Mother is waiting for me the moment I step through the door. “Ashton is here,” she hisses, reaching to fuss with my hair. I dodge her and she clucks in frustration. “What were you thinking, running around the lawn like a stray dog?”
“I was thinking how nice it is to be home.” I blink innocently at her.
Her eyes narrow. “Is this all a game to you?” Before I can answer, she goes on. “After the stunt you pulled, leaving the pack and now whatever that display was at the ball, it’s a miracle that anyone will still associate with us.”
“Why wouldn’t they—”
“Because they’re afraid that what you did will spread!” Mother snaps, loud enough to be overheard, so she immediately lowers her voice again.
“You were the first werewolf in a hundred years to reject the transformation and invoke the Right of Accord. Everyone was terrified that you’d opened the floodgates. People wouldn’t speak to us because they were afraid of losing their young, too!”
It never occurred to me that by invoking the Right, I might inspire other teenagers to take a break and consider their futures with the pack. I don’t see how it’s a bad thing, but I do see how my parents would interpret it that way.
She isn’t done lecturing me. “You put your sisters’ futures at stake, as well.”
“They did all right for themselves,” I say under my breath. I’m the youngest. They had already undergone the transformation and their mating pacts had been arranged. “And it’s not my job to live their lives for them.”
“It’s your job to behave in the interests of the pack. Not in your own interests.” Mother gets so close I can’t really focus on her face, which is harder and colder than I’ve ever seen before.
“You will go upstairs; you will clean up and make yourself presentable and you will come down here and receive your fiancé graciously.”
I want to demand to know what fucking Jane Austen novel she stepped out of with her “receive your fiancé graciously” line but she’s never hit any of us and I don’t want to break her streak.
There’s nothing I can say or do but nod silently and go upstairs.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror over my vanity. The hair is easily fixed by throwing it into a ponytail. My makeup is still fine, though my cheeks are flushed. I don’t look nearly as terrible as Mother insisted I do.
But I changed into a different pair of dark blue jeans; the pant legs of the ones I wore to the restaurant are soaked.
I’m expecting Mother to be waiting downstairs, but she’s totally disappeared. I know where she’ll have stashed my fiancé, though.
Ashton is in the sitting room. His back is to the double doors when I open one and step inside. He turns, his concerned frown easing into a blindingly white smile.
“There she is.”
He moves through the seating area, somehow graceful despite having to slip between the massive coffee table and one of the sofas.
I take a few steps but let him come to me, because I’m not sure what he’s expecting and it’s easier to let him take the lead. He puts his arms out and hugs me, kissing the air beside my cheek.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” I say. Even though it’s not my fault because I had no clue you’d even be here. Dropping in unannounced better not be a hallmark of our courtship. “I was at lunch with my sisters, and I just got back.”
“Yes, I know.” One eyebrow arches playfully. “I saw you.”
I glance over at the giant picture window and spot my footprints leading a dizzying path up to the house.
“Yeah…” I don’t have a good excuse for that. “I was—”
“It must be hard for you. Being your age and not yet truly a werewolf.” He talks over me as he walks to the window. His tall, slender figure is like a streak of blue ink in his beautifully tailored jacket and trousers.
The cold gray light outside can’t diminish the warm copper in his hair. When he turns back to me, I’m struck by just how handsome he’s become while I’m away.
I noticed it at the ball, but now that we’re alone, in better lighting and without our fancy formal clothes, it hits me that it’s not like he’s the worst thing that could ever happen to me. I’ll look good on his arm, and if our kids got my complexion and his eyes…
What is wrong with me? Is this what happened to my sisters? One minute, a guy is condescendingly interrupting me, the next I’m like, “oh well, better have his babies?” If this is what a mating pact can do before it’s even executed, I have no interest in what comes next.
Especially since my future mate apparently thinks I’m suffering some kind of deficiency. I try to sound as sweet and non-confrontational as possible. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You haven’t transformed yet.” He states the obvious as if I need some kind of refresher. “At least, I assume you haven’t.”
