Adele's eyes were now burning with determination instead of tears.
"But what do I do, Mama?" she asked her mother in the photograph. "How do I fight?"
Suddenly, Lyra's voice echoed in her memory: "She isn't even socially astute enough to find a mate the way ordinary she-wolves do." With that thought she clutched her hands into fist holding the sheets.
"Ordinary she-wolves....." she repeated. "She-wolves who don't have fated mates but find partners anyway. Through... through courtship." Her breath quickened and she rose from the bed.
"That's it. That's how I can fight. If the Moon Goddess won't give me a mate, then I'll find one myself. Once I get marked everything will be alright."
She starts to pace in her room.
"Finding eligible wolves… where?" she murmured. "Social events can help." Her voice faltered. "But nobody invites me."
Her thoughts raced on anyway.
"Lyra attends them all the time. Balls, galas, formal teas, coffee meetings with affluent people. If I could attend too, if I could meet eligible wolves, then I could show Father that I'm not completely useless...I-I am sure, he will look at me kindly then."
Just thinking about it made her happy, but she stopped abruptly.
"But I don't... I don't know anyone. I barely leave the castle. And even if I did, who would want...." She shook her head sharply. "No. No, stop thinking like that, Adele! Take small steps. Firstly, I don't have an invitation….. so where do I get one?"
Despite the modern world's miracle of technology, the elites especially royal families still prefer old protocols. Invitations are issued only in physical form, sealed, vetted by the royal office, and formally delivered to their intended recipients, except the ruling alpha's.
Unfortunately for Adele, her name rarely appears on those lists. On top of it all, she is deemed too ill to attend, or simply too irrelevant to be considered. It is an unsaid rule that social gatherings are never meant for her.
"My email!" Her eyes widened, she spun around toward her desk looking around in search of her phone that lay forgotten since last night. Her hands fumbled with the phone, and she popped herself again on the bed before tapping on the server.
Sometimes, digital invitations were sent as well usually as double checks, for late notices, or in case of emergencies.
"What was the password?" she murmured before remembering it was Lyra's birthday. They both were given official email accounts when Lyra turned ten, and she set it as her password remembering that day.
Her eyes skimmed over the emails she has received, and she frowned. Most of them were spams, advertisement and automated notices.
Adele pressed her lips onto a line and typed 'invi-' on her search bar. She was right, there were invitations, albeit not sent specifically to her but to the royals. But all of them were expired, except one.
She opens it and begins to read its contents.
Adele blinked while looking at the date and time on the ticket, and then the time on her phone.
"Tonight at midnight? Oh my, it's already 8:45."
"I need to get ready. I need to—" She looked down at herself still in the simple dress from the ceremony yesterday, which had wrinkled. "I need a bath first." Panic and determination warred in her chest.
It is time for me to contribute to family and to my pack.
She sets the phone down carefully on her desk and bolts to the bathroom.
---
Adele is now sitting in the backseat of a modest Honda Civic, her hands gripping the fabric of her clothes as she stares out of the tinted window. The car is parked in a dark corner of a lot, nestled between luxury vehicles that make Mr. Davison's car look like a relic.
The venue looks nothing like an elegant ballroom or hotel halls she'd imagined, yet it is a luxurious seaside estate.
It's a stand-alone modern glass-and-steel architecture gleaming over strategically placed lights, with three stories of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the dark, churning ocean. She can hear waves crashing against the cliffs below.
The massive windows, are tinted dark enough that she can't see whats inside clearly. But it looks expensive and exclusive to her.
More so, the kind of private venue where wealthy wolves hold events away from prying eyes, that Lyra had talked about so much to her. She will be able to find someone decent here, right?
She notices a couple at the entrace of the property. The woman was draped in a long, luxurious coat and the man was in fitted leather trousers, and both were holding the other intimately, hands behind each other.
Still entwined, the couple crosses the small gate and disappears into the glow of the property before getting their invitation checked by the large, heavy bouncers at the vast entrace.
Strange. They don't match the dress code at all. Perhaps they will change once inside. Maybe this is simply how social events are conducted now.
She has been isolated for so long that she barely understands how things work beyond what her innocent media search shows her.
"Princess," a gentle voice came from the driver's seat, making her jump. "Are you sure about this?"
She turns to look at Mr.Davison, the elderly wolf who has been her personal driver and her only real servant, friend, talkmate, assistant and father-figure since she was a child. His kind eyes meet her blue eyes in the rearview mirror, with concern etched in every line of his weathered face.
"Um-hmm, Uncle Davi," Adele manages, trying to sound confident. "The ticket says this address, Darkocean Villa."
Mr. Davison's frown deepened as he glanced a bit far away from the property's entrance, where a drunk couple was currently making out against the wall under the shadow of trees.
"Then let me accompany you inside, Princess. This doesn't look—"
"No!" Adele said too quickly, then softened her tone. "No, thank you, Uncle. I'm... I'm meeting my friends here. They're waiting for me, inside." It's the first real lie she's ever told him, and it tasted bitter on her tongue.
Mr. Davison's old eyebrows rose slightly. "Friends, Princess?"
"Yes. I've... I've made some friends recently....at, ummm, at the..... hospital, during my last visit." Her lies were piling up. "We decided to meet here. For a... party."
Even as she said it, she knew how absurd it sounded. But Mr. Davison's expression softened with something.
"Friends," he repeated "That's... that's wonderful, Princess. I'm very happy to hear that."
Adele's chest tightened with guilt. Then she glances at her phone screen, 12:05 AM.
"Oh! Look at the time, I-I should go!" She reached for the door handle, eager to escape before her lies became more transparent. She had never done anything like this.
"Princess, wait—you forgot this!"
Mr. Davison twists in his seat, reaching into the front passenger area. He pulls out something large and passes it to Adele.
Adele takes it with a sheepish smile before thanking her old campanion, "Thank you, Uncle Davi."
"I will wait for you here," he said firmly, his eyes meeting hers. "No matter the time. However long you need. Come back safely, and... enjoy yourself, Princess."
As she stepped out of the car, Mr.Davison mutters to himself, "First time she's asked me to drive anywhere besides the hospital and back to the castle..."
He had served the royals for forty years. He was assigned specifically to her since she was five, by the recommendation of late Luna herself. In all those seventeen years, the child had never once asked him to take her anywhere social. It was always the hospital, then always back to the castle.
As much as he was delighted that she was taking initiative, but his instincts were gnawing at him that there was something off about this place. Still, he didn't want to dampen her newfound confidence. Besides, she had said she would be with her friends. This feeling of his wasn't significant… right?
Perhaps, if her mother was still alive, the child's life would have turned out differently, if not for that unfortunate dark night.
The weight of old memories and guilt stirs in his chest, and he shifts his gaze to the princess as she makes her entrance inside the villa, vanishing from his old sight.