#Chapter 31 Guard Dog

It feels like forever before the fight ends in the once crowded bar. Everyone has since filtered out, interested in facing the furious Alpha and his damningly large wolf. The rogue is cut loose from Herold’s ferocity after a minute goes by, Celine kneeling beside me as I painstakingly pick the tiny shards of glass from my hands and knees.
“Not what I had in mind tonight,” Celine says, chewing her lower lip nervously. Her gaze focuses to Alpha Herold, watching him shift back into mortal form without a scratch to bare from his scuffle. “Thank you so mu—”
“Don’t thank him,” I growl, brushing away the few trails of blood that line my exterior. “This is Alpha Herold.”
Her once light and thankful features turn sour. “Oh.”
Herold, although exasperated and breathy, manages to spit, “you really can’t give me any credit, Queen Luna? I just saved you from that obnoxious drunk.”
Also got me killed, jerk. I hiss at my wolf as she harps on her negative feelings of the Alpha. I hate him too, but I suppose I can’t hate him as much, in this moment, because he did jump in to save me. Although, that doesn’t explain why he was here in the first place.
“You were following me, weren’t you?”
Alpha Herold looks aside. “I caught your smell while I was in town. That’s all.”
“Such a liar,” I grunt.
Celine helps me stand at last, her doe-eyes pointed out the front windows at the crowd dispersing from this reckless fight. “Um, we have a new problem here.”
I follow her gaze, a familiar black car screeching to a stop outside the club, it’s front wheel piling onto the sidewalk but it doesn’t move or adjust. Instead, Gabriel pulls himself violently from the backseat, pushing through the crowd while a few rogues scamper off, too afraid of the King Alpha’s ferocity.
“My dear,” Gabriel says, less kind in this particular tone. His focus doesn’t stay on me though, not even on Celine who bows her head in meek submission. He turns to Herold, my husband’s fist clenching tight at his sides. “Why is it everywhere I look, there you are, somewhere in the proximity of my mate?”
“She was being harassed, and I stepped in,” Herold says casually.
“I didn’t know girl’s night included Herold Opal,” Gabriel hums, shooting a dagger of a look toward me. I only offer a shrug. I had no stake in this happening, let alone, would I want Herold to even be on the Royal pack ground, let alone naked after a fight in this club. “Girls, go get in my car. Now.”
Celine scurries off, my husband stopping me with his hand gently brushing my elbow. Gabriel looks carefully down the length of my arm, my head spinning. Something about his gaze is so caring and demure in this moment, I can just tell he wants to tend to these wounds and mend them himself, but he is far too distracted with Herold being here.
“I’ll be with you soon,” Gabriel hums. “To the car, my dear.”
I abide, exhausted and bleeding. I just want to be in the car, hidden from the photographers that will probably crawl out of their allies and caves any moment now to spin another stupid story. I can’t handle another one.
I sink into the backseat of Gabriel’s car, feeling defeated.
“He seems so attentive to you now,” Celine whispers, filling in the space beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. “He cares for you, Olivia.”
I cringe at the mention of my real name. “No one cares for Olivia,” I mutter.
“I do,” she replies.
I only wave off her claim. No one loved me in Olivia’s shell of a body, so why should I accept that they care for me now? In Celine’s defense, she hadn’t known me before the swap. But Gabriel? Herold?
The audacity they have to act like I’m someone they care for, knowing that Alpha Herold threw divorce papers at me and Gabriel was ready to do the same, until something changed. I won’t understand it so I try not to stress over it.
“If he doesn’t come out, I’m walking home,” I say begrudgingly, watching Gabriel and Alpha Herold talk amongst themselves in the bar, seeming peaceful with one another. “I hate that Alpha,” I groan. “Wish he wouldn’t have shown up tonight.”
“You do realize that without him, you couldn’t been seriously hurt?”
I ignore her words. I won’t give Herold the dignity of protecting me.
At last, Gabriel returns. I settle into the middle of the backseat, Celine resting her temple on my shoulder while Gabriel rests a hand on my knee. I would dare to brush his hand aside but I know he would only replace it there. He is stubborn, especially after seeing Herold.
It’s a long, painstakingly silent drive back to the palace. Celine is given a room by the maids, being escorted away as though to force us apart for the night. I give her a lasting look for now. We both know our hiatus on fun will return tonight. I’m not done being a normal, happy woman for the night.
Gabriel drags me upstairs, into our bedroom, where he meticulously works at my cuts and the little bit of glass still in my scraped knees. I sit up on the bathroom counter, my false husband so focused on my wounds, careful not to hurt me further, that it feels so unfamiliar to me. He is angry, but he isn’t letting that loose on me.
“I want to go be with Celine tonight,” I hum.
He nods, his lips pressing inward in a knowing grimace. “I assumed so, my dear.”
“I didn’t know Alpha Herold would be there tonight.” I don’t know why I feel the need to justify tonight’s actions, but I do so anyways. “He just showed up.”
“I spoke to him about it already,” he replies, “he is just dying to be your martyr.”
I shake my head, baffled by Herold’s inconsistency on being my protector. I stare down my wounds, the new bandages, and Gabriel helps me off the counter for now. In a silent exchange, his hand brushes my back hip, setting me on the floor and daring to press up against my chest for a brief moment.
“Goodnight, my dear,” he says in a sullen tone.
I at last escape to Celine’s room for the night, her bedside table already sporting two glasses of champagne. I settle in on the edge of her bed, the two of toasting to this disaster of a night. It’s been difficult, sure, but my mind is stuck on Gabriel.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enough his tenderness but I can’t let it escalate past that. If Herold had been so kind and gentle to me, I would have still passed away in six months, but I could have been a little more at peace with that passing.
Celine and I drink those thoughts away once and for all, speculating the future of my role in this pack, and taunting the idea of justifying the past. The witch that did this to me, that caused the creation of my new life, hasn’t had her day of reckoning yet.
It’s coming.