When We Were Mates (Demetra and Emris) novel Chapter 195

195

Laura Hale.

De… Demetra is a White… Omega?

And what did that woman just say? The Luna of the Black Covenant Pack? There’s no way. There’s no way on earth. There’s no way in hell that-

She has white hair.

Complete and undiagnosed anger rises under my skin the way it does for a damn hybrid as I stare at her. That hair. That white hair. The same white hair I’ve seen on opportunists and social climbers and women who use their rarity as a weapon.

“Um, can you all come with me…” Someone is speaking. The Alpha’s Beta, if I’m guessing. “Summer, transport the refreshments to the larger hall so they can help themselves.”

I look between Demetra and Emris again.

It takes me back to that night. The night I was sure that I heard noises coming from Emris’s lodge. The moaning. The begging from Emris himself. I told myself it couldn’t be her. Alpha Emris was a very mature individual. There was no way he would be fucking a girl much younger than him like that.

It wasn’t just the age factor. It was the power factor too. Trybrids have higher libidos. Omegas would never at any point satisfy them. I know that being a trybrid. I’ve tried. I’ve tested. The energy doesn’t match. The hunger doesn’t align either.

Demetra may be infinitely beautiful to the point where even a she–wolf will take a look at her twice, I will not pretend otherwise but she never fit the profile of what I would expect him to choose. She didn’t carry the weight of it in the ways I was looking for.

But standing here right now watching her beside him I can see something I missed. She fits him in a way that has nothing to do with what I was measuring. I can’t help but see how perfect they look together.

She’s small…very different in height but regal looking with that white hair. Her posture is straight. Her chin is lifted. She doesn’t look like someone playing dress–up. She looks like she belongs here as Luna.

I also believed at Wolf Arts that she knew she was curvy and used it to her advantage. Like in the swim arts class…where she was wearing the same uniform as everyone else, but it was making the male wolves look at her over and over again. It was being a distraction. If Honey weren’t present in the room, I would have asked her to go back and change into something else.

So she’s a Luna?

Playing student?

Is that why Emris came as a professor? I was always wondering why someone as busy as him would leave his pack and territory for the sake of pack touring.

“You…If you’re a Luna, does that mean you’re-”

“I’m married to Alpha Emris.”

Demetra says to me and it stabs me in the chest like I didn’t already hear it. Hearing her say it out loud, in front of me, with her white hair makes it look real. At this point, the doctors are already leaving the sitting area, led away by butlers, Deltas and that woman named Summer. It’s primarily just me and Travis now.

I already made up my mind that I was going to take time off from Wolf Arts to do something else. Primarily for the pack. All my life, I’ve always wanted to run away from my own pack because I just never felt I really belonged.

It’s a really complicated family history.

Travis and I are half–siblings. The current she–wolf married to our father is a White Omega…nothing but an opportunist, a complete narcissistic nut job who wants to be a mother so badly it’s pathetic. Seeing Emris in

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Wolf Arts finally gave me a chance to step away from all of it. I thought I saw a fresh start. A new city. A

breath of fresh air. And maybe…stealing glances at the wolf I had a huge crush on and pretended I cared about reading more.

“I’ll talk to Travis.” Demetra faces Emris.

I intercept.

“You put on a wig and you fooled the students at Wolf Arts.”

“The students at Wolf Arts were free to search who Demetra was at any point. Google is free. They chose not to. I don’t call it deception. The luna was protecting her identity.” The older woman speaks without looking at me directly.

I squint in confusion. Cause who the hell is she?

“This is my mother. Derisha. She was the one who reached out to your father to arrange this medical alliance.” Emris says.

“A pleasure to meet you, Derisha Covenant.” I say but the woman doesn’t say anything back to me.

Charming.

“Can we talk now?” Travis taps his foot impatiently.

I see the way Emris looks at him…it’s jealous possessive. I wanted to believe that the marriage between him and Demetra was some pack alliance. Something political and temporary that I could eventually work my way

around.

“You can talk here. It’s nothing important you wanna say that we can’t all hear.”

Demetra looks at Emris like she’s upset with him.

Then I look at her feet and its Rabbit fuzzy slippers!

She’s wearing rabbit fuzzy slippers with a butter yellow summer dress. That means she lives in this pack house. She isn’t just a Luna of convenience…someone brought out for ceremonies and photos and then tucked away in a separate wing.

I’m calculating everything, and it’s still not adding up. I can’t just accept that her and Emris have a stable relationship. It doesn’t fit. It doesn’t make sense. He’s a trybrid. She’s an Omega…white or purple, it doesn’t matter. The math is wrong.

“Travis.” Demetra touches his arm. “I’m sorry for not telling you about any of this. I-”

“No Luna of mine is gonna be apologizing.” Emris cuts her off.

She rolls her eyes at him again!

“Can you just let me-” She exhales. “Travis, this way, please.”

I watch Demetra lead him away.

“You wanna sit?”

“No, Alpha Emris.” I keep standing. “Help me understand this, when you came to the expulsion hearing-”

“I came because I heard my Luna was getting expelled. I wasn’t there as her guardian. I was there as her husband. And mate.”

Mate.

Not a chosen. Not an arranged. Mate.

“MATE!?”

A trybrid doesn’t just have a mate. A trybrid has a true mate. The one person in the entire universe whose blood calls to yours, whose scent makes your wolf go quiet, whose very existence justifies all the chaos and violence and hunger.

Demetra is that to him.

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“Granted, It’s information that should have been known. But I didn’t hide it. No one asked if she was my mate.”

I blink. It’s the only thing I can do when all I have is shatters in my head. Pieces of every interaction, every glance, every moment I watched them together… rearranges themselves into a picture I refuse to see.

“I see.” I breathe.

“You are the representative?”

“Y–yes.”

“That’s a lot of routine work. You sure Crestville doesn’t wanna send someone else? You’re gonna have to come in and out of the pack house to submit accounts. Summary. Give us a list of-”

“I know.” I say it quickly, sharply, to mask the way my face is hurting. “You are?”

“Oh, I’m Silver. Emris’s Beta and brother.”

I stare at Emris.

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