Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Chapter 377: Laila meeting Gilbert

Tess opened the bag and found a beautiful, neatly folded dress inside with the tag of Zoe’s fashion house attached, and her eyes went wide with delight.

"Thank you so much! Can I hug you?" Tess asked and Zoe opened her arms. "Why not? Come over here."

They hugged each other, laughing, and the group formed naturally around them, with Zoe pulling Gilbert forward and introducing him to Tess as her boyfriend.

While all of this was happening, Sebastian, standing beside the Alpha heir and watching the women fall into easy, comfortable conversation as though they had known each other for years, was lifting a glass of wine to his lips when he stopped.

His expression shifted immediately, turning dark and stormy, his eyes narrowing on his sister, who had not breathed a single word to him about dating Gilbert until just now, in public, in front of everyone.

Since they had arrived here, he had spoken to Gilbert and worked closely with him on planning the mermaid sacrifice, yet not once had the doctor mentioned being in a relationship with his sister.

Sebastian was about to speak when he felt his wife’s arm slip through his and she leaned in close.

"I forgot to mention it to you with everything that was happening, but please don’t bring it up here with her right now. We can talk about it once we are back in the room. Everyone’s eyes are on us at this moment."

Viola reasoned quietly, sensing both his anger and his confusion, because he had been told Laila was Gilbert’s fated mate, and now here was Gilbert standing with his arm around his sister.

This wasn’t the right moment for him to confront them. Every pair of eyes in the hall was fixed on their group because they moved within the circle of the most influential werewolves, and even the smallest incident could quickly turn into a big scandal, especially with the werewolf media people and paparazzi around the hall.

Sebastian would never accept this relationship, knowing full well that Zoe was walking straight toward heartbreak. As long as Gilbert remained bonded to another woman, there was no way he could give Zoe the life and love she deserved. Sebastian knew better than anyone how powerful the pull of the mate bond could be.

Sebastian swallowed his anger and every word he wanted to say and began brewing on it internally, waiting for the moment he could confront the doctor properly.

It seemed there was a great deal left to clear up once this ceremony was over, including the pending conversation about Natalie that he still needed to have with Viola before she heard the full story from someone else and it became another misunderstanding.

He suddenly found he had very little interest in remaining at this ceremony or in making any kind of meaningful connection with the Grim pack today.

Right at that moment, as though they hadn’t already been through enough shocking drama and revelations for one day, Laila Serrano made her entrance in an elegant red dress that emphasized every curve of her hourglass figure. Her high heels clicked confidently against the floor with every step, immediately drawing every eye in the hall toward her.

Whispers broke out immediately and eyes followed her across the room, and Laila, who had never once in her life felt self-conscious about being stared at, immediately began to feel it and quietly regretted arriving so late and walking into a hall already full of people.

She looked around quickly and her eyes found Viola, Zoe and Tess, and the visible relief on her face was immediate as she made her way toward them.

She hugged Tess first and then Viola. "Please tell me I didn’t miss the interesting part? I saw Hailey being dragged out by Silver’s Gammas on my way in, someone needs to tell me everything I missed right now..." Her words trailed off the moment she sensed it.

Her mate.

She turned toward him instinctively, and found him standing there with his arm around Zoe’s waist.

Laila’s emerald eyes trembled. And as though he had been caught doing something he had no business doing, which was exactly what the mate bond was making him feel, Gilbert removed his arm from around Zoe and put a small, telling distance between them, his eyes doing everything they could to avoid meeting Laila’s directly. She put two and two together in the span of a single breath and immediately understood.

"You missed so much, you missed Vee putting Hailey exactly where she belongs." Zoe said, buzzing with excitement, too caught up in the energy of the group to notice that her partner had quietly taken his arm away from around her.

"Are you all right, Laila?" Tess asked, noticing that the she-wolf had gone completely still and was staring fixedly at Zoe’s boyfriend, and even Zoe finally caught it, the sudden awareness of the space that had quietly formed between her and Gilbert settling over her face as confusion.

"I’m fine, Tess." Laila said, not taking her eyes off her mate, who was looking at everything and everyone but her, the guilt written plainly across his face, the kind that came from a mate bond even when there was no commitment, even when nothing had been agreed to. It still sat in the chest like cheating, and it showed.

"Oh, I forgot to properly introduce you two." Zoe said, pushing through the awkward atmosphere with her usual energy. "This is Doctor Gilbert, you already know him, of course, he’s my boyfriend. And Gilbert, this is Laila. She’s a she-wolf I’ve recently come to realize I can actually be friends with. She’s softer than she lets on and more caring than she looks." Zoe introduced cheerfully, even as something in the back of her mind told her the atmosphere wasn’t quite right.

Had it been any other she-wolf, Laila thought as she heard Zoe introducing her in a way no one ever had before, she would have torn every strand of hair from her head by now for ruining her plans and showing up here as her mate’s date and girlfriend.

After spending time with the Supreme Alpha’s sister the previous day, along with the others, Laila had genuinely come to like her and the others like friends. She had even made plans to have Zoe design a killer dress for her to seduce her mate once they returned to Silver, but it turned out Gilbert was her boyfriend.

"We’ve actually already met," Laila said, and Gilbert finally turned to look at her directly, hoping with every part of him that she wouldn’t announce in front of everyone that they shared a mate bond.

He had been planning to tell Zoe about Laila himself. He didn’t want her finding out from the she-wolf and having her heart broken that way, especially when there was nothing between him and Laila worth causing drama over with his girlfriend.

"You have?" Zoe asked, genuinely surprised, because Laila’s world and Gilbert’s were as far apart as two worlds could be, and the known rivalry between their families that went back to the earliest days of Silver pack made any prior connection between them feel almost impossible.

"Yes." Laila said, and turned to Zoe. "He didn’t tell you about me?"

Zoe looked more confused by the second.

Viola glanced at her husband, whose expression was growing darker and darker with every passing second, his eyes fixed on his sister.

"No. Is there something he should have told me about you? What’s going on here?" Zoe asked, looking around at the faces surrounding her, sensing that there was something everyone knew that she didn’t, and the unease was beginning to show.