Chapter 9: It's Official

Caph crossed his arms across his chest.

Ran noticed what he wasn't wearing a shirt for the first time. His lean and muscular torso was bare and tempting.

For some reason, she felt her cheeks heat up.

Caph grinned even wider. 'Does it bother you? That our arrangement has everyone fooled?'

Unconsciously, she took a step back. 'That's not what I–.'

He tilted his head. 'Then what's the problem? Do you like me?'

The memory of Caph's hand on her face came to her mind. She remembered the electric touch when he gently swept her hair behind her ear and the glowing warmth of his blue eyes on her.

The same pair of eyes were fixed on her now, but they were taunting.

Ran shoved him away from her and stormed out of this room, yelling, 'No way!'

Why had she come to him for help in quelling the rumours? They were proof that everyone believed their arrangement was real.

Ran refused to talk to Caph until the next Full Moon Gathering. With all the rumours about them flying around, there was no need to exert extra effort to satisfy her uncle.

Taking it slow for now made it all the more believable.

Before her uncle demanded that she court Caph, Ran was known for her dismissal of romance and all its frivolous emotional entrappings she called 'a waste of time'. But somehow, her pack bought the story, hook, line and sinker.

No wonder humans ruled the world—Werewolves were stupid.

Caph waited for her in the main hall on the night of the Gathering, dressed in a crinkled white button-up and ripped jeans, leaning against the back of the sofa. Thanks to her weekly lessons with Cass about fashion, she noticed the top button was undone.

Probably on purpose.

Because he was watching her as she stared at it.

She glared at him with her coal black eyes.

They followed the Regent and his family to the edge of the forest where the rest of her pack was waiting to leave. The Delta, Toji, bowed his head to Acamar and Ran. 'Everyone is ready.'

'Your pack is big,' Caph remarked to Ran. There were about a hundred werewolves gathered together, all shifting into their wolf forms at once.

'Isn't Cassiopeia bigger than Eridanus?' she asked, counting the number of child werewolves with her eyes.

He watched her multitask with amusement. 'There's only fifty werewolves in the whole pack, including those of us who don't go to the Gathering.'

No wonder his father agreed to her uncle's arrangement without meeting up to discuss the details personally. Traditionally, purebred packs like Cassiopeia did not marry into other packs where the werewolf blood was diluted by human blood. They tended to choose mates from other purebred packs.

For his father to break the deeply-ingrained tradition of his pack and give his son to Eridanus, it meant something was up with Cassiopeia.

A diminishing population was a good motivation to form alliances with wealthier, more influential packs while they still had their reputation.

Ran and Caph shifted as well, heat washing over their bodies as they morphed. Their wolf form engulfed them. Acamar howled to signal their departure and the Eridanus werewolves streamed like a river through the trees, across the forest, to their usual clearing on the moor.

Even before they reached the centre of the Gathering, werewolves from the other packs in their human forms crowded around to catch a glimpse of the latest 'it' couple. Ran found herself feeling very self-conscious as she shifted back to a human, her clothes and hair drenched because of the shift.

Being the centre of attention in such a vulnerable state made her skin crawl.

Obviously, Caph had no such qualms. He wrapped an arm around Ran's waist (which made heat rush through her suddenly) and immediately struck up a conversation with a few werewolves he recognised from the previous Full Moon Gathering.

Ran could not help but stare up at him speechlessly as he talked to werewolves, who even she considered strangers, as if they belonged to the same pack.

How did he do that?

The werewolves who caught her innocent reaction to Caph's social skills interpreted it as her being starstruck by her lover.

By the time Ran realised what was happening and tried to feint apathy, it was too late.

People were whispering and Cass was frantically wriggling her at her as she vanished into the crowd.

The Gathering began with each Alpha making their formal reports.

When it was Acamar's turn, he called both of them forward and announced their engagement—the betrothal of the late Alpha's daughter, Ran of Eridanus, to the fourth son of Cassiopeia's Alpha, Caph of Cassiopeia.

Ran was stunned.

Her uncle hadn't told her their engagement would be announced at this Gathering.

There were 11 more months before she turned 21.

Couldn't he wait a few more months?

Preferably after she had time to pretend to get intimate with Caph first?

At this rate, she would be married off before the seasons changed!