Chapter 46: Is He Your Mate?

Chapter 46: Is He Your Mate?
The hall was louder than before.

Whatever formal ceremony had been planned for the afternoon had dissolved into something more chaotic and alive.

Groups of alphas and their delegations stood in tight clusters, heads bent, voices low. The energy in the room had shifted completely from the controlled grandeur of an hour ago into something that buzzed and crackled.

Everyone was talking about the white wolf.

Olivia could feel it the moment Josh walked her back inside. The eyes that followed them. The conversations that dipped when they passed and rose again the moment they were two steps further. She kept her chin up and her face composed and focused on the middle distance the way Jean had taught her.

Josh walked beside her without acknowledging any of it. He did not look left or right. He did not explain himself to anyone. He simply walked through the room like the room existed because he permitted it to.

He delivered her to the side table near the eastern wall where the household staff had regrouped.

"Stay here," he said quietly.

"Yes, your majesty."

He looked at her for just a moment. Something moved in his eyes.

Then he turned and walked back into the centre of the room where the other alphas were waiting for him with expressions that ranged from impressed to deeply unsettled.

Olivia stood at the side table.

That was incredible, Lisa said.

"Be quiet, Lisa."

I am just saying—

"I know what you are saying. Be quiet."

The ceremony organiser stepped onto the small platform at the front of the hall and cleared his throat loudly. The room quieted by degrees.

"My Lords and honoured guests," he said, with the particular brightness of a man determined to restore order through sheer enthusiasm. "We are all very much alive and the evening is still young. Let us continue." He smiled broadly. "We now invite Alpha Josh Hunter of the Dark Howlers Pack to address the gathering."

The room turned toward Josh.

He walked to the platform without hurry, the way he did everything, and the hall went properly quiet for the first time since the courtyard.

Olivia used the moment to slip outside.

++++

The stone steps were empty now.

The evidence of what happened earlier, scuffed stone, a dark stain near the bottom step was the only thing that remained. Olivia sat on the cemented bench near the wide stone balustrade and looked at the trees beyond the gates.

Her hands had stopped shaking. That was something.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned.

Harris.

He came and stood beside her without being invited, which was his way, and looked at the same trees she had been looking at.

"How are you?" he asked.

"I am fine, my Lord."

"You shifted in front of every pack leader in the six territories and fought the sister of an alpha," Harris said. "You are allowed to be something other than fine. You had more courage than I gave you credit for."

Olivia almost smiled. "I am fine and slightly tired."

"Slightly," Harris said.

"Moderately," she conceded.

He was quiet for a moment. He looked at her from the side the way he sometimes did when he thought she was not paying attention. She was always paying attention.

"White wolf," he said quietly.

"So they are saying."

"Do you know what it means?"

"I know it surprised people," Olivia said. "I know Kayla did not expect it."

"Nobody expected it," Harris said. Something in his voice was different. Careful. "White wolves are not just rare, Olivia. They are…" he stopped.

"Are what?"

He opened his mouth.

"LIV!"

The shriek came from the gate.

Both of them turned.

A young woman was half running, half stumbling through the entrance, one hand holding up the hem of her dress, a bag swinging wildly from her shoulder, her hair escaping its pins in every direction, and her face wearing the most enormous grin Olivia had ever seen on another human being.

Olivia's mouth fell open.

"Cassandra," she breathed.

"WHO AM I SEEING?" Cassandra was not lowering her voice for anyone. She crossed the courtyard at speed and crashed into Olivia with the full force of someone who had been wanting to do exactly this for months. They grabbed each other and Olivia buried her face in her friend's shoulder and held on.

"I thought about you every single day," Cassandra said into her hair. Her voice had cracked completely. "Every day, Liv. I prayed I would see you at this event. I said to myself if I have to crawl here I will go, and then my cart lost a wheel and I thought the universe hates me and then I got here." She pulled back and looked at Olivia's face and grabbed her cheeks in both hands, eyes wet and shining. "Thank the goddess. Look at you. You are well. You are so well."

"I am well," Olivia said. Her own eyes were bright. "Cass, I am so well."

Cassandra laughed and pulled her in again.

Harris stood a short distance away and watched the reunion with the expression of a man who had accidentally walked into something private and was too entertained to leave.

Cassandra pulled back eventually and wiped her face with absolutely no self-consciousness. Then she noticed Harris.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

It lasted perhaps three seconds. Which was two seconds longer than a casual glance between strangers.

Cassandra turned to Olivia and dropped her voice to what she clearly believed was a whisper. It was not even close to a whisper.

"Is that your mate?"

Harris raised his eyebrows.

Olivia pressed her lips together. "No. He is not."

"Are you certain?" Cassandra said, still at full volume.

"Completely certain, Cass."

Cassandra looked at Harris again. Harris looked back with the expression of a man finding this situation considerably more interesting than he had expected his afternoon to be.

"Right," Cassandra said. "Good. That is good. Good to know."

"Is it," Olivia said with a smile on her face.

"I am just gathering information," Cassandra said with great dignity. She straightened her dress and extended her hand toward Harris with the confidence of someone who had decided today she would not be intimidated by anyone. "Cassandra. Liv calls me Cassy."

Harris looked at the extended hand. Then at Cassandra's face. Then he took it.

"Harris," he said.

"Just Harris?" Cassandra said.

"Lord Harris," Olivia said.

"Oh." Cassandra blinked. Then recovered immediately. "Well. Lord Harris. You have very good timing. You were here when my friend needed someone and I appreciate that on her behalf."

Harris looked at her for a moment.

"She did not need me," he said. "She was managing perfectly well on her own."

Cassandra tilted her head. "Humble for a lord."

"Observant for a…" Harris paused. "What is your rank?"

"Omega," Cassandra said, completely unbothered. "Same as Liv. We are a matching set."

Something moved across Harris's face that he did not entirely manage to contain. He held Cassandra's gaze a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

"Cassy," he said. His voice had shifted slightly. Warmer, without him seeming to decide it. "Could I have a moment of your time?"

Cassandra looked at Olivia.

Olivia looked back at her with an expression that said absolutely nothing, which Cassandra correctly interpreted as meaning a very great deal.

"Of course, my Lord," Cassandra said.

They stepped away together toward the far end of the steps.

Olivia watched them go.

Harris was talking. Cassandra was listening with her arms folded and her chin slightly lifted and the expression of someone paying very close attention and fully intending to ask difficult questions afterward.

Then Cassandra said something that made Harris stop mid-sentence.

Then Harris laughed.

Olivia had never heard Harris laugh like that before. Not with his whole face. Not like something had caught him completely off guard and he had no defence prepared for it.

She looked away and smiled