Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Chapter 381: Nick’s plan

Sebastian steered her to their seats, where food and drinks had been laid out and the others had already gathered around the table, immediately filling the air with praise.

"I never knew you could play the piano like that." Sebastian said, unable to conceal the pride glowing in his eyes or the urge to kiss her as he pulled her chair out for her.

"I learned when I was being groomed to become Moonwillow’s Luna. I never finished my training though, everything fell apart before I could." She sat down and he took the chair beside her, taking her hand and interlocking their fingers as though he could already feel how raw her emotions were sitting just beneath the surface right now.

He had felt every emotion flowing through her as she sang, and his eyes had immediately found the tears on her cheeks. She had poured every feeling she carried into the song, leaving nothing behind.

Sebastian suddenly wanted nothing more than to end the night here and take his wife back to their room. She didn’t just look tired, she looked emotionally hollowed out, like she had given every piece of joy she had into that performance and come back with nothing left for herself. Everyone else in the hall was smiling and laughing. Everyone except her.

"What’s wrong?" He asked.

Viola shook her head. "Nothing." But something was wrong, she could feel it, she just couldn’t put a name to it. A sadness had settled over her and the urge to cry was rising in her throat without any warning she could point to.

"Do you want to go back to our room? We can cuddle until you feel better." Sebastian suggested, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb.

She would have very much liked that, to be held in his arms, alone, away from the noise and the crowds that were draining her. But as a Luna, she needed to learn how to hold herself together under pressure, for the sake of her pack. Leaving before the marking had even taken place would not reflect well on either of them.

"I’ll be fine." She said, flashing him a smile that he immediately narrowed his eyes at, because he could feel what was behind it.

"You don’t have to hold yourself together for the pack if you aren’t feeling—"

"Supreme Alpha." Matt’s voice came from beside him as he appeared at Sebastian’s shoulder. "Do you have a moment? I need to speak with you outside."

Matt had tried to reach him through their mind link but Sebastian had shut it off to give Viola his full attention. But what Matt had to say couldn’t wait, and he had come in person.

Sebastian caught the gravity in Matt’s eyes and then looked back at his wife. "Tell me what you decide once I’m back. If you don’t feel like mingling, we are going back to our room." He stood, and with many eyes on them, pressed a kiss to her forehead before following Matt out of the hall.

Viola only looked away from his retreating back once he had disappeared from view. She turned to find Zoe already on the dance floor with Gilbert, both of them laughing. Tess was dancing with Kenny, her head thrown back with genuine happiness. Viola’s heart tightened at the sight of all the happiness surrounding her. Her sadness only deepened, leaving a painful tightness in her throat and chest.

She wanted to cry. Maybe it would help. But crying in public with cameras flashing every few seconds would do her image no good at all. She should have just told Sebastian to take her back to the room when he offered.

The noise around her was beginning to blur at the edges, pressing in on her all at once, and to ease it she reached out and flagged down a passing waiter, taking a glass of wine from the tray. She swallowed it down in one go, but it didn’t wash away any of the sadness.

She was still sitting with it, mellowing in her strange, unnamed emotions, waiting for Sebastian to return so she could tell him she wanted to leave, when a shadow fell over her and she looked up to find Nick standing there with that easy smile of his.

"Nick, what are you doing here?" She asked, finding that not even his familiar face brought her any comfort or ease right now.

"I’m hurt you haven’t noticed me in the crowd until now. I’ve been here since yesterday." He said, sitting down in the chair Sebastian had vacated. "This was actually the ceremony I invited you to, and you turned me down, unfortunately."

Viola didn’t have the energy to unpack that and the reason she had turned him down. She could only reply with, "I had to come with my Alpha first. It would have been inappropriate to come here as your date."

Nick smiled. "Yeah, I figured as much when I saw you both here. You sang beautifully up there, Vee, like the song of a siren. You captivated every single person in this room. Me included." He said, holding her gaze, his eyes moving over her face and catching the glassiness in hers, like she was fighting tears.

"I’m glad. And thank you." She replied, with none of her usual warmth behind it.

"So, would you like to dance?" He asked, glancing briefly at the couples on the floor before looking back at her. Before she could say no, he added, "Everyone’s dancing. You look lonely sitting here by yourself, move around a little and you’ll feel better. Come on." He was already on his feet, taking her hand and pulling her out of the chair before she had finished forming a response.

Viola found herself in the middle of the dance floor before she was ready for it, Nick’s arm coming around her waist and drawing her in.

"Nick, I’m not in the mood. I don’t feel well." She told him, trying to ease back from him and the dancing couples around them, but he didn’t let go.

"You’ll feel better once you dance. Come on, Vee, don’t be a bore. Dance with your lonely bestie."

Viola frowned. "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" He asked, tilting his head and studying her face, which had gone a shade paler than usual.

"When you want me to do something, you use loneliness as an excuse. I feel like you manipulate me into going along with you by making me feel guilty for saying no." Viola said, coming to a stop and planting her feet. She refused to let him move her anymore, because for some reason she couldn’t quite name, his touch was making her skin crawl, which was strange. He was her friend. It had never felt this way before, expect that one time he held her hand the way Sebastian used to do.

"That’s not my intention and you know it. I’m just trying to cheer you up the way I always do. Come on, let’s dance." He reached for her hand again, but this time Viola stepped back and pressed her hand to her head.

"I am not dancing, Nick. I feel dizzy. I’m sorry." Saying that she turned away from him, but she didn’t return to her chair. Instead she made her way out of the hall through the back door, desperately wanting fresh air, feeling suffocated and nauseous. The music inside the hall was getting to her in a way she couldn’t explain and causing her head to ache.

Viola walked out into the back garden where the space had been prepared for the couple’s marking ceremony later that evening. The music became a muffled sound behind her and she welcomed the warm evening air, but it only made whatever was building in her throat rush upward faster, and she doubled over onto her knees on the grass and began to throw up, her heart drumming so hard and fast she could feel it in her temples.

She threw up until there was nothing left to come up, and then got to her feet on unsteady legs and made her way to a bench in the corner to sit for a moment.

She was completely unaware that Nick had followed her out quietly and was standing in the shadows behind her, waiting for the drug in the wine to work as intended. But looking at her, he had a feeling more than the drug was affecting her at that moment.

Viola’s heart felt unsettled, her emotions pressing in on her from every direction at once, and with no one around to hold herself together for, she broke down. She buried her face in her palms and let the tears come, her shoulders shaking silently in the dark as wrecked sobs escaped her lips.

"Oh goddess, what is wrong with me? Why am I suddenly feeling this way?"

She desperately wished she were somewhere else. She wanted to disappear so badly that it frightened her, the intensity of the feeling confusing, unfamiliar, and unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

She didn’t want to be here.

She was homesick for a place she had never even known.

Her eyes began to suddenly grow heavy, her limbs losing their strength beneath her for no reason she could identify. She realized she needed to get back inside before she passed out in this corner, but the moment she pushed herself up from the bench, dizziness hit her so hard and so fast that her footing gave way completely.

She was falling, and then she wasn’t.

Someone had caught her.

Viola looked up through her swimming vision and found Nick looking down at her, and then her limbs gave out entirely and she went limp against his chest, unconscious.