Ch1.
1172 Words
Scarlet’s POV
As much as I wanted to hate Loretta, I couldn’t. If anything, I was jealous, envious, seething with crippling rage.
But that was on the inside. On the outside, I clapped and cheered with everyone else with a smile on my face. A smile so wide it was tearing me apart, because why her and not me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always wanted my dad to find happiness, and that night two years ago when I said those words to my best friend, I meant them more than anything. But if she was perfect for my dad, who was perfect for me?
Actually, I know who.
I turned my head to the side and our eyes met across the room, except just like every other time, we averted our gazes before it became too obvious for anyone else to see.
While my best friend pursued her master’s degree, I took on the duties of Acting Alpha, one I’d looked up to all my life. A position I’d feared would be taken away from me if I wasn’t careful enough. But I landed it thanks to my father finding happiness.
Now it’s put me under the gaze of everyone and at the same time, miles and years and imaginations away from my own happiness. I looked to my left once more, but she was nowhere to be found.
My heart rate picked up fast. I had to go after her. I gripped the handle of my seat and shot up to my feet as my eyes looked frantically around for her.
“And now we would like to welcome the acting alpha and officiator of this wedding to the stage. Alpha Scarlet Stephen, please come onto the stage.”
The light was directed on me, giving me no chance of escape. This spotlight I’d fought my entire life for. Yet just two years on the stage and I wanted to throw it all away to chase the one thing that found me.
“Please come on stage to say a few words.”
With that, I was ushered onto the stage.
“I love you,” my dad and best friend mouthed from where they were seated, and I smiled back. Not because I didn’t love them, but because I was desperate to hear those words from someone else instead.
First, I gave my thanks, and then, “and now onto what I really had written down.”
I unfolded the A4 paper in my jacket pocket to read, but it felt too heavy and blurred, so far away and meaningless at the same time.
“You know what?” I chuckled and faced the crowd once more. “Screw this.”
I threw the paper my assistant had printed out and made me memorize this morning. “I’ll freestyle this.”
I leaned into the microphone mounted on the podium.
The crowd, or rather the guests, cheered. They were both people from the Pack as well as neighboring packs, allies and partners alike.
“When I first saw Alpha Victor, my father, drunk in the hallway with my best friend gone, I knew something had happened. My father was never easily moved, and my best friend Loretta, such a sweet soul, would never do something if it didn’t involve me. It took us two days to get him to confess he’d fallen for my best friend and another three to get the tracking down. But during those two weeks of desperate search, there was one thing I noticed and have held onto since then.”
I looked around the crowd, hoping my eyes would meet hers once more.
When they didn’t, I decided to reach her verbally. We were werewolves with extremely sharp hearing. She couldn’t have gone too far.
I grabbed the neck of the microphone, wincing as it shrieked for a moment, but it only fueled my determination to continue.
“That love doesn’t need a crowd to support it. Just a select few who matter the most. And whether the crowd liked it or not, they would have no choice but to accept it.”
I smiled in the direction of the couple of the day.
My dad waved, and my best friend, always quick to cry, had tears threatening to fall.
“Don’t ruin your makeup, bestie. It’s your day and it’s barely started,” I said into the microphone, and she nodded so fast the teardrops slid down her face.
There was no stopping it anyway.
“But for that to have happened, the people involved needed to believe that they deserved each other and their love was worth a shot.”
This time, I wasn’t looking at anybody. My eyes were closed as I prayed to dear Moon Goddess that she hadn’t gone too far.
“I really hate to make this about myself, but…”
I turned away from the crowd.
“Secretary Li, please, if you are hearing this, give us a chance to give our love a shot. Just one person supporting us is enough, and I don’t need to be alpha to love you back. Damn it.”
I threw the microphone to the ground once the rope started to tug at it.
The crowd gasped, but I was done risking what truly mattered to me for the sake of what people would say.
“In fact, I only need you to believe we can make this work. So please, don’t run away from this and let us talk. I’m tired of keeping my feelings in check just because I’m scared of what people would say. I want to accept you, accept us, please.”
I pleaded, my voice cracking.
“You’re just as careless as you were three years ago.”
I heard someone say amidst the dead silence and did a full one hundred and eighty degree spin for my eyes to catch her again, right by the exit, ready to leave as always.
Without breaking eye contact this time, I charged forward without stopping until she was right in front of me, just a breath away.
When I was done taking in her facial features and imprinting them in my mind so I would never forget, I leaned in, eyes closed, lips pouted, fingers crossed, and kissed her.
There were gasps, a pause, and then dead silence that seemed to last for eternity, until her lips moved against mine to deepen the kiss.
“We shouldn’t be doing this in front of everyone, but I couldn’t help myself,” I said into the kiss before we deepened it.
“We shouldn’t be doing this at all. Goddess,” she breathed, but didn’t break the kiss. Not when we were breathless and clinging onto each other for dear oxygen, not until someone tapped the microphone from the stage.
“What the hell is going on here? This is my wedding.”
The voice was angry, upset, and it was my best friend’s.
I supported her. So why?
- Writer
