Late bloomer

Twenty nine

"What are you doing?" Louis asks, voice reluctant.

I look up from my lap, widening my eyes in hopes of looking innocent. "It's too good not to take..." I whisper back, looking back down to continue wrapping the small cake slices in a napkin.

"Your stealing the tasting cake? You know we can have, like, all the flavours..." Louis murmurs, face lit in amusement as I look back up at him.

"Right." I look at him blankly. He just snorts a laugh.

"Please, continue stealing cake." He waves his hand.

We're sat as the dining room table, beside each other as my mum pesters the baker about goddess know what, as he tries to pack the tastings away. All of them were so good, I had to sneak a few away for later.

"Have you two picked?" I look up at my mum as she speaks, squinting her eyes at my hands suspiciously. I quickly bring them to rest on the table in front of me.

"Yep. The vanilla with the cookies and cream flavour in the middle."

"Do I get a say?" Louis chimes, making me raise a brow at him.

"No. No, you don't because your favourite was the caramel swirl mint."

"It was good." He pouts a little. Like a sulky little pup.

I grimace. "Sure it was." I turn back to the baker, "did you get my email on cake designs?"

***

"How are you feeling?" Niall asks me, dragging a comb through my curls not so softly. My hair has grown, I can't get away with brushing it once every few days now. We've been trying new styles.

"A bit nervous. Excited mostly." I reply, fiddling with the fluffy rob I had on. I was getting ready for my final fitting.

"You don't feel rushed? I mean, two weeks is really quick. You have five days before your a mated omega..." I looked up at Niall in the mirror in front of us. I sat one a stool in front of the vanity in our bathroom. Niall's gaze met mine for a second before focusing on my hair again. He sounded hesitant.

"Are you trying to get at something? Because just tell me, niall." I've known Niall for a long time, and I know when he's trying to say something, and is just to nervous to say it.

He pauses, meeting my eyes in the mirror before sighing. "The other day, I was in the kitchen, in the pantry actually, and Lottie and fizzy came in. They were taking in hushed voices, so you know, I'm nosey so I hid in there to listen..."

"Niall!" I gasped, turning around to face him and hitting him gently.

"I know I know. But you should hear what they were talking about..." He bit his lower lip, looking at me with sorry eyes. I gulped.

"What is it?" I asked hesitantly.

"Lottie was asking how fizzy was feeling, and she sounded concerned. I couldn't really hear a lot, but what I got was that fizzy has presented."

"What? That's really early... she's not even sixteen." I was confused, nobody presented that early, nobody except...

"She's an alpha. And supposedly they knew she would."

Except alphas.

She is so shy and docile, she's the last person I expected to be an alpha... she's nothing like Louis.

"But, Louis' the alpha of the family. Each family is only supposed to have one alpha child." I shook my head, this must be wrong. "I haven't heard anything about this. Surely Louis would have said something!"

Niall looked down.

"What?" I must be missing something hear.

"Well Louis' claim to king is challenged now... do you know what happens when an alphas claim is threatened, H?" Niall asked. I shook my head in thought, this has never happened as far as I remembered.

"They have to fight it out. To the death."

My hand came up to cover my mouth to stop the gasp. My eyes began to water.

"No. No way. There no way they'd do that. Louis loves his family to much to kill his little sister!"

"That's what they were talking about, H. How fizzy didn't want to fight either. She'd certainly lose as well. So they were talking about how Louis' come up with this plan..."

"What is it?" I asked, scared was of it might be. I can't believe I  didn't know about any of this already...

"Louis' claim is more legitimate if he already has a queen and an heir."

I froze. Everything seemed to stop as I slowly connected the dots.

Louis... he was rushing this, just so he had more right to be king? Not because he loved me and wanted to marry and mate me... but because he had a better chance at beating his sister to the title.

That's so...

Selfish.

My heart clenched.

"That's why they've suddenly rushed the ceremony, so that Louis keeps his title and they don't get in trouble with the Great Council." Niall's words snapped me out of my thoughts.

I frowned, hearing a knock at the door. We both looked over quickly, seeing the door sliding open a little as my mum popped her head in.

"Ready darling?"

And I couldn't stop the tear that fell down my cheek.