The invitation

The week passed the way most weeks did for Elara — quietly and without incident, which in her world counted as a good week.

Cara had kept her distance after the hallway incident, which Elara suspected had less to do with any sudden change of heart and more to do with the fact that even Cara's friends had gone quiet when she dropped that photograph. There were limits to what people would openly celebrate and apparently using a dead girl's parents as ammunition was where some of them drew the line. Elara was not foolish enough to think it would last. Cara always came back. But she would take the quiet days when they came and be grateful for them.

She was in the middle of washing the breakfast dishes on Saturday morning when Lily appeared in the kitchen doorway already dressed and looking far too awake for the hour.

"The party is tonight," Lily said.

Elara kept washing. "Good morning to you too."

"Elara."

"I said I would think about it."

"And it has been an entire week." Lily crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside her. "How much more thinking do you need?"

Elara set a plate on the drying rack and reached for the next one. "I'm still thinking."

Lily made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. She reached over and turned off the tap, which forced Elara to either stand there with wet hands doing nothing or turn and look at her. Elara turned and looked at her.

"One evening," Lily said. "That is all I am asking for. You come with me, we stay together, and Roman will be right there the entire time. If you want to leave after an hour I will leave with you no questions asked. I promise."

Elara studied her sister's face. Lily meant it — she could tell. Lily did not make promises she did not intend to keep. It was one of the things Elara had always admired about her even when it was inconvenient.

"Why does it matter so much to you that I come," Elara asked.

Lily was quiet for a moment. When she answered her voice had lost its brightness and gone somewhere more honest. "Because you spend every day surviving, Elara. Just surviving. Head down, getting through it, coming home and closing the door. And I understand why. I do. But surviving is not the same as living and I want—" She stopped and pressed her lips together briefly. "I want you to have one evening that is not about getting through something. Just one."

The kitchen was quiet.

Elara looked at her sister and felt the familiar mix of love and helplessness that she always felt when Lily looked at her like that — like Elara was something worth fighting for even when Elara herself was not entirely convinced of it.

"One hour," Elara said. "If I want to leave after one hour we leave."

Lily's face broke into a wide smile. "Deal."

"I mean it, Lily. One hour."

"I heard you the first time." Lily was already turning toward the hallway. "Wear something nice. Not your school clothes. Something that makes you feel good."

"I don't own anything that makes me feel good."

Lily stopped and turned back around. She looked at Elara with an expression that was warm and slightly mischievous in equal measure. "Good thing we're the same size then." She disappeared down the hallway before Elara could argue.

Elara stood in the kitchen with her wet hands and stared at the empty doorway.

One hour, she reminded herself. She could survive one hour of anything.

---

By early evening Lily had produced a dress from the back of her wardrobe that Elara had never seen before — deep green, simple in cut, nothing elaborate but clean and well made and the kind of thing that made Elara stand slightly differently when she put it on. Lily had insisted on doing something with her hair, pulling it back loosely with a few pieces falling around her face, and had stood back afterward with her hands on her hips looking satisfied.

"See," Lily said. "You look beautiful."

Elara looked at herself in the mirror. She did not know about beauty. But she looked like someone who was trying and sometimes that was enough.

Roman arrived to pick them up just after seven. He was tall and broad-shouldered with an easy smile that Elara had always liked — the kind of smile that did not have anything to prove. He greeted Lily with a warmth that made something quiet and hopeful stir in Elara's chest before she could stop it. He turned to Elara and nodded with genuine friendliness.

"Glad you're coming," he said simply. No fuss. No performance. Just straightforward warmth.

"Thank you for having me," Elara replied.

The drive to the alpha's territory took about twenty minutes. Elara watched the pack landscape move past the window and tried to keep her breathing steady. The alpha's territory was on the far eastern edge of the Old Blood Moon Pack land where the houses gave way to something grander — wider roads, older trees, buildings that carried the kind of weight that came from generations of power settled into the same ground.

She had never been this close to the alpha's estate before. Omegas generally did not have reason to be.

The gates were open when they arrived, the long driveway already lined with vehicles. Light and sound spilled from the main building ahead of them — music and voices and laughter mixing together into the particular noise of a large gathering in full swing. Elara could feel the energy of it from the car, the concentrated presence of so many wolves in one place pressing against her senses.

Her wolf stirred inside her. Alert. Aware.

"Ready?" Lily said, turning from the front seat to look at her.

Elara straightened her dress and lifted her chin.

"One hour," she said.

Lily smiled. "One hour."

They got out of the car and walked toward the light and the noise and the crowd of people, and Elara told herself that nothing was going to happen tonight. It was just a party. She would stand near Lily, eat something, count down the hour, and go home.

Nothing was going to happen.

She had absolutely no idea how wrong she was.