Being the princess of all werewolves is not easy, but finding a mate is harder. Annabeth's royal life is turned upside down when she meets her mate, Kate.
Soon, she finds herself stuck between two choices: her duties to her family, and her love for...
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I delve through the crowd. Sweat and smoke are hanging in the air and the stench of cheap liquor burns in my nose. I glance at my phone, see it's almost half past eleven, and flicker through my messages to reread what Sonja sent me: A lot of cocktail, beer, and cosmopolitan emojis, the emote with the head of a brown-haired girl, and two short words: too chatty.
I sigh and slide my phone back into my back pocket, it's not going to help me find them here. Sonja hasn't responded to my messages since I left home. I shake yet another hand to a faceless person telling them 'It's good to see them too' before excusing me in the politest way possible – by asking where the drinks are – to get away.
Craning my neck, I lift myself and tiptoe a bit around, spinning and whirling while I look for Kate, Sonja, or anyone who could tell me where they are. As I turn on the spot again, I feel something unpleasantly hard jabbing into my back, and I almost lose balance as I bump into someone and have to bite back a curse.
An unfamiliar blond girl hisses "Watch it, bi-" at me but swallows the last syllables. Her eyes widen as I just raise my eyebrows at her questioningly.
"Sorry," I say, giving her a wide smile and her upper arm a gentle pat, "You okay?"
"I- Your Highness," she shrieks, panic oozing out of every pore, "I didn't- I didn't mean to!"
"It's okay, don't worry," I say and wave her off, "Oh, but you can maybe help me find a friend." I wait for her nod and start describing Kate, but she doesn't even have to shake her head to tell me she's never seen her before, the blank look in her eyes tells me everything.
She always stands out for me, so I am a tad confused why the nameless blonde is so clueless as to whom I am looking for. The gleam in Kate's eyes whenever she looks at me, the way she moves, the little crease between her eyebrows when she's thinking very hard about something, or how she completely unconsciously spreads her little finger while drinking sometimes. But for many, she is almost invisible. Admittedly, I am quite grateful for that from time to time. I'm not blind nor stupid, I know that if I wasn't around her all the time, she would get a lot more attention. But I don't know how I would react if someone was to ask her out. Okay, that is a lie. I know exactly what I would do. I'd put up a brave face and still be cranky about it. Nora on the other hand...
I snap back into focus as I catch a whiff of Kate's scent, it's faint but there. I don't want to lose track but on the other hand, I can't just dash around like an impatient Karen on Black Friday.
"And this," Kate seems to conclude, and by the look of her audience, they are happy she is wrapping up whatever topic she is talking about. "This is the reason why ADHD and AHDS are the most confusing abbreviations I had to learn." She is met with silence and Kate stares at them expectantly as if she just taught toddlers to say the word 'mama' and is waiting for them to say it again.
"That is funny because?" Charlie asks.
He has his arm wrapped around one of the girls standing in this little group. Aside from Kate, Charlie and Sonja, I see four other girls and if I'd think hard enough, I'd be able to remember their names.
