Page 56 of Knot Quite Ready

He shoots me a dark look before he clears his throat, “This would be a good time to adjourn to the dining hall.”

“If you could all, please make your way out to the dining hall,” a small voice announces as a server pops in out of nowhere.

We follow Houdini as he directs us to a ridiculously large table which I’m sure he stole from the Hogwarts Dining Room. If I had Filtch’s number, I would text him immediately.

As we settle into our seats, my brows furrow at the sight of an empty place at the table next to my Grandfather’s seat.

“Sorry for the delay. We’re just waiting for a VIP guest to arrive. She’s positively…bewitching.” My grandfather grins at me.

I roll my eyes in response. Yes, yes. You have a nefarious double agent on your team, and you think you’re being coy by dropping hidden hints. Too bad I already know. In the distance, a sharp staccato rhythm makes my eye twitch, and when the owner of the annoying heels round the door, I grin.

Gotcha bitch.

ChapterThirty

Aneira

“So sorry I’m late. Got caught up with a certain hairy situation,” Kathleen says as she enters the room.

“Not too late at all. I was merely toasting family. Now that’s done, we can commence with the dinner,” my grandfather smiles.

She places her manicured hand over his arm and pushes her fake tits into his face. “Oh, I love a good toast; after all, family is the most important thing, isn’t it?” She kisses him on the lips and tips me a wink when she catches me staring and wipes off the crimson lip stain marking his mouth.

Gross.Conniving, witchy little turn-coat, cougar hunting, shifter groupie.

“While dinner is being brought out, can we please discuss why I am here? You went through all this trouble to get me here so it would be nice to have the full picture.” What I really want to say is, get the fuck on with whatever bad guy speech you’re going to give.

“Do we have to discuss family drama at dinners? I find it so tacky,” Kathleen whines, her nose wrinkling with distaste. I’m sure she thought she looked adorable, but, in fact, it looked like she had a severe case of sinusitis.

“Not as tacky as being a shitty double agent, but alas, here we are,” I reply with a song.

“Aneira. Enough.” Grandfather uses his alpha bark, but I am a Luna, and he is not Harailt. So he can stuff it.

“Kathleen is a guest, and you will treat her with the respect she deserves,” he adds.

My eyes narrow. I don’t think he actually picked up on what I said. Either that, or he doesn’t want to ruin his version of the big dramatic reveal about why she is here. Like a cheesy sitcom, I feel it percolating.

“What do you say?” he presses me, glaring at me intensely.

“Apologies, Grandfather.” Those words tasted like ash but… small sacrifices.

If you’re a good girl, I’ll let you take my knot tonight.Casimir whispers through my head, and I suppress the pang of lust that shoots through me.

If you keep on, they will think I have a weird apologetic kink.He laughs in response.

“Right. We can get it over with. I’ve waited long enough for you to hear it after your little temper tantrum and waltzing off,” my grandfather says as I tune back in.

I swallow my pride just to say the next words, but they are so necessary to get him to speak. “I’m ready to hear the story, Grandfather.”

Yes, give me all your misgivings on a platter.

“I knew you would see sense.” He leans back in his chair and drums his fingers on the table. “Right. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?” He nods to my mum, who still has her head cast down at the table. “I never wanted a daughter. In my opinion, bitches cause excessive drama, and I’ve yet to be proven wrong.” Kathleen huffs a laugh as she picks up a bottle of wine and pours a large amount into the glass.

He takes a sip of his whisky and casts a disapproving eye over my mum. “I thought when she was older, she would prove herself a little more useful and mate to a prominent alpha of another pack. That way, we could grow our pack. Stronger, more numbers.”

“We arranged the day, and the Council was due to arrive that morning. But then something happened. My little bitch of a daughter decided to run away. Then? If that’s not bad enough, after fifteen years of searching, we find her mated to her fated mate and pregnant. Now, the mate bond? We had a way around it. But the pregnancy? Rendered her useless for a political alliance.” He shakes his head in disgust. “My own daughter decided that love was greater than her duty to the pack. Pathetic.”

“Still, I allowed her back into the pack. Let her keep her pregnancy. But we got rid of that mate bond.” He chuckles the last.

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