Chapter 273: Breakfast and Buttered Rumours

Chapter 272: Breakfast and Buttered Rumours

The dining hall was full as always in the mornings—more crowded now because the wind had turned colder and people wanted the warmth of each other’s company more than their privacy.

And what better way to keep up with the latest events happening in the pack than at the dining hall where almost everyone frequented?

The delicious smell of soup, meat, porridge and fresh baked bread, among other things, filled the air along with the conversations.

"Did you hear?" someone asked the people gathered at the table where he sat.

"Hear what?" someone from another table beside the man asked.

"About the Alpha," the man replied.

"He stayed through the night," one woman said, spoon halted halfway to her mouth. Her neighbor, a gray-haired man with a scar at the temple, turned a scoop of porridge and leaned in.

"Who? Orion?" the man asked and half the table looked up, paying attention to the conversation now.

"The healers said he should take a bed," another voice supplied from across the hall as people started trading pieces of the same news, "but he refused. He slept in a chair beside her instead, refusing to leave."

"I heard even before then that he speaks to her quietly."

"And he called her shorty," a young apprentice piped up, his eyes shining at the detail. "I heard it’s his nickname for her, and his eyes go soft when he calls her that."

At a far table, some other group argued about facts regarding the conversation now flowing through the pack.

"It’s weakness," a broad-shouldered man said, slamming his hands on the table.

"Hey!" Cook called out loudly from the kitchens. "If you break any of the bench, then you’ll pay for it."

"Sorry, Cook," the man said, but then turned to his companions. "An Alpha needs to be stern and hard. Why would he sit on a chair and even fall asleep in that said chair, refusing to leave her side? That’s weakness."

His friend rolled his eyes, waving him off. "Or it’s devotion. He’s protecting his own. You’d be hard-pressed to tell which is which until it’s needed."

"I support you, Maxwell," another person spoke up. "An Alpha should not be weak."

Stories were what the dining hall did best. They kneaded a single fact and stretched it into every shape people wanted. Some shaped it tenderly; some sharpened it into a spear.

On a bench near the windows, an older woman—one of those who always kept an eye on the pack’s comings and goings—sat talking to two younger mothers, their children tucked at their feet.

"Listen," she said, folding a cloth over a small loaf, "he stayed for her because she saved a life. Brynhild’s baby. He knows what she did, and he repaid it by staying up. That’s an Alpha through and through."

"And she works in the library," the younger mother added, nodding. "Reads like there’s no tomorrow. If she’s clever—if she knows things—then she’s a fine match for the Alpha. And we need someone smart as his partner after all, don’t you think?"

Nearby, an older man sipped at his tea with a less indulgent expression.

"Still," he muttered, to no one in particular, "an Alpha’s mate must know pack ways. There’s more to this than saving a child. There are rituals, the law, the way of courts. We can’t have an Alpha distracted by novelty." He let the words hang, heavy with caution.

Those listeners who liked drama pushed another detail into the weave. "You remember the festival, yes?" a flashy trainee asked, sweeping a hand. "He kept looking at her—couldn’t take his eyes off her while they danced. That’s the beginning of it. People don’t look like that unless..."

"Unless they’re dating," said someone behind them, and two apprentices at once widened their eyes as if they’d uncovered treasure.

"He dated Holly before," a woman near the hearth reminded the nearest bench. "That relationship didn’t stick, but it shows he can be...taken by someone. Why should he choose a stranger from the library?"

"Because he wanted to," a boy countered, more blunt than polite. "Maybe he’s tired of the same type. People change."

At another table sat some healers who pieced everything together and possibly started this conversation in the first place.

"But shouldn’t he be with Holly? Personally, I think they belong with each other," an apprentice said.

"Belong my ass. If anything, I think he looks better with Sophia. I always knew there was something special between them from the first moment he laid his eyes on her," the other replied.

"And Dashen told me that he basically barked at him to get a blanket for Sophia that night when she walked into the medical facility with water dripping down her body. Alpha Orion doesn’t even speak like that," another added.

"But still, Holly knows the things about the pack. Sophia is basically a stranger."

A man walking by with a drumstick in his hand hit the last person on the head with his free hand.

"A stranger? She’s been here for months already. She is no stranger to us."

"She’s clumsy," someone from a nearby table spoke up. "Did you forget what she did when she was trying to help during the festival? She set the forge on fire!"

"So?"

"What do you mean, so? She is not fit to lead us. She is not fit to be next to Alpha Orion. She does not belong with him!"

"Says who?!" the man with the drumstick asked in anger. "The fact that she is even working in the library should tell you how smart she is — and she’s polite and respectful too."

"True!" someone from the far end of the dining hall added. "The rest of you are just trying to make it seem like she doesn’t deserve him. I tell you, everyone deserves someone and from what I’ve seen, she deserves him. They deserve each other."

While the argument escalated in the dining hall, outside at the training grounds, the conversation flowed too. The news about Orion and Sophia spread freely with the same mixed reactions from people, but there were some who were shocked.

Micah and Dren — but Micah was more shocked because his chances with Sophia had been crushed before it could even begin. Now he understood why Orion had glared at him when they went to the medical facility.