CHAPTER 1: The Livestream

Maya's POV

My feet were killing me by the time I got home, but I didn't mind. Not tonight.

I'd spent the last two hours at Verity Bridal, sitting in a plush little chair while the owner pulled gown after gown off a rack of new arrivals, holding each one up against the light so I could see how the beading caught it.

Three months.

That's what I kept telling myself the entire time. Three months until I stood in front of the entire pack in one of those dresses, and Xavier put his hand in mine, and I finally became something more than the girl who grew up loving him.

Luna Maya Cross.

I'd practiced saying it in my head so many times it barely felt real anymore, which was probably why I still couldn't stop smiling about it on the drive home, in the elevator, unlocking my own front door like an idiot who'd just won something.

I dropped my bag by the couch, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed into the cushions with my phone already in my hand out of habit. A few unread messages. A group chat about someone's birthday. Nothing urgent.

I opened my socials to kill ten minutes before bed.

Funny videos. Someone's dog falling off a couch. A recipe I'd never actually make. Pack gossip accounts arguing about some Beta's daughter's engagement ceremony. I scrolled without really absorbing any of it, still floating a little from the gown fitting, still thinking about ivory lace and whether Xavier would like the one with the low back or think it was too much.

Then a notification slid down from the top of my screen.

🔴 LIVE: Black Fang Pack — Special Announcement

I almost swiped it away. Pack livestreams were usually elders droning on about territory disputes or trade agreements, the kind of thing my mother watched and I never had the patience for.

But something made me stop. Maybe it was the word special. Maybe it was some instinct I didn't have words for yet.

I tapped it.

The stream loaded into a ballroom I recognized instantly — the Black Fang event hall, the one they used for anything that mattered. String lights. A crowd dressed too formally for a Tuesday night. My stomach did something strange, some small flicker of unease I couldn't place yet, because Xavier hadn't mentioned anything about an event tonight. He'd told me he had a late meeting with the pack elders. That's why I'd gone dress shopping without him.

The comments were already scrolling too fast to read properly.

-omg is this actually happening

-they look SO good together

-future Alpha and Luna, finally!!

-Luna.

My thumb hovered over the screen, frozen, as the camera panned across the stage.

And there he was.

Xavier. In the dark blue suit I'd picked out for him myself two weeks ago, standing under lights that made him look exactly like the boy I'd fallen in love with at fifteen, grown into the man I was supposed to marry in three months.

Beside him stood a woman in green.

For one stupid, merciful second, my brain simply refused to process who she was. Just a shape. Just a dress. Just someone standing too close to my fiancé on a stage in front of half the pack.

Then she turned slightly toward the camera, laughing at something, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear the exact way she'd done since we were kids sharing a bedroom during summers at our grandmother's house.

Priya.

My cousin.

My best friend since before either of us could walk.

"Maybe she's helping him organize something," I said out loud, to no one, my own voice sounding strange and thin in my empty apartment. "Maybe it's a work thing. Maybe—"

Xavier took the microphone from an elder standing nearby.

The crowd noise dropped into an expectant hush that traveled straight through my phone speaker and into my chest like something physical.

"Tonight," he said, and his voice was warm, easy, the exact tone he used with me when he wanted me to know he meant every word, "I want to introduce everyone to the woman I love."

The comments exploded.

*!!!!!

*HERE WE GO

*I'm crying I love this pack so much

He turned toward Priya.

He got down on one knee.

I watched my own fingers go white around the edges of my phone, watched the stream keep rolling in perfect, unbearable clarity, watched him pull a small velvet box from his jacket pocket — the same jacket pocket where, three weeks ago, he'd shown me the exact ring he was planning to give me, laughing about how he'd had to sneak it past his mother to keep it a surprise.

"Priya," he said. "Will you be my Luna?"

The ballroom detonated into applause.

Priya's hands flew to her mouth. Tears. A nod. The ring sliding onto her finger while three hundred people screamed loud enough that the stream's audio clipped and distorted.

My phone slipped out of my hand and landed face-up on the couch cushion beside me, the livestream still playing, still glowing, still showing me every single detail of my own life ending in real time from a ballroom I hadn't been invited to.

I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough that the stream cut to replay clips. Long enough that my hands had gone numb from how tightly I'd been gripping my own knees.

My phone buzzed.

One new message.

I picked it up on autopilot, some small, stupid, still-hopeful part of me thinking maybe this was a mistake, maybe there was an explanation, maybe none of this was what it so obviously was.

Xavier: I'm sorry you had to find out this way.

I read it four times.

Then I looked past my phone, at the closet across the room where a garment bag hung from the door — the one I'd carried home myself two hours ago, the sample gown Verity had let me borrow overnight so I could show my mother the exact one I wanted altered for the wedding.

Three months.

I actually laughed. One short, broken, humorless sound that didn't feel like it belonged to me.

Then I stood up, grabbed my keys off the counter, and walked out the door before I could talk myself out of what I already knew I was about to do.