Chapter 64

KATHERINE.

“About what?” I asked and he tipped his head to the side.

“Dark Moon.”

I let out a harsh breath as I dropped the bags I was holding. “Uncle Lander–”

“I know, I know. You don’t want to talk to her about an alliance between our packs but you kind of have to.”

“Why?” I frowned. It would be really fucking weird to do so since all I’d been doing is getting stuff from her, Priyanka and Josie and like I said before, my pack had nothing to offer hers so I couldn’t see them agreeing to an alliance. Sure, I shouldn’t have pride in this situation because my pack needed help but I wanted to retain some amount of dignity.

“We’ve only been getting alliance requests from small packs.”

“Moon Stone is not small,” I muttered and he gave me a look that said ‘Really?’

“You know what I mean. None of the ‘big’ packs have glanced in our direction.” That was true. “The only reason we’re getting alliance requests from these packs right now is because of the rumored alliance with Dark Moon. None of the big packs have made a move yet because Dark Moon hasn’t said anything and they know time will tell if there’s truly an alliance. Time will tell, Katherine.”

“Ah.” He was right.

Two weeks have passed since the dinner party and neither my pack nor Dark Moon’s pack had said anything about the ‘alliance’. If things kept going this way without confirmation, the packs that had sent alliance requests might react. And I might not like their reaction.

“Damn it,” I muttered before facing Uncle Lander once more. “Okay. Just give me some time… I’ll try to talk to her about it.” I dreaded doing it but I had to. I guess this was one of the downsides of being an Alpha.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I walked over to the bed, sitting next to my aunt as I began to think about how I was going to bring this up to Lenore after spending over a week having little to no conversations with her – she’d even asked me if she’d done something to upset me. “Ugh.”

“Have you made any progress with finding your mate?” Aunt Vivian asked, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I scratched the back of my neck after glancing at her.

“Uh…” I trailed off as Kit ran over to me and held out a chocolate bar, and I opened my mouth so he could throw it in before he ran back to the center table. “Well, quite a bit.”

A smile swept across Aunt Vivian’s face and she moved closer to me. “Really? Tell me about it,” she said while Uncle Lander asked, “Was Judy able to give you any advice the day you called her?”

“She–” A knock came on the door and we all glanced at it before I got up and walked over to it. I expected it to be Josie or one of Lenore’s friends but the moment I opened the door, I saw a beaming Blake holding a bouquet of sunflowers and my heart took a pause while heat crept up to my face.

We’d hung out a couple of times after the Sunday I painted with him and Hunter in the art studio and I’d joined him for a ride in the UTV past midnight on Monday too. My crush on him was stronger than the one I had on Theo at this point but I still hadn’t figured out who my mate was between him and Hunter who I obviously also had a massive crush on. My situation sucked.

Perhaps I should just put their names in a bowl and beg one of the lecturers here who could use magic to cast a spell on it so I’d end up picking my mate’s name from the bag.

“Katya, hey,” he said before glancing past me and tilting his head to the side, making me glance over my shoulder to see my aunt and uncle staring at him with surprise written all over their faces. They obviously recognized him and were probably wondering what the hell he was doing here with flowers.

My aunt was the first to speak as Blake stepped into the room. “Oh… hello.”

“Hi,” Blake replied, turning up his charm as he flashed them a smile. “You must be Katya’s guardians.”

“Katya?” Aunt Vivian faced me, raising a brow before I stepped in to introduce him to them. After learning that he was my friend, the expressions on their faces softened but Uncle Lander still narrowed his eyes at him because he was the son of Blue Blood’s Alpha, Silver Bow’s biggest ally. “So who are the flowers for?” Aunt Vivian asked with a smirk as her gaze bounced between us and I rolled my eyes because she was as subtle as a forest fire, before turning to face Blake and sneering at him.

He’d tackled me pretty hard during scavenger hunt practice yesterday and after apologizing, he told me he’d make it up to me somehow. I’d told him my favorite flowers were roses during my second time in a UTV with him past midnight so him being here with sunflowers was not him making it up to me.

“For you, obviously,” Blake said, holding the bouquet out to her and she blinked at him in surprise. “Beautiful women deserve beautiful things.”

Aunt Vivian’s lips immediately curved into a smile and she collected the bouquet from him while I coughed, “Flirt.” That earned me a smirk from him while Aunt Vivian thanked him with her cheeks flushed.

It reminded me that a lot of girls had a crush on Blake. Like a whole freaking lot. I’d never really thought about it when Josie told me that he, Hunter and Theo were part of the most popular boys in Blackwood but I hadn’t been able to ignore his popularity among ladies in the last two weeks.

He began to show up at the scavenger hunt club house after I told him to stop skipping meetings and I sort of understood why he skipped it. The girls in the club constantly showed up with gifts for him – it was like they were trying to one-up each other – and they always wanted alone time with him. Sometimes he’d catch me watching the interactions and he’d give me a look that told me he was tired of it.

I understood why the girls acted like that – I mean, Blake was insanely handsome and had an aura that drew people to him – but I was quickly growing annoyed by how they clung to him like he was theirs. He wasn’t.

I swallowed at that thought and pressed my lips together as my gaze slid back to Blake who was currently smiling at Kit. He had said something to him that I hadn’t caught but Kit was grinning from ear to ear and looked like he was about to start jumping on the chaise lounge.

“Okay then. I’ll see you guys around,” Blake said, waving at my family as he headed back to the door and Aunt Vivian and Kit waved back enthusiastically.

“Thank you for the flowers.”

“No problem… Bye, Katya.”