“You were at our first ceremony,” I reminded him. “You know that I didn’t transform.”
“There are full moons in England.” He lets the sentence hang between us and I can’t decide if it’s an accusation.
“There are,” I confirm, all sugar. “But there wasn’t a pack.”
“Oh, there’s a pack.” He goes to the sofa and sits without me inviting him. Infuriatingly, it’s him who gestures to me to sit down. In my own home.
I take a seat across the big coffee table from him, on the other sofa. I would rather chew my own foot off to escape a snare than get close to him. “Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. I didn’t have any contact with other werewolves while I was there.”
His expression totally changes to one of utter mortification. He puts a hand to his chest. “Oh no, Ella. I hope you don’t assume that I was accusing you of anything. I just wondered if you’d chosen to…try it out on your own.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” The thralls oversee the magic that lets us control whether we shift our forms on the night of the full moon. I have no idea how to accomplish the change without the ceremony.
“It sounds like that would be stupid and dangerous.”
Still, his sad, apol
ogetic eyes seem so sincere. “I would have thought it very brave.”
The full moon is a holy time for werewolves. Much in the way humans might dress nicely and congregate at a house of worship, a werewolf pack gathers for their own ceremonies together. For the Toronto pack, the place we gather is about an hour and a half northwest of Toronto. Long before Canada was New France, back in the days when our ancestors fled northern Europe in longboats, a pack inhabited a small village in the area, on what is now two-hundred acres of unspoiled land we can safely roam as the creatures we become every full moon.The transformation ceremony takes place in the ancient circle of standing stones built over five centuries before Columbus could erroneously claim the first European steps onto the North American continent. The three stones bear tributes to the gods of our pack: Fenrir, the wolf who will devour Odin at Ragnarök, Lycaon, the cruel king punished by Zeus, and Lupa, she-wolf mother of Romulus and Remus. Once, the circle stood in a forest clearing. Now, i
The deep, hollow toll of a bell announces the midnight hour. In the round courtyard below, pack members file into the sacred circle. They wear ceremonial robes of silver silk, easy to remove once the transformation takes hold.Humans imagine scenes in movies where werewolves scream in agony and tear out of their clothes, which I’ve never understood. We know when the full moon is. It doesn’t take us by surprise. And we know how to dress for it.Or undress. My breath freezes in my lungs as Owen walks into the circle. He stops in front of the monolith to Lycaon and drops his robe.I shamelessly look him over, the way he did to me, from his broad shoulders, down his chest dusted with dark hair that thins to a line on his shockingly sculpted abs. I wasn’t expecting him to look as good as he does. I wasn’t expecting that my mouth would water at the sight of his cock, that my thighs would clench together at the thought of how huge it must be hard. I hope he feels me, smells me.And I hope
This can’t be transpiring.I sit up and yank the note from Mother’s hand. “You went through my purse?”“What do you think you’re doing?” she hisses, disregarding my query. “You are in a mating pact. You can’t see another man behind your fiancé’s back!”“I’m not seeing anyone. I’m sure you read it. It’s an invitation to make up for—”“It is an invitation to gossip. To scandal and ruin.” She grabs the card back and rips it in half, then in half again before dropping the pieces onto the carpet. “How long has this been going on?”“How long has this been going on?” I almost argue that I’ve only been home for a few days, but then I remember that as far as everyone else in the pack is concerned, I could be a spy for Greater London. Maybe she thinks I was banging the king like a drum there, long before he seized the throne here.Maybe she thinks I have something to do with him taking over the pack.“You know exactly what I’m asking,” Mother insists. “How long have you and the king been seeing
