Rhea

By lunch, my brain felt like it had been pounded flat with a rune mallet. The cafeteria’s vaulted ceiling did that thing where it made every sound bounce—clattering cutlery, howling laughter, chairs scraping like claws on stone. Silver Ridge was always noisy, always alive, like the building itself had a pulse. Today the wards hummed just a shade louder, the etched sigils along the crown molding glowing faintly—Academy setting, emotion dampeners on, which meant if anyone’s dominance spiked, the runes would flare and snitch to the proctors. Cute. Safe. Claustrophobic.

I wove through the rows of long oak tables, dodging packs clustered like territories on a map. A few heads turned. A few whispers followed.

That’s her.

The quads’ Luna.

Night market girl.

Whatever. I kept my chin up and headed for our usual corner table under the stained-glass window of the Great Accord—the one where a fae queen and a Lycan steward clasped hands like they didn’t both have knives up their sleeves.

Lila spotted me first and waved her fork like a flag. “Finally!”

Bree slid a tray toward the space beside her like I might bolt. “Sit. Eat. Hydrate.”

Nora’s smile was soft, patient. She always looked like sunlight through curtains—gentle, warm, deceptively quiet. “You okay?”

“Define okay,” I said, dropping onto the bench. I inspected my tray like it might bite me—roasted venison, a slab of moonseed bread that steamed when I tore it, spiced root salad glittering with enchanted salt. “I’m surviving. Barely.”

“Mm,” Bree said, clinical. “That’s your ‘I haven’t processed anything and I’m pretending bread will fix it’ voice.”

I opened my mouth to argue and froze when a big hand slid a glass of starlit water in front of me. The liquid fizzed faintly, tiny lights popping like distant constellations.

Theo.

He came around the end of the table and tucked himself in beside Lila like a lock clicking into place. He always moved like that—quiet, direct, Beta surety wrapped in leather and restraint. Older than us, tasked with rotating security posts around the Academy since his mate—my best friend—refused to stop being chaotic in public. (And because my life was apparently a magnet for trouble.)

“Drink,” he rumbled, mouth brushing Lila’s temple before he settled. She went melty and smug in the way of wolves who have no shame about public affection.

“Oh my gods,” Bree muttered, smiling despite herself. “Get a room.”

“We did,” Lila said sweetly, tilting her face for another kiss. “Several.”

Nora choked on her cider. “Lila!”

“What?” She grinned at me, shark-bright and feral. “Beta privileges.”

Theo only looked pleased with himself. His arm slid around her shoulders, equal parts leash and throne. The sigils inset along the window frame pulsed once—Academy’s way of saying: PDA recorded, keep it tidy. Lila wiggled her fingers at the glowing runes like she was waving to a nosy aunt.

I didn’t realize I was smiling until Bree caught me. “There it is,” she said softly. “A real one.”

“It’s either that,” I said, breaking the bread, “or I start screaming.”

“Fun!” Lila perked up. “But screaming is for later. First: you.”

I blinked. “Me?”

“The night market,” she sing-songed, eyes glittering. “You went with the quads… and came back with exactly zero dresses.”

Bree gasped theatrically, clutching her pearls-that-weren’t. “A crime. Arrest her.”

Nora tried to hide her grin behind her cup. Failed. “To be fair, it is mathematically impressive to visit six rows of vendors and return with no fabric at all.”

“It was seven,” I muttered.

Lila thumped the table. “SEVEN.”

Theo’s mouth twitched. “Princess, you brought her to the nocturne quarter and forgot your wolf-to-woman translator.”

“I did not forget—she dodged,” Lila countered, pinching the bridge of her nose like I was a patient who refused medicine. “You should’ve seen her: pet names flying like arrows, dominance crackling, and my girl here acting like a dress might bite.”

Heat crawled up my neck. “I wasn’t acting like anything.”

Bree arched a brow. “You flinched when J—when one of them called you sunshine in front of the fortune-loom.”

