Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna-Chapter 179: Avoid the breakfast_Part 1
For the next hour, Zoe helped Viola into a silver dress adorned with shimmering stones that caught and threw back the light with every movement she made. During that hour, Viola used the time to memorize her new schedule as supreme Luna on her tablet.
She would take on almost a quarter of Sebastian’s pile of documents and responsibilities in the pack, and would be the one in charge of all matters concerning she-wolf affairs across the packs, though anything she decided would still require the Alpha’s consent and signature before it could be acted upon.
Viola didn’t mind a heavy workload, in fact she would feel far more comfortable living as Sebastian’s wife knowing she was actively working for her place beside him, rather than simply existing without contributing anything and carrying the constant, suffocating feeling that she was living on a deep and growing debt.
Besides, she didn’t believe men kept women close without expecting something in return, experience had taught her that much. It was always a give and take in a relationship, and the moment you stopped giving, you stopped receiving affection or being cared for in return.
Though Sebastian hadn’t yet shown any signs that he needed her to share his workload or carry any of his responsibilities in other for him to care about her, Viola was quietly hoping that stage of their relationship would come in time. A stage she was more familiar to. At least that way she would understand why Sebastian was beginning to favor her more and more.
Viola looked through her schedule carefully, searching for a window she could use to plan her journey to Nightshade, and when she found one she smiled quietly to herself.
When she was finally dressed and ready, the nerves returned in full force and she drew in several slow, calming breaths before stepping out with Zoe and making their way toward the mass breakfast hall where they would sit alongside all the gathered guests.
She could not afford to embarrass herself, not today, not on her very first appearance as supreme Luna. She would lose their respect before she had even earned a drop of it. But why was she feeling suddenly uneasy about this breakfast gathering in a way that went beyond ordinary nerves?
"Will the supreme Alpha be there?" Viola found herself asking Zoe without thinking about her words.
Zoe turned to look at her slightly pale face and replied, "He will definitely be there, he is most likely already seated as we speak. Are you still nervous?"
"No. More like uneasy and restless." Viola whispered with a small frown creasing her brow. She rarely felt this particular feeling, and when she did, it had always meant something was about to go wrong. But nothing could possibly go wrong, it was just a breakfast with guests. It wasn’t as though she was walking in to eat fish, her worst poison. They wouldn’t serve fish, would they?
Viola felt her throat go suddenly dry and she hoped with everything inside her that there would be no fish on the table, or anything containing it, because she was all too aware of how obsessed werewolves tended to be with fish, and with every eye in that room trained on her as the new supreme Luna, she wouldn’t be able to quietly decline it without drawing attention.
The last person, apart from her sister and herself, she had ever watched react badly to fish had been killed, slaughtered like a goat right before her eyes in Nightshade...
Viola had thought she and Zoe would make it to the hall without incident, but a commotion just outside the elevator they had taken stopped her short.
She frowned at the scene, Laila and two other she-wolves stood in a loose circle around someone who was being forced down to her knees on the floor. And when Viola looked more closely, her eyes, which seemed to have sharpened considerably in their clarity since this morning, picked out the curtain of dark hair hanging around the kneeling figure’s face. Sofia.
"Laila is at it again, bullying someone who can’t fight back!" Zoe gritted out in annoyance under her breath. Couldn’t she ever pick on someone her own size?! Ever since Zoe had known this shewolf, she was always hitting or bullying a helpless person.
Viola’s blue eyes flared immediately and without wasting another second she walked straight toward them, and as she drew closer she heard Laila’s angry voice saying, "Lick it the fuck up before I choke you with it!"
"What is going on here?" Viola questioned the moment she reached them, a deep frown set hard on her face as her eyes swept down to Sofia, who was trembling on the floor beside what appeared to be a patch of vomit, some of it smeared across the toe of Laila’s shoe.
"Oh, look who it is. Our new supreme Luna." Laila said with a slow sneer, keeping her back straight and making absolutely no move to bow, as any she-wolf of lower standing before a Luna was expected to do. As far as Laila was concerned, this wolfless woman could never be her Luna. And being wolfless, she couldn’t force a submission from any werewolf.
"You heard her, Miss Serrano," Zoe remarked coolly. "The supreme Luna is asking what is happening here. Why are you bullying Sofia again?"
Zoe had never liked Laila and her towering arrogance, and she doubted she ever would. She was more grateful by the day that her brother hadn’t married her. Imagining herself being a sister-in-law with someone who was far worst than the late Evangeline sent a shiver to her spine.
Laila’s eyes narrowed to thin slits as they landed on the girl she had once hoped would become her sister-in-law. This little spoiled brat! 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
"If the supreme Luna isn’t blind, isn’t it obvious what is happening? Or are the lenses in her eyes not functioning correctly? This bitch threw up on my expensive shoe and is refusing to clean it up. That is what is happening, and if she doesn’t lick it clean, she will be buying me a brand new pair."
The truth of it, however, was that Sofia hadn’t refused at all. She had immediately begun trying to clean it with the fabric of her mismatched, multicolored skirt, but Laila had kicked her in the face and seized her by the hair, demanding she clean it with her tongue instead.
Sofia would have done it without hesitation if she hadn’t felt so deeply ill. She had cleaned far worse things than her own vomit with her tongue before now, this would have been nothing new.
Viola’s gaze swept down to Sofia, shaking against the floor as though freezing from the inside out, and then back up to Laila. Had it been her past self, she would have turned a blind eye to another woman’s suffering for as long as it didn’t directly concern her, but not anymore. Any small injustice, any suffering she witnessed in others, hit her far too personally to ignore. It reminded her too much of the days she had spent wishing someone would be brave enough to stand up for her.
Seeing Sofia in that state made something harden in Viola’s eyes, and without a moment of hesitation she stepped forward, gripped Sofia’s cold wrist, and pulled her firmly up to her feet.
The weak she-wolf swayed badly, but Viola caught her before she could fall and drew her in against her body to keep her steady.
"Are you not ashamed of yourself, Miss Serrano, bullying a helpless woman who is clearly unwell?" Viola said through gritted teeth. Couldn’t these werewolves go a single day without tormenting the ones beneath them? How could anyone bring themselves to hurt someone as broken and defenseless as Sofia?
Laila’s expression turned ugly and hard at Viola’s words. "Watch your tone with me, bitch. You are not my Luna and you will not speak to me that way, or Sebastian will hear every word of this." She warned, her chin lifting with clear superiority.
She couldn’t lay a hand on the so-called supreme Luna directly, not here, not in front of witnesses, but her mate absolutely could and would if she complained to him. "I can easily have the supreme Alpha deal with you personally. Do not push me further than I am already pushed, wolfless. Get on your way and let me deal with that thing the way I see fit."
