Chapter 4

Rowan saw what was happening, came down from the altar, and spoke to Bryce and me. "The second blood moon rises in ten minutes. The Moon Goddess favors the two of you as fated mates. I've lived a long time, and I've never seen two blood moons in a single day before. If you miss this one, you really will be waiting until next year."

Bryce reached out and caught my hand.

He had just opened his mouth when Emily started whining and rubbing her stomach. "I'm starving. I've been out here all night with you two and I've got nothing left in me. I say we eat first and do the marking ceremony after."

Bryce looked at me, torn. "How about I take everyone to get some food first? They've been standing out here this whole time to bless us. Even if the marking works later, it wouldn't feel right without their blessing. Why don't we just wait until next year, when everyone's in better shape?"

I yanked my hand out of his and stared at him coldly. I asked him one last time. "Today. Are you going to mark me or not?"

Bryce's brows drew together and his eyes filled with irritation. "Do you have to make this hard on everybody? I've said I'll mark you. The Luna of my pack will never be anyone but you. Isn't that enough?"

Looking at him, I suddenly laughed. So I really had been fooling myself for three whole years. He had never once intended to mark me.

And now I didn't need him to. I nodded. "Fine. Next year, then."

Bryce blinked. "Ivy, don't be like this, you..."

He didn't finish, because Emily pulled him away.

A little later Emily came over to comfort me. "You shouldn't push Bryce like that. You should give in, do what he says. You two have been together three years. If he doesn't mark you, no one in any pack will want you."

I looked at her with contempt. "No one will want me? You're my cousin, and you stand with outsiders and pile on me. Or is it that you don't want Bryce to mark me either?"

Emily shook her head hard, tears running down her cheeks. "How can you think that of me? I'm saying it for your own good."

Everyone was saying things for my own good. Not one of them ever asked what I wanted!

I was about to say more when Bryce came back.

He dragged Emily off toward the crowd. "Ivy isn't thinking straight right now. She needs to cool off on her own."

Watching them all walk away, Rowan looked at me with real regret. "This is the most sacred blood moon in ten years. The last one was the Moon Goddess's blessing on the Silverwolf pack. It would be a shame to waste it."

Then, out of nowhere, a familiar voice cut in. "Who says it's going to be wasted? This is a gift the Moon Goddess is giving me."

It was Vaughn. He crossed to me in a few strides, dropped to one knee, and slid the wolf-fang ring his grandmother had passed down, the ring that marked a Luna, onto my finger. "Ivy, let me mark you. My Luna."

Above us the moon shifted from pale gold to red. Vaughn rose and came close, and his canines broke my skin...

We became mates, bound to each other and no one else. Vaughn, still riding the high of it, took a photo of the two of us and another of the wolf-fang ring on my hand, and posted them online.

At the same moment, Emily was staring at her phone screen in disbelief.

She looked up at Bryce and the others, her voice shrill and shaking a little. "Ivy's been marked!"