Chapter 305: The Holly Incident & Orion’s Reputation

Chapter 304: The Holly Incident & Orion’s Reputation

"This has to be the juiciest and most interesting gossip I’ve ever heard," Micah said.

Sophia nodded.

"And me being me," Nia told them, "I told her to chill because I hadn’t even come close to her. And then she says I’m very bold all of a sudden."

Sophia’s eyes widened.

"All of a sudden? You’ve always been bold," Sophia said.

"See? You know me, but that person who calls herself Holly doesn’t know me. She just assumed that because I didn’t really speak with her that I wasn’t bold. But that aside, me being me, I told her that I’ve always been this way and that she just doesn’t know me. And then there’s a fucking twist—she goes..." Nia gestured at Joren.

"’Do you know who you’re talking to?’" he said in that same voice.

"I told her I did, because obviously I knew who I was talking to. And I also told her that if she didn’t want to train then she could leave. And mind you, I was polite... at least as polite as I could be. And the next thing I know, she’s holding a sword at me, but thankfully Laia stepped in," Nia said.

"Wait," Sophia said. "She tried to attack you for just a little argument?"

"My thoughts exactly," Nia said to her. "I didn’t do anything wrong; it was just a little argument and she wanted to take my blood."

"You are telling me Holly threatened you and we are only hearing of this now just because you wanted us all to hear it at the same time Sophia does?" Micah asked her with a frown.

"It’s not like I couldn’t defend myself. And besides, Laia was right next to me—she almost killed Holly," Nia said to him.

"I did not almost kill her—"

"Your sword was directly at her jugular," Joren said, interrupting Laia.

"Okay, so maybe I did almost kill her... no wait, I would have killed her or maybe injured her badly if she touched my sister," Laia said.

"Well, after that, she just marched out of the training grounds like we had offended her personally," Nia said.

"I’m trying to get something... all this is because Alpha Orion refused to give her attention?" Dren asked with a frown.

"Or maybe because she just felt like we were below her to even be speaking with her or correcting her," Nia said.

"Now I’m ashamed to even admit that I once thought she was a perfect match for Alpha Orion," he said with a groan.

"You are not the only one. I don’t even understand how half the pack thought she was perfect for him. I’ve only had one full interaction with her and it was fucking annoying," Nia said with a shake of her head.

"You know, after that happened, I actually observed and asked around a bit. I found out she was the one spreading the rumor herself that she and Alpha Orion were together. And because people haven’t seen him serious with any other person apart from her, they just believed her," Laia told them.

"But he’s serious with Sophia," Cat said.

Sophia rolled her eyes even as her lips twitched a bit. "Orion isn’t a serious person," she told them.

They all turned to her in shock.

"Um... I don’t know what version of Alpha Orion you’ve been seeing, but that is not the one we know," Nia told her.

"What do you mean?" Sophia asked with a frown. "He jokes with everyone on the training grounds. He’s hardly ever serious."

"Sophia, he jokes with us, yes, but he’s always serious. It’s like he draws a line—’we can joke, but let’s get back to what we came here for,’" Joren told her.

Sophia was in disbelief. "No," she argued. "Orion is hardly a serious person. When I first started staying here, he was running around with Ronan pursuing him because he refused to do his work."

"That doesn’t make him any less serious," Laia pointed out.

"He argues and says nonsense most of the time..."

"He jokes, yes, but like we said, he’s also a serious person. He’s like someone who knows that there’s a time for everything," Dren told her.

"Some people are scared of him too. I mean... not that scared, but they are," Cat told her.

"And some of us look up to him a lot. He was young when he literally became our alpha, and not once have we heard him complain about how taxing the job is. Sometimes he’s being pulled in different directions at the same time, but he still doesn’t complain. The only people he’s very free with are his circle of friends. He’s hardly serious with them," Micah told her.

Sophia paused, taking in their words. She thought back to every interaction she’d seen Orion have with the pack members. There was a level of familiarity, but also that level of respect. And like they said, Orion was serious most of the time. He really was only very playful with a selected amount of people, but that didn’t stop him from interacting with the others and also being free with them.

They even joked with him too, even though there was an invisible line drawn that demanded respect.

"Well, anyways, back to the other things we have to tell you. Let’s not dwell on the fact that Alpha Orion is more free with you than the others, which is likely making Joren a bit jealous," Laia said, taking the book from her sister.

"I’m not jealous. He talks with me. I mean, he isn’t exactly free and I wouldn’t say we are friends, but it’s not like I want to be his friend. I like what we a—"

"The next on the agenda is Joren finding out before any of us that you and Alpha Orion were together, because apparently the rest of us were too blind to see it," Laia said, interrupting Joren, unapologetically at that.

Sophia turned to Joren in shock. "How did you know?" she asked him.

"It wasn’t really a secret, right?" Joren asked her. "Your scents were all over each other, and I have a sensitive nose."