Chapter 8

Claudia's POV Once again, my bag was thrown into the sink in the first-floor hall. The girls had taken extra "care" of me for the past two days, seemingly on instructions from Fiona. And I had to run downstairs to pick up my bag. When Isaac approached me, I froze, with a hint of nervousness. What I didn't expect was that he didn't even look at me and walked right past me. I wasn't expecting him to help me out. As per usual, he would fold his arms over his chest and lean against the wall watching my embarrassing scene of being bullied with a mocking but pretty smile on his face or a couple of harsh words. But today he walked straight past me like he didn't see me, not giving me a single look. By the time I had fished up everything that had fallen in the sink, the bell had rung. I hurried to the classroom, where the teacher looked at me with a disgruntled look on her face and a roar of laughter came from the classroom. And I subconsciously looked at Isaac, who was just looking down at his book, not paying the slightest bit of attention to the noise brought by me. The teacher nodded and gestured for me to hurry back to my seat before the whole classroom got rowdy. I still felt uneasy as I sat back in my seat, and the expressionless look on Isaac's face made me feel like he was even more distant from me than before. The next day was Isaac's coming-of-age rite, and he'd been very unusual these past few days. When I ran into him occasionally, he always treated me like I was air. Even when his friends bullied me, he didn't have the slightest intention of joining them or helping me, he just turned his head and walked away. I didn't know how to explain the sense of loss I had felt inside me these past few days; Isaac and I were supposed to be two different worlds, and it was natural that he treated me like air. We hadn't had much of a connection. He used to bully me because he thought it was funny, but now he probably couldn't find fun in that anymore. I told myself that the one or two times he was nice to you, it was just for fun. Didn't crave the warmth you couldn't get. Before the party began, the butler instructed us solemnly, "Nothing can go wrong at this party, or Luna will be angry and all of us will be punished." So before dawn, I had to get up and clean every corner of the banquet hall. When the cleaning was done, it was close to noon and the maids were going to lunch and they ordered me to put all the tables and chairs in their proper places. There was no way I could resist them, so I had to move the huge tables and chairs alone. It was easy to see, though, how much Luna had taken the party seriously. Each table and chair I moved was good wood, and the wood was still faintly scented. The tables and chairs were elaborate, not to mention the rest. Even if I was ordered to dress in a maid's skirt, I guessed Luna didn't like the raggedy clothes I usually wore. As the evening slowly came, there were more and more people in the ballroom. Of course, the topic of discussion was Isaac, the star of the evening, and the maids around me were speculating about what Isaac's mate would be like. "Guess if Fiona will be the next Luna?" One of the maids said "Oh, hell no! If she was the next Luna, we wouldn't have to live. But Isaac looks like he doesn't like her very much either." The other maid said, as if she was in shock, covering her chest. I could kind of understand her, because Fiona was mean to all the servants. "True, although Fiona comes from a good family and has a pretty face, there were plenty of such ladies in other packs. I just saw a super fit lady who was ten times more elegant than Fiona in her demeanor." My heart felt sad as I listened to the maids discuss the beautiful ladies, who were living a world I couldn't touch. I didn't want to listen to the scenes they painted of the perfect scene where Alpha and Luna live happily ever after, and I rushed away from them. Isaac's POV My mother was pleading for me to take this party seriously before I entered, and she had had my outfit and accessories custom made for the night. To be honest, I was a little nervous about being reminded of this by my mother. As I entered, I caught a glimpse of the traitor girl as she finally changed out of her shabby dress for today's party. The white skirt was wrapped around her thin body, and the brown waistband was strangling her slender waist tightly, which surprisingly outlined the curves of her figure. The hem of the skirt was embroidered with white jasmine flowers in folds, and her thin calves stood straight up under the hem. As much as I hated to admit it, she looked so beautiful in this skirt. She finally tied back her messy hair, the slightly curly ends resting on the left side of her shoulders. It made her whole body look warm and tough, like a little daisy in the fall. Except for the obstructive long hair that covered her eyes and almost blocked half of her face. The little slave had her head down and didn't even see the main "focus" of the party enter the room. I realized that I had been staring at the little slave. "She better stay out of my sight from now on." Caesar pinched his voice to imitate me. "Obviously, you're the one who keeps staring at people." "Who wants to look at her? She's the one who keeps dangling herself in front of me. "I averted my eyes immediately. I listened numbly as the people around me introduced me to the young lady of the Blood Stone pack and the daughter of the Alpha of the Silver Moon pack again. They were pretty, like crystals in the light of a jewelry store or a vase of flowers placed in the living room by my mother, pretty but boring. However, keeping my mother's instructions in mind, and considering the fact that today was a diplomatic occasion of sorts, I had to fake a smile and make do with them. I smiled so hard that my face froze. The lady in front of me seemed to be saying something about her influence on the wolf pack, and I was totally on the go. Her perfume was overpowering and I was going to throw up if I was around her for one more second. So, under the pretext that my mother wanted me to go find her, I quickly left the party hall and hid on the balcony to get some normal air. Then I couldn't help but look at the traitor girl in the corner, who looked kinda cute with her head down in a daze. Claudia's POV The moment Isaac walked into the ballroom, I could hear the women in the room gasp backwards, even without the hearing of a werewolf. Isaac didn't usually pay much attention to grooming himself, his hair usually looked like he'd grabbed it by hand casually and had a casual, messy wildness to it. And he used to dress casually for convenience, making him look like a big boy. Of course, no matter how casual he was, his face and body were too perfect for anyone to find him unattractive. But he looked too good-looking on the rite. His chestnut hair was neatly slicked back on his head, and his black formal dress was embroidered with the dark emblem of his family crest. His broad shoulders held up the garment's flamboyance, and he looked sturdy and cool. The straight trousers made his 6'2" frame look even more slender. The ladies around me abandoned their modesty and flocked to Isaac's side. All that I could do was to hold the plate in my hands carefully so that the wine on it didn't spill. The butler told me to clean up the food on the buffet table, making sure it looked neat and tidy. I gulped silently as I looked at the delicate snacks on the table, that food of which I hadn't tasted a bite of since I was six. The ladies surrounding Isaac didn't look like girls in our wolf pack, they were all good-looking, whose gorgeous outfits glistened in the light. And Isaac smiled at them in the way that he showed his white teeth aptly. I looked into the eyes of the lady across from him and I read her mind, "Gosh, he has such a nice smile, I'm falling in love. What should I say to make him like me?" There must have been a handful of ladies in the room who adored him. And I guess he would probably never smile at me like that. I looked down at my white cotton dress, which was the best dress I had ever worn, and I could only smile at myself mockingly. Someone in the distance caused a small commotion. I looked over at the commotion and it turned out to be Fiona, who probably got up earlier than I did today just to get her perfect look. Fiona's blonde hair was up in a high coiffure, combed with hairspray to cling to her scalp, her dress and heels were studded with diamonds, and her waistband strangled her so much that it looked like she had trouble breathing, but it did complement her sexy body. While my thoughts went around and back to the moment of being taunted by Isaac about having a bony body. I was looking at Fiona in a daze when suddenly someone hit me in the back and knocked me to the ground. I fell to the ground before I realized that it was a respectable lady who had hit me. "Ah!!" Unfortunately, she also fell to the ground with me. "What are you doing standing in the way?"