When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 145

Chapter 145

Chapter 145

Luna Demetra.

“She’s known as Cassie.”

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“Cassie,” I repeat, less as a question and more as something to do with my mouth while I take in the auditorium around us.

“Yeah, don’t forget that-”

“Lolly.” I throw her a look over my shoulder. “You signed me up for an art competition on the same week my mate is about to fight for his life in a contest the entire world is watching. Forgive me if the other contestant’s name isn’t my top priority right now.”

She purses her lips and says nothing, which is the Lolly equivalent of acknowledging she’s heard me, and then immediately reaches up to adjust the ribbon in my hair like the conversation didn’t happen.

The auditorium is filling up. Wolves from all over the country, apparently… this is the annual Arts Competition, something that has run every year without my knowledge because I spent the last several years in Paris being blissfully unaware of pack events I wasn’t required to attend. Lolly has been talking about it since we relocated here. Good for publicity, she said. Especially after the face reveal.

The timing is terrible. I know that. She knows that. But it won’t come again, and it’s not like Emris has been home.

I don’t even know what he’s been doing. I don’t know what’s going on in his head about the fight, about the preparation, about any of it. I told myself I would give him space and I meant it when I said it and I still mean it now, technically, but meaning it and being okay with it are apparently two completely different things that I confused for the same one.

What bothers me most…..and I mean most, above everything else is that he’s been talking to Slade. About his issues, about whatever is happening with him, about things he clearly doesn’t feel the need to bring to me. I don’t want to have to ask him to involve me.

He should just…know. Isn’t that the point?

After the contest is over, the kids are going to be back in the house. And… I guess I just feel is heartbroken because I wanted Emris to be here. I wanted Amira and Milo to be here too, right now, watching me create something beautiful. But it would be asking for too much with all that’s happening. Even right now, I just want to wrap this up and get back to the pack.

“Metra, you’re up. Shall we do a quick introduction to Cassie?”

“She doesn’t need an introduction to anyone-”

“Lolly.” I look at her.

“She’s Metra. She’s not some back–alley artist who needs to be doing meet–and–greets before the timer starts. If Cassie wants an introduction, she can come to the autograph signing afterward like everyone.”

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Chapter 145

“It’s not a problem,” I say to the producer, who looks stressed already. “I’m happy to meet her.”

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He nods and disappears toward the back. Lolly focuses on my hair again even when the stylist has already done her part.

“The reason I don’t want you to be on friendly terms with Cassie is because she has a record of bullying artists. And I don’t want her to give you anxiety more than you already have.”

“I’ve handled worse.” I say.

The producer comes back, and there’s a woman behind him.

Blonde hair with auburn roots growing through at the crown, a kind of two–tone that’s either a deliberate aesthetic choice or a scheduling failure. She’s chewing gum when they walk up to me, jaw working side to side.

Yeah. I think I’ve met many like her back in high school. And I’m just going to take whatever rudeness she gives me as a foreshadowing of how it’s going to be when I get to the Wolf Arts Camp. Mean girls don’t scare me anymore. I used to scrub floors while they walked over them.

“This is” the producer starts.

“I don’t care who she is, Tom.” Cassie doesn’t look at him when she says it. She’s looking at me. “All I know is I’m going to squish her under my foot by the time I’m done.”

“No you’re not!” Lolly says.

“Why is the assistant talking!?”

Cassie yells, so loud that everyone looks toward us. I see why Lolly didn’t want Tom to even introduce us. Now, my head is itching cause I already have a lot on my plate.

“You know what, Tom…take this dog back to wherever you brought her from.”

“Excuse me-”

“Yes. Excuse you.” I walk away and let my hair swing into her space as I go.

The auditorium lights are already dimming toward the spotlight configuration, narrowing the visible world down to the judging panel and the two competing posts. Lolly’s briefing from this morning runs through my head on a loop: three judges, majority vote wins, forty minutes on the clock.

I see Cassie when she brusquely comes to her post and glares at me!

At my post, I look at what I have…. palette, brushes arranged by size. Quickly, I try to think of what I can draw. Then I look up at the judges‘ table and what I see makes my fingers close around the nearest brush so hard I feel the handle flex.

