrant to be copies, decorated every wall; and floral arrangements with pine bows and wildflowers took up every surface not needed for business. Somewhere, a window stood ajar, because the unmistakably fresh mountain air drifted over the sustainable, ergonomic, eco-friendly (I was guessing) furniture.

Blake gave me a moment to appreciate the beauty of his place. Or, perhaps, he was bracing before baring his vulnerable side.

"Until I woke up at night, wondering why my parents are so happy, despite being lowly Gammas. Or why our people have looked for fated mates since the dawn of time, and, mainly..."

"Mainly...?" I whispered, picking off diamond-shaped, shimmery grass' seeds in the closest bouquet, unable to look at him.

"Mainly," Blake whispered into my ear, warming it, tickling it with his breath, "I wondered if there's more to mating than common interests and the well-being of the pack for a guy like me."

I looked up.

Blake's pupils shrunk, but it didn't reduce sexual tension between us. His irises were green, crystalline, and so dreamy, I could imagine they were like that when Blake wrote me his love letter. The only letter I had received in my life.

"You decided that there has to be more," I whispered, "much more than convenience and compatibility."

He nodded. "And so, I asked the Moon Goddess to reveal my fated mate. If she was Scarlett, well, so be it. I would have obeyed the Goddess' will."

The seeds crumbled in my hand. "Maybe Scarlett is good for the pack, but she isn't good for you, Blake. She's so...cold."

He pulled back away from me, his chest expanding with ragged breaths. That step back spoke volumes of what he wanted to do, alone with me, but wouldn't permit himself.

I trembled, spilling the seeds on the floor. "S-sorry. I'll clean it up."

As I bent to pick the chaff, he caught me by my waist. Instinctively. I swayed in his embrace for a split second. His arm tightened, strong and supportive.

If he held me for just a second longer, I would have gone mad and kissed him...

He pressed the palm of his hand firmly into my back to keep me from stumbling and stepped as far back as he could.

It was a strange dance, and I didn't dare to add my steps to it.

Blake needed everything to be flawless. I wasn't Scarlett to pit my will against his and force feelings on him.

I was rewarded by a genuine smile instead of a kiss.

"I don't regret my choice for a second," Blake said. "It's worth all the challenges we'll have to overcome, Celeste."

My God! Or, rather... Goddess!

How could a she-wolf not fall for his commitment, his belief in true love, his yearning? Even if she was blind and deaf to everything else good and pure about him?

Alas, the entire she-wolfhood included Scarlett. If she was capable of loving someone beyond herself, and wanted Blake, she wouldn't be happy to lose him.

I knew I wouldn't be!

Scarlett gets what she wants. She always does.

"Harold said—"

"Damn Harold!" Blake snarled. "Harold is a cur! Did he hit on you?"

"Blake, he didn't say anything bad. He just—"

"There's nothing good about him, Celeste." Blake bristled. His cheekbones whitened again. The sharp canines peeked from under the curling upper lip. "There is no man more dangerous than a Beta who believes he deserves to be an Alpha. The less you listen to this snake in wolf's clothing, the better. Stay away from him!"

He cut the air with his hand to drive his point home. "And tell me if he bothers you. I'll teach him a lesson."

My eyes goggled out. Maybe I didn't know Blake all that long, but this tirade was so different from his behavior a moment ago, that an outlandish guess crossed my mind.

"Are you..." I gulped before voicing it. "Are you jealous, Blake?" Crazy, right?

To my surprise, Blake tilted his head to one shoulder, as if probing the inner workings of his heart.

"Yes."

My heart bobbed like a float on the surf, my eyes stung, my nose itched until I sniffled.

"Celeste, what is it? Are you crying? What did he say to you? I swear, I'll kick his teeth!"

I waved at him to stop threatening Harold through a haze of tears—yes, tears. Yes, again. I whipped them haphazardly with my fingers, sniffling harder.

"B-blake...no, no, please, don't hurt Harold."

He growled.

"Harold doesn't matter. It's not him, it's..."

Blake startled and his jowls tightened even more. "Did I scare you?"

"Yes, but...no." I thought about it for a fraction of a second, enjoying the primal sizzle in Blake's eyes. "Blake, nobody had been jealous because of me before. It's wonderful."

"Still going to kick his teeth in." If Blake wasn't a man over six feet tall with an intimidating presence and raging charisma, I'd say he sounded petulant.

"It's wonderful in small doses," I said.

Blake inhaled slowly, taking his temper under control. "What did Harol say to you?"

Before I could answer, his phone buzzed more insistently, and the door of the office between the boardroom and the corner office opened up.