On the morning of our Moon-Bound Union, the entire Nightveil den hummed with a restless, electric energy. The pack-servants had been up since before dawn, draping the moonlit ceremony hall in ivory silk and blood-red roses. The hunt-keepers moved through the kitchens like a second war-band. Even the warriors posted along the territory walls seemed to stand a little straighter, their dark coats freshly groomed, their expressions carrying something almost resembling warmth.
And me? I had been dreaming of this day for a year. Twelve moons of fittings and planning, of rehearsing my vows in the mirror of the den I shared with the most powerful Alpha in the eastern territories. Twelve moons of telling myself that this Mating Ceremony would finally make it real, that the sacred Moon Oath our fathers had sworn when I was still a girl would be sealed in blood and gold before the Moon Goddess and the Pack.
But four hours before I was meant to walk down the aisle, Dorian Blackthorn canceled everything.
The reason? Ciara. His precious oath-ward. That porcelain-faced, doe-eyed orphan with her soft voice and her fragile little hands, who had supposedly injured herself during a routine sparring session in the den's training grounds.
The news didn't even come from him. I found out through the pack mind-link, the warded thread that bound every member of the den together, where Ciara's story spread like gasoline on marble.
"I'm so sorry, everyone, but I don't think I'll be able to make it to the ceremony. I hurt my leg badly during training today. Alpha Blackthorn is with me, making sure I'm all right."
Ciara flooded the link with images, each one more carefully staged than the last. Her ankle wrapped in gauze. Her face arranged into a mask of brave suffering. And the final image, the one that drove the blade between my ribs: Ciara lying on a healer's pallet in the den's private Healing Hall, while Dorian stood over her, his jaw tight, his dark eyes clouded with concern. His hand rested on the rail of the pallet as though she might shatter if he looked away.
I gripped my communicator so hard the crystal cracked beneath my thumb. This had to be a joke. Some cruel, elaborate test. That look of concern on his face, that protective stance, the way he leaned toward her as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. That was supposed to be for me. He was supposed to be standing at the altar in three hours, not hovering over Ciara Thornwood like she was the only person in his territory who mattered.
He couldn't cancel the ceremony we had planned for an entire year. Not for this. Not for Ciara faking a twisted ankle.
My blood ran hot. Somewhere beneath my skin, my wolf rose and circled, a low growl building in my chest that I had to swallow down. My reflection stared back at me from the vanity mirror across the room, still wearing the silk robe the groomer had laid out for me, my hair half-pinned in an elaborate updo that no one would ever see. The rage was a living thing inside my chest, coiling tighter with every second, because the voice in the back of my skull would not stop whispering what I already knew.
You can't win against her. You have never been able to win against her. You are always second.
My communicator vibrated against my palm. A private message. From Dorian.
"Neva, something's come up. Ciara's hurt. I can't go through with the ceremony right now. We'll have to reschedule. Don't wait up for me."
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. My chest constricted, a slow, crushing pressure that had nothing to do with the corset the seamstress had fitted that morning and everything to do with the Alpha I had given five years of my life to. My wolf went very still inside me, the way a creature goes still when it has been wounded and does not yet understand how deep.
He hadn't even called. Hadn't had the respect to let me hear his voice, to offer an explanation, an apology, anything that might have softened the blow. He had sent a mind-link message the way a wolf might cancel a hunt. Brief. Dismissive. As if the most important day of my life were an inconvenience he could pencil in for a later moon.
Five years. Five years of loyalty. Five years of standing beside him at pack councils and full-moon feasts, of pressing my lips shut when the whispers followed me through the halls of the Nightveil estate. She's not good enough for an Alpha. She's just a Frostmane girl. Her father was a warrior-captain, not a leader. What does the Alpha see in her? Five years of being his anchor, his confidante, the wolf who waited up for him on the nights he came home carrying the scent of cold iron and rain, who never asked questions she knew he couldn't answer. Five years of silence kept not out of duty but out of love.
And now, this.
I did not respond. What was there to say? My fingers trembled over the crystal screen. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf paced low and uneasy, hackles half-raised at a wound she could feel but not name. I wanted to call him and scream until my throat was raw, to demand he explain why he chose her, again, always her, over the woman he was sworn to bind his blood to under the Moon Goddess. But instead, I swallowed the rage like a mouthful of broken glass and hurled the communicator onto the bed.
It bounced once against the furs and lay still, its surface gone dark.
I paced. The bedroom was enormous, one of the finest dens in the Nightveil estate, with its high beamed ceilings and its tall windows overlooking the private moon-gardens below. Dorian and I had built a life together in these rooms. His coats hung beside my dresses in the dressing room. His scent of blackthorn smoke and cedar still clung to the pillows. His reading glasses sat on the nightstand beside a worn book of old pack lore. But lately this place had begun to feel less like a home and more like a gilded cage. I lived in his shadow, surrounded by his name, his bloodline, his oaths, and I was alone almost all the time.
A knock broke through the silence. Three sharp raps, unhesitant, the knock of someone who did not need permission.
I opened the door. Elder Lavinia Blackthorn stood in the hallway, her small frame wrapped in black lace, her silver hair drawn back in a severe knot. She was eighty-three years old. She had buried two mates, survived three challenges to her throat, and outlasted every enemy who had ever underestimated her. Her face was a map of decades spent moving through the treacherous currents of pack politics, and her dark eyes, still sharp as silver blades, held a sympathy that nearly undid me. Beneath her lace she carried the scent of aged oak and dried lavender, steady as cold hearthstone.
