Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 477

Chapter 477
Stella

Even if we hadn’t met right after my family and I got back to Constantine, I’d have known my Aunt Selena from her resemblance to my mom. Not just in the shape of her face or color of her eyes, not even by her scent, which my wolf-self caught at once. Something else connected my mother’s sister to her, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Too much wine,” I said to the woman I bumped into.

She looked at the glass of amber fluid in my hand and rolled her eyes before turning back to her companion. The two of them giggled and looked sideways at me as I tried to get past.

A hot blush spread up from my chest, up my throat and into my cheeks with their unfamiliar plumpness. I blinked hard to hold back a rush of embarrassed tears.

“I didn’t mean any harm,” I said to the two of them. “It’s just so crowded in here…”

The first woman, a blonde, turned back to face me with her eyes wider than they ought to be. She let them skate over my hair, my face, down to my clothes and back again. Then she shrugged and returned to her friend.

Stung by the dismissal, I pushed past them. My beer sloshed over my hand as I got buffeted by people who were dancing, drinking, and laughing. Everything I wanted to be doing, except I wasn’t. I needed to find a place to get out from the crush of all these bodies.

I wasn’t used to being around so many people.

My heart pounded. Even in Brightsky, I hadn’t been surrounded like this. I’d been a child for most of the time I was there, though, so much smaller than everyone else. Being in a group of people who towered over you should have felt scarier than this did, but suddenly, I wanted to run out of The Silver Crescent as fast as my longer legs would take me.

Too bad for me, because I’d pushed my way to the opposite of the bar, as far away from the front doors as I could get. If I wanted to leave, I’d have to fight all the way back through that pushing, laughing, celebrating crowd. Instead, I decided to shrink back against the wall and watch everyone else having a good time.

I didn’t like the beer very much, but I took slow sips of it so I didn’t look even more like an idiot. I smiled with my new face and tried to bop along with the beat of the music. As much as I tried to look like I was waiting for someone, I could tell that I just looked…