Chapter 113 RUMORS WILL GROW EVEN WILDER
SEBASTIAN’S POV
The silence spreads fast and quick all-round the market square.
Too fast.
One second there’s noise and hollering and vendors are shouting, pups laughing with the clanking of armor and the next, it’s like the entire square has been strangled into stillness.
All eyes are on me, specifically, all eyes are on my shoulder.
On the mark.
My lungs forget how to work.
How could I have forgotten about it?!
I've been so preoccupied by the Rogue attack, me being a werewolf housing an ancient wolf and my heart that I've forgotten about something so small yet important.
I look around to see if there's even someone that would step out and defend me but they're all looking at me like they have a million questions for me.
Peter is still staring at me like I’ve grown a second head with his hand trembling slightly as he points to my shoulder.
“Why…” he repeats with his voice still rough. “Sebastian, why do you have a sigil?”
I yank my jacket up, trying to cover it, but it feels useless. With how many people are staring, it's like I'm trying to cover a wildfire with grass.
“It’s nothing,” I say quickly, scrambling to my feet and holding my jacket even tighter. “It’s just–”
“That is not nothing?!”
His voice cuts through me and is louder now too.
I've always known Peter's family as one that is full of bullies, so why on earth was I so spaced out that I bumped into him?
What rotten luck of mine!
As my mind is racing with things to say or scenarios that I could use to turn this all around without it getting worse, I don't realize quickly that a lot of wolves were shifting closer and closer to me.
A circle is forming around me and when I realize it, I'm already surrounded.
I swallow hard.
“I said it’s nothing.”
“You think we’re blind?” Peter snaps back at me. “No one here is stupid or dumb Sebastian. That’s a mating sigil.”
The word mating hits the crowd like a thrown stone.
The murmurs explode even worse than I thought it was before.
“…he’s marked…”
“…that means he has a mate…”
“…then what the hell is he doing with our Alpha–”
My chest tightens painfully.
“I didn’t cheat,” I blurted out. And as the words come too fast and desperate, I don't realize I've just damned myself to hell.
And almost immediately, the entire energy and focus of all shifts as I see Peter go still.
The wolves around us go quiet again, but this time it’s not from any type of shock, it's from suspicion.
“Oh?” Peter says slowly. “Then by all means, explain it.”
“I–”
I pause.
I don’t have anything.
I don't have any rational argument or something that I can say out loud without ruining it all.
It's something that's even I don't dare say especially with Ragnar as my mate.
He hasn't acknowledged our bond publicly since, so I don't hold any hope that he will anytime soon.
Plus if people got curious as to how he's able to get a second chance mate and start asking questions, they might find out that I carry an ancient wolf.
If the news of the second chance mate doesn't kill me, the news of being an ancient wolf will destroy everything.
“I didn’t cheat,” I repeat, quieter now as the possibilities of the dilemma I'm in dawn on me.
“If you say you're not cheating or being unfaithful, then who is your mate?”
Silence.
My throat closes as I look around in agony.
I can feel Ragnar through the bond, distant and steady but I don't connect with him.
I don't want him to get involved in this thereby making it worse for me.
Say it.
A random thought pops in from the back of my mind.
The thought isn’t his.
It’s mine.
But I can’t risk it at all, because if I do, if I announce to the pack, and with the challenge coming so they are foreign wolves here too.
If I announce to basically the whole world that I'm the mated to the Alpha of Alphas whose mate died years ago, it'll give all the rival packs reasons to impeach him.
It was basically unheard of and practically taboo to have a second mate.
There’s no going back if I even so much as hint at that fact.
“I don’t have to tell you,” I say instead.
The worst possible answer I could have said but I don't have any other recourse.
It's better I end this on a sour note that prolong it for myself
The crowd reacts instantly.
“…he’s hiding it…”
“…why would he hide it…”
“…unless–”
Peter laughs, but there’s no humor in it as he scrutinizes me as one would do an insect. “You don’t have to tell us?” he echoes. “In a pack?”
They are murmurs of agreement after he says that.
“I–”
“You walk around wearing a sigil like that,”
he continues, stepping closer to me now, “and you expect no one to question it or say anything?”
“I just found out–” I cut myself short exactly here.
It wasn't a lie but how could anyone believe that I didn't identify my wolf and that if not for the whole ruckus Peter's creating, I wouldn't know I already have a mate?
I know this after I see Peter's small smirk of victory, I stopped myself too late.
His eyes narrow.
“You just found out?” he repeats. “That’s even worse.”
A ripple goes through the crowd.
“…he didn’t even know…”
“…so he’s been running around with the Alpha while already marked as a mated wolf…”
“…disgusting…”
My stomach twists.
“I didn’t know,” I say, sounding more firmly now. “I didn’t even see it up until now.”
“Wow, how convenient for you,” Peter mutters.
And then of course, as if the universe is still angry that I didn't finish my meal or that I like to sleep with my socks off, the three musketeers come back.