Chapter 53
Chapter 53
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“I’ll see you there,” she said, a little less tense. “Don’t mal me wait too long.”
I watched her leave, my attention focused on nothing but her, for just a moment.
This little get-together was meant to be a do-over of sorts, way of making up for the drama that had interrupted. the last one when Ellie threw her little tantrum over the fool.
There was a much bigger celebration I should have been planning with the time I was wasting on this, but I was trying to keep up appearances. I couldn’t exactly let things stand the way they were.
When this whole thing was finally over-when the three months were up-I’d host a grand feast to celebrate the deal with the Moonstone pack. After tonight, that’s where my focus would shift.
I knew I should try to relax and enjoy myself tonight, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not with so many things up in the air and so many people I had to keep an eye on.
And that brought me back to what had been distracting me all day: Ellie.
She was supposed to be downstairs already. We should have left by now.
When I saw her earlier today, she’d been… off. Pale. She kept touching her stomach like it was bothering her.
I told myself it was nothing. She acted strangely all the time. But I was starting to wonder if she might actually be sick. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t come down yet.
Or it could be a power play, forcing me to wait around for her… but that didn’t seem as likely. She hadn’t been engaging in petty games like that lately. No, her dramatics had become more subtle. More complicated.
Something as ridiculous as faking a stomachache wouldn’t make sense.
Well, whatever her reasoning, I was tired of waiting.
I went upstairs and knocked on her bedroom door.
“Are you going to be much longer?” I demanded.
There was no immediate answer, but I heard something. I pressed my ear to the door and listened. The sound was muffled and indistinct-but it almost sounded like retching
I knocked again, more firmly. “Ellie? Are you all right in there?”
Still no response.
So I opened the door.
Ellie was walking out of the bathroom, the back of her hand pressed to her lips. She looked startled to see me, then quickly wiped her mouth.
“I’m on my way down,” she said irritably. “You didn’t need to come up here.”
“You’re taking forever. We’re going to be late,” I replied, but there was no real heat in my voice.
Her eyes looked bloodshot. Her face was pale. She had clearly just been sick.
“What’s going on with you?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she snapped.
“Well, that’s convincing.”
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Chapter 53
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“Don’t mock me.”
“You’re sick,” I said. “It’s inconvenient, but if you can’t make it through dinner tonight,
it won’t be the end of the world. I can easily make an excuse for you.”
Even as I was speaking, I could see she was about to argue. Her expression said everything.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re obviously not. Maybe I ought to have a beta take you to the hospital, just to make sure this isn’t something serious.”
“Now who’s being dramatic?” she replied coldly. “I’m fine. Let’s just go.
She stepped around me and walked out of the room.
“>
If this was another one of her games, I didn’t get it. If she was trying to make me worry, she wouldn’t be so insistent that she was fine.
Ellie just didn’t make sense. Why would she be so insistent that she wasn’t sick when it was obvious that she was. Unless…
She didn’t want me to know the cause of her illness.