Chapter 7

Wren's pov

The sheets still smelled like him when I woke. Cold space beside me where he had been, gone sometime before dawn, careful enough that I never felt him leave.

Maribel's knock came sharp against the door. "Wren. Up, dear. Today is the day."

"Coming."

She swept in anyway, gathering yesterday's dress off the chair without asking why it was on the floor. "You look different this morning."

"Tired."

"Mm." She did not push, though her eyes lingered a second too long before she turned to the wardrobe. "This one, I think. Simple, but it will do for standing in a corner all night."

"Thank you."

"Do not thank me. Thank whatever luck keeps you invisible in that house." Light, the way she always said the sharpest things. She paused at the door. "Whatever happens tonight, come find me after."

"Nothing is going to happen."

"I did not say something would." She held my gaze a beat too long. "I said whatever happens. There is a difference."

She left before I could ask what she meant.

The house buzzed with nervous energy by midmorning. Vivian barked at staff carrying flowers through the halls, three separate arrangements sent back for not being white enough. Edwin paced the study rehearsing some speech. Celeste locked herself away with stylists preparing for the biggest night of her life, a night I now knew would not end how anyone in that house expected.

I avoided Kade completely. Easier for both of us. I caught him once near the training grounds deep in conversation with Grier, and he looked up at exactly the wrong second, eyes finding mine before he forced them back to whatever Grier was saying. I turned and walked the other way before my face could give anything away.

By midday my feet carried me to the old barn without meaning to go there at all. I did not go in. Just stood at the door a long moment, remembering the creak of the hinges, then made myself walk off before Priya or Vivian could wonder why I was loitering near an empty building on the biggest day of the year.

Priya found me anyway on my way back, leaning against the fence post like she had been waiting there the whole time.

"You look flushed," she said. "For someone standing around doing nothing."

"I am fine."

"You keep saying that word." She tilted her head. "It stops meaning anything after the third time."

"What do you want, Priya."

"Nothing yet." Her smile stretched slow and satisfied. "Just watching. It is the best part of tonight, honestly, watching people who think they have gotten away with something."

She walked off before I could ask what she meant, leaving my stomach twisted into something cold and tight.

Evening came too fast and not fast enough. The pack hall had transformed again, grander than the promise ceremony three weeks before. Every elder from every allied pack had traveled in. Elder Thane sat front and center, flanked by council members in their finest formal wear. I found my usual corner and waited.

Celeste entered to gasps. White and gold, hair swept up, every bit the future Luna she had been raised to become. Vivian wiped her eyes near the front row. Kade stood already at the front, dressed the same as three weeks ago, jaw tighter now, eyes finding mine across the hall before quickly moving away.

"She looks stunning," Grier said, appearing beside me. "You alright?"

"Fine."

"You do not look fine." Careful eyes, searching. "You look like someone waiting for something to go wrong."

"Maybe I am just tired, Grier."

"Odd night for tired." He glanced toward the stage. "Big night for the pack."

I said nothing, because he was not wrong, and thankfully he let it sit.

Elder Thane rose, voice carrying the full weight of the moment. "Tonight, under the sacred laws of Ashwood Pack, Alpha Kade Calloway will claim Celeste Ashby as his true mate before all gathered here." The crowd fell silent, the kind of silence that presses on your ears.

Kade stepped toward Celeste. For a moment everything moved exactly as it should. He took her hand. Spoke the ancient words of claiming, steady despite everything living underneath his voice.

Then every muscle in him locked at once.

He dropped Celeste's hand like it burned him, staggering back, gasping like the air had been punched from his lungs. Celeste's face twisted from confusion to horror.

"Kade?" Her voice cracked across the hall. "What is happening?"

He did not answer. His eyes swept the crowd wild and desperate until they landed on me, shock and certainty tangled together at once.

"No," he said, barely a whisper. "This cannot be happening."

"Kade!" She grabbed his arm. "Look at me."

Elder Thane rose sharply. "Alpha. Explain yourself."

Kade's chest heaved, gray eyes locked on mine, unable to look away even as chaos broke out around him. A murmur spread through the crowd, low and confused, sharpening fast as people followed his gaze toward my corner. Priya's mouth fell open. Vivian's face drained of color. Edwin froze mid step toward the stage.

"It cannot be her," someone whispered near the front. "Not the wolfless one."

Celeste turned, following every stare, and the second her eyes found me, whatever softness had ever lived between us as sisters vanished completely.

"You," she said, shaking with rage and disbelief. "It has always been you."

Kade took one unsteady step toward me, the entire hall watching in stunned silence.

"Alpha Calloway." Thane's voice thundered over the noise. "Explain this instant, or the council will explain it for you."

Kade opened his mouth. Before a single word came out, Celeste screamed something none of us saw coming.

"He was with her. Last night. I can smell her on him right now."

For a heartbeat nobody in the hall moved at all. Then Elder Thane's cane struck the floor, sharp and final, cutting through the murmurs before they could grow into something worse.

"Wren Ashby," he said, voice cold enough to freeze the air itself. "Step forward. Now."

My legs would not move.

"Wren," Kade said, low and urgent, still watching me across the distance like I was the only steady thing left in a hall that had just tilted sideways. "Do not be afraid."

Celeste's eyes cut to me, wet with fury, whatever softness had ever existed between us as sisters long gone.

"Do not you dare tell her not to be afraid." Her voice broke on the last word. "She should be terrified. She just ruined everything I have ever worked for.”