"I heard what happened, child," she said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. She never waited. In the Nightveil Pack, Elder Lavinia went where she pleased.
She settled herself into the armchair by the window as though she owned it. Which, in a sense, she did.
"You deserve better than this."
I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted copper. I would not cry. Not yet. But Lavinia had always seen through every mask I wore. She was the sharpest mind in the pack, sharper than the Beta, sharper even than Dorian himself, though she would never say so aloud. There was no hiding pain from a wolf who had spent a lifetime reading the faces of killers and liars.
"I thought today would be different." My voice came out smaller than I intended. I sank into the chair across from her, my knees suddenly too weak to hold me. "I thought he'd finally choose me over her."
Lavinia's eyes darkened. The sympathy did not leave her face, but something harder settled beneath it. Something cold and knowing.
"Dorian is a fool. He cannot see what he is losing." She paused, her gnarled fingers laced together in her lap. "But I know that Ciara Thornwood is not the innocent little lamb she pretends to be."
I stared at her. My pulse quickened, and my wolf went still and alert inside me. Everyone in the pack adored Ciara. The sweet orphan. The tragic oath-ward.
The she-pup who smiled so prettily and spoke so softly and always, always found a reason to be near Dorian. The pack-warriors doted on her. The den-keepers cooked her favorite meals without being asked. Even the Beta spoke of her with a gentleness he reserved for no one else. She had wrapped the entire Nightveil Pack around her delicate finger.
But Lavinia, like me, had never trusted her. Not once. Not from the very first day Ciara had been brought through the territory gates as a frightened twelve-year-old, clutching her dead mother's moonstone pendant and weeping, her thin scent of honeysuckle already laced with something faintly spoiled.
"That injury is a fake." Lavinia's voice was flat, certain, the voice of a she-wolf stating a fact as plain as the turn of the moon. "Convenient timing, wouldn't you say?"
My heart hammered against my ribs, and somewhere beneath it my wolf lifted her head, ears pricking at the words like they were the first true thing she'd heard in days. It was not just me. I was not paranoid. I was not the jealous, bitter she-wolf the whispers down the den corridors made me out to be.
"You think she did this on purpose?"
Lavinia scoffed. The sound was quiet, almost elegant, but it carried the weight of absolute contempt.
"Oh, child. Of course she did. She has been playing this game for years, pulling Dorian closer every chance she gets. Every scraped knee. Every tearful confession. Every little crisis that requires the Alpha's personal attention. You think she is helpless?" Lavinia leaned forward, and her dark eyes burned, a flicker of old amber rising in them. "I see right through her. I have buried two mates and outlived three challenges, and I have seen she-wolves like Ciara Thornwood my entire life. They are the most dangerous kind. The kind who smile while they slip the knife between your ribs."
I clenched my fists in my lap. My nails bit into my palms, and for one breath I felt them threaten to lengthen.
"Then how come Dorian doesn't see it?"
"Because that boy has been blinded since the day she arrived. His father's dying Moon Oath, the debt of honor to Rosalind Thornwood, it clouds everything. He confuses obligation with affection, and Ciara knows exactly how to keep the confusion alive." Lavinia's mouth thinned. "But you know the truth. So you must be strong enough to face it."
I nodded. The motion felt mechanical, hollow. My stomach churned. I did not want to be strong. I wanted Dorian to walk through that door, take my face in his hands, and tell me he was sorry. I wanted him to make it right. I wanted him to choose me. Beneath my skin, my wolf paced and would not settle.
"I'm sure you'll think of something. I know you are strong and wise, Neva." Lavinia rose from the chair with a grace that defied her years. She crossed the room and pulled me into an embrace. Her arms were thin but firm, and she carried the scent of aged oak and dried lavender, of beeswax and cold hearthstone. "Do not let this Pack break you. You are worth more than they know."
She released me, smoothed the front of her dress, and left without another word. The door clicked shut behind her.
Silence filled the room like floodwater.
My communicator vibrated against the duvet, and I flinched. I crossed to the bed and picked it up. A message from Ivar Blackthorn, the Beta. My childhood packmate. The wolf who had grown up beside Dorian and me, who had stood at Dorian's right hand since the day the old Alpha was laid beneath the earth.
"Neva, I heard the news. Don't be too disappointed. Dorian had to do this. It's his obligation as Alpha of the Pack. He needs to ensure the safety of everyone under his protection."
"Yeah, right!" The words tore out of me, loud and raw in the empty room. My wolf snarled low at the back of my throat. I tossed the communicator back onto the bed without typing a reply. Ivar and his endless excuses. Ivar, who always found a way to make Dorian's choices sound reasonable, who always smoothed the edges until the blade didn't look like a blade anymore.
Two minutes later, the pack messages buzzed again. I picked up the communicator against my better judgment. Ciara had posted more crystal-captures. Dorian sitting at her bedside, spooning broth into her mouth as though she were an invalid. Dorian pressing the back of his hand to her forehead to check her temperature. Dorian adjusting the wrapping on her ankle with the careful, focused attention of a wolf tending to something precious and breakable.
As if she were his mate. As if she were the she-wolf he was meant to take in the Mating Ceremony today.