The night of the ball, every light in Aconitum Hall was lit. Tonight, it’s mostly dark. It’s not as inviting; the towers loom sinister and medieval over the city, blotting out the sky rather than polluting it with added light.I take a deep whiff as I step out of my car. Mother and Father refused to let me take the driver and I’m not sure where one parks at a royal palace. My shoes crunch on the gravel of the small parking area beyond the front porte cochere. I head in that direction, my heart beating in an unfamiliar and worrying pattern. The door opens at the top of the steps, and I expect to see a thrall butler there. But it’s Owen.Owen just opened his front door. Like he’s a person and not a king. I freeze in place. He does, too. It’s a strange moment; before, the undeniable attraction between us was insulated by the presence of others and the appropriateness demanded by our society. It felt like if only we were alone, nothing would hold him back. Now, it appears we are alone,
He follows that bombshell with, “I hope you like venison.”I stumble into the dining room, where a large table is set for two at one end.“It’s very fresh,” he goes on. “I hunted it myself during the full moon.”I can’t get past his earlier announcement. “You did it?”“Well, you know. The only things to do during the full moon are fuck, fight, or hunt.” He pulls a chair out for me and I sit obediently, out of habit.“I’m not talking about the deer!” I lean toward him as he sits and for some reason, I lower my voice like we’re in danger of being overheard. “You conjured the Right of Accord? Your pack has a Right of Accord?”He nods and lifts his hand to signal the staff for the first course. As the thralls place bowls of pale cream soup in front of us, Owen elaborates. “All packs operate under the same law, given to us by Lycaon the Younger. Didn’t they teach that in school?”I shake my head. “I assumed pack law was just the law of our pack.”“Hmiders for a moment. “Don toon teach chil
The Dixon family motto could easily be, “If it’s uncomfortable, ignore it.”My dinner with OIfn last week is currently causing my family maximum discomfort, and their unwcausingess to speak to me about it is such a blessing, I practically beam on the ride to brunch and my fitting for my ceremonial dress.Still, my heart and head are divided. While I desperately want to believe Owen can get me out of this mating pact, it’s not as simple as “I’m king, I can do what I want.” He’ll face the wrath of a packaging nightmare. There’s no way Ashton and his family tape nightmaNightmareonelwalkinger them so blatantly.And I don’t know Owen at all. There’s no guarantee he means what he says. Maybe he’s that magnetic and disarming with every woman he meets. There could be any number of potential mates in the pack that he’s considering; there’s no reason for me to believe otherwise, especially when rumors are swirling that he’s in love with the former queen.Still, if he’s serious, dissolution of
I’m in my room when Tara arrives, and she chirps into the intercom that she’s coming up. Even as kids, we never had to share our space, but we’re all in that my that's that girl's hate Even though Tara and Clare have moved out, their bedrooms are still there, though they’ve been redecorated a bit removed fairy lights and school trophies.My door creaks open and I sit up on my bed, tossing aside my book. “Hey.”“Hey,” she says, and sighs deeply, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocking on her heels.“That bad, huh?” I try to laugh as I swing my legs over the side of the bed, but the mood in the room is somewhere between “right before you find out grandma died” and “the sex talk with your parents.”Not that I’ve experienced either; our grandparents are all still alive and probably have a good hundred years left, and Mother has probably never even said the word “sex” out loud.“You can sit down,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Stop acting like you’re here to break bad n
I have no idea what I’m doing as I race to Aconitum Hall. I don’t know if Owen will be there or if I can even see him. But he’s the king; it’s not like I have his private cell phone number or anything.Then maybe you shouldn’t be driving over to his house unannounced. My rational mind has a point, but my alarm brain overrides it. I’m not rushing over to his house to declare my love or beg him to be my boyfriend. He’s the pack leader, I’m his subject, and I need help.There’s a gatehouse at the main entrance, staffed by a thrall who looks up from her book with a suspicious expression as I pull up. She reaches to her hip to flick the safety of the gun in her holster before she opens the window.Outside of hunting, I’ve never seen an actual gun in an individual before. That makes me wish I had thought my actions through a little more before tearing over here.“Name and purpose of visit.” Her voice doesn’t go up at the end at all. It’s not a question, but a warning that I shouldn’t be he