Chapter 15: An Unidentified (And Definitely Unwanted) Emotion

Dingo was once a member of the Eridanus pack.

And Ran had declared she would marry him when she was ten.

After the rogue attack, Dingo disappeared. He was an orphan. His mother died at childbirth and his father had long been banished from the pack, so the previous Alpha raised Dingo alongside Ran.

He had been the one everybody thought would become the next Alpha.

Ran also liked him very much.

They were inseparable—until the attack.

The pack mourned him just like they mourned her parents.

Yet here he was, alive and well, in the arms of another woman.

Ran frowned. Surely she was mistaken. Maybe she was still asleep.

She had not seen Dingo for ten years. How could she be sure the man before her was her childhood sweetheart?

He might be some other werewolf named Dingo.

But the woman clearly called Ran his first love.

And his chocolate brown eyes were the same as the ones in her memory.

Well, in the memory she boxed up, locked three times and threw into the furthest depths of her brain ten years ago.

'Yo, Ran,' Dingo greeted, raising one hand. 'It's been a while.'

Ran stared at him, speechless.

There were many things she wanted to say but none of them made it to her mouth.

After more awkward silence, Dingo introduced the woman. 'This is my wife and Luna of the Leo pack, Etta.'

Wife? Ran turned to Etta. The woman smiled but did not greet her.

She didn't have to after all. Ran was only a Beta.

'Wait. If your wife is the Luna, that means you're...' Ran's voice trailed off.

Etta patted Dingo's broad chest affectionately and nuzzled his shoulder. 'That's right. He's the Alpha of Leo.'

The way she openly caressed him made Ran want to gag.

A sting of unidentified (and definitely unwanted) emotion stabbed her in the heart.

Ran narrowed her eyes at Dingo. What was his intention of showing up in front of her like this? Did he want her blessing? Was he gloating? What happened to him back then? How did he end up being Alpha of Leo?

Dingo straightened up, chocolate eyes meeting her cold black ones.

He seemed unaffected by her confusion and hostility.

'Just wanted to welcome you to Leo territory and congratulate you on your betrothal,' he said in a grown-up voice she no longer recognised. 'We'll see you later.'

Etta bid her goodbye as well and the couple strolled down the hallway without waiting for her response.

Ran closed the door in a daze and stood staring at the emergency escape plan glued to the back of it.

She was still standing there when Caph entered the room.

He had been annoyed after a conversation with his father and wanted to rant about it. But he took Ran's hand gently, his own anxieties lost as he sat her down on the bed and coaxed words out of her.

He didn't learn much. Just that someone unexpected showed up.

Someone she thought had died.

They changed into formalwear and prepared the gifts Acamar asked them to bring. Ran was in charge of handing them out.

Caph had wanted to take her breath away with his dark blue suit and tie but Ran didn't seem to have noticed. She was thinking.

Dingo didn't die. He survived the attack that killed her parents. He became Alpha of a powerful pack—the pack that had hosted the Red Moon Summit for the past century. Why didn't he return to Eridanus? Why had he married into a different pack?

Ran matched the wrong buttons on her dress and Caph had to redo them for her.

'Thanks,' she mumbled instead of shoving him away.

He sat on the bed and pulled her to him, turning her so their eyes met. He encouraged her with his gaze, reassured her wordlessly that there was nothing to worry about. That he would be there with her. She let him speak to him through his bright blue eyes but held back what she was really feeling.

She didn't want to burden him with her unnecessary speculation about Dingo. She did catch his pissed expression when he entered the room but had been too stunned to react appropriately. Ran knew that he was anxious about the Summit too. There was a lot of pressure on him after all, since Acamar practically declared him Alpha by registering him as her betrothed and he had his father's expectations to consider as well.

His gaze gave her strength. Helped her to stay calm. If it was Dingo's intention to upset her right before the Summit, she had to be unaffected. She would not think about Dingo's betrayal. She would not get angry. She would not worry about him now.

In Caph's eyes, she saw that she was not alone in her anxiety.

They were going to the Summit together.

Ran took a deep breath and grabbed Caph's hand.

'Let's go.'