“Because I don’t know why,” I blurted, too loud. The stained glass threw fragmented light across the table; it looked like my words broke it. “They call me sunshine and snowflake and princess and little Luna like they’ve known me my whole life, and I—” I clamped my mouth shut. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

The table went quiet for a beat. Not pity quiet. Listening quiet.

Nora’s voice was careful. “What happened at the market?”

The memory slipped in sensory first: the nocturne quarter breathing around us, strings of star-lamps hung low enough to kiss; vendors with tables of rune-thread silks that sang when you touched them; perfume carts pouring smoke that curled into shapes—moths, foxes, memories if you paid extra. The wards kept the sigils from flaring full-bright inside Academy grounds, but the market lived right at the border where the rules thinned. Feelings showed in colour there. Want burned on your skin if you got close enough to name it.

“They tried to buy out half the street,” I said, tearing another piece of bread. “Rory made a game of it. Seth bid-warred a dragonborn for a box of moon opals just because I glanced at it for two seconds. Jaxon stood behind me like a shadow that growls, and Callum… negotiated. Quietly. It was a lot.”

“Translation,” Lila said. “They peacocked.”

“Accurate,” Theo murmured, amused.

“And?” Bree prodded.

“And I didn’t pick a dress,” I admitted. “I froze. My wolf kept… pulling toward them, and the runes there—those little street sigils—sparked whenever they got too close. It felt like someone tugged threads through my bones and tied me to four posts.” My laugh came out thin. “Then I imagined walking into your dinner in something that screams Luna, and everybody staring, and my skin tried to crawl off my body.”

Nora’s fingers found mine, warm and steady. “You aren’t wrong for protecting yourself.”

“You aren’t,” Lila agreed, though she pouted. “But you also can’t show up to my party in warrior leggings.”

“Watch me.”

Theo cleared his throat, deadpan. “You can, technically. You’ll just cause a diplomatic incident.”

I groaned into my hands. “This is hell.”

“Not hell,” Bree said around a grin. “Just public ceremony.”

“Same thing,” I said.

Lila leaned in, her voice dropping. “Okay. Real talk: what do you want to wear? Forget them. Forget expectations. If it was only you—and maybe that part of you that’s starting to… soften—what would you put on your body to feel like you?”

The question landed soft and heavy. I stared at the venison like it might answer. The market flashed again in my head, one stall I didn’t get close to because the loom sang when you breathed near it. The fabric there wasn’t loud. It was night-water blue threaded with something silver that pulsed, not flashy, just alive. It looked like how quiet feels when you’ve earned it.

“I saw a midnight silk,” I said. “Wove light like it swallowed stars then exhaled them. Cut clean, not tight. No corsetry. Movement over spectacle.”

Lila’s grin bloomed. “There she is.”

Bree scribbled on a napkin like this was a mission. “Minimal structure. Wards-friendly weave so if the emotion glyphs flare on Academy grounds, it doesn’t broadcast. Non-she-wolf dress code, elevated Luna silhouette.”

“Run that by me again?” I said, half-laughing.

“It means no one gets to read you unless you want them to,” she translated. “Some fabrics amplify the sigil glow when your emotions spike. The Academy’s wards already force that glow indoors so professors can keep fights down, but the right cloth can mute it.” She tapped the napkin. “Fae-stitch runs usually do. Or drake-shed thread. Expensive. Annoying to alter. Worth it.”

Nora nodded, warming to it. “We can charm the hem so if anyone steps too close, the warding flares microscopically. They won’t know why they feel compelled to back up, but they will.”

“Personal space magic,” Lila said, dreamy. “I love science.”

Theo kissed her hair and added, “I know the loom-master who works the night-water bolts. He owes Dad a favour.”

My head snapped up. “No. Don’t call in favours. I don’t—”

“Hey.” Theo’s voice dipped into that Beta timbre that soothed and ordered at the same time. “Favours are not charity. They’re currency. Also