Lake, sitting at the judges‘ table! Staring back at me. His violet eyes fixed on me…is he… is he stalking me!? Is he stalking me!?

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Chapter 145

He’s staring at me like he doesn’t know that he’s my pack’s enemy!

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Shouldn’t he be training? Shouldn’t he be at home, strategising, doing whatever it is that people do when they’ve called war on an Alpha and the clock is running? What is he doing at an art competition? What is he doing here!?

“Demetra?”

Lolly says my name. The timer hasn’t started yet but it’s close, the numbers on the display bleeding down toward zero, and I have approximately no time to still be thinking about Lake.

Except I look up at him one more time.

He’s leaned back in his chair at the judges‘ table, one leg crossed over the other, completely at ease as he watches me. He wants me to be nervous. No.

Absolutely not! He won’t get to see me nervous! He’s the one who ran away from Emris like a bloody coward. So, there’s no way I’m going to allow him to look at me like that.

All of a sudden, it clicks to me exactly what I should be drawing.

Him. Running away like a coward from Emris.

The last of the nerves walks away from my veins the moment I have that image in my head. I put it to paper.

I pick up my brush and dip it into the deep blues…midnight shades. I mix in black, so much black that it swallows the light. I dab my brush against the palette, testing the thickness, and then I put it to the canvas.

The first stroke is the darkness of the woods at night. I sweep the brush in long, vertical strokes…then I add the moonlight. I remember every detail without trying to. The width of his shoulders. The way the muscle groups stack across his back and arms, the specific geometry of his body beyond ordinary strength.

I remember exactly how scary Emris looked. I remember his eyes….those serpent slits…so I put it on the canvas. Every slab of muscle on his body, the way his shoulders blocked out the stars and my wolf submitted to the order of what he is.

And then I paint Lake.

I don’t give him his full form. That would be too generous. I paint him from the waist down…just legs and between those legs. I paint a tail between its legs, running with him.

My wrist is burning by the time I reach the final details to sharpen the moonlight.

The auditorium’s air conditioning is working as hard as it can but I am sweating anyway.

I check the screen: four minutes and I add roots, breaking through the soil at Emris’s feet!

“Competitors, please step away from your canvases and return to your standing poles.”

I set the brush down and then I turn to Lolly, who is already there with a glass of water extended toward me. I drink the whole thing in one go, and somewhere behind me I hear the crowd react as the canvases are turned

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Chapter 145

to face the judges.

wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

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Cassie is wiping her hands casually, like she’s sure that she’s won this but something in the last few seconds has changed. She looks at the screens that are showing both paintings side by side, a real–time comparison that the whole auditorium can read. She’s looking at mine and her face turns to spoilt milk-

“Now she knows not to mess with you. Look at her face!” Lolly chuckles.

The judges descend from the high seats and move toward the canvases, taking their time, doing the thing judges do. They tilt their heads as if the angle will tell them something the front view hasn’t. The first two spend longer in front of mine. Lake studies it for a long moment.

Then lifts his eyes and looks straight at me.

There is the smallest suggestion of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

Idiot.

I check my phone while the judges talk. The Wolf Arts Camp application went live last night and I filled it out at 2am. The registration letter is supposed to arrive in the mail today today.

I also need to get to it before Emris does because I have no idea what his schedule looks like anymore and the last thing I need is him finding that envelope before I’ve had the chance to explain it in the right order and in the right words on a day when he’s capable of hearing them.

“The judges have reached their decision.” The host’s voice fills the auditorium and the crowd settles. “We’ll now reveal the votes. For the art competition between Metra and Cassie…”

I fold my arms and watch.

The first judge lifts her scored paddle and her vote is for me.

The room shakes with clapping and I feel Cassie’s eyes on the side of my face.

The second judge lifts her paddle too and it’s…my name again!

Which means….. mathematically, regardless of what Lake’s paddle says. I have won. Two out of three. It’s done.

“And the final vote, from Professor Lake is-”

I stop.

Professor? I squint at the host without meaning to. Why did he call Lake a professor? Professor of what, exactly?

Compulsion and general chaos?

Lake lifts his paddle and it’s my name.

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15:55 Tue, May 19

Chapter 145

The auditorium comes apart at the seams and Lolly grabs my arm with both hands and shakes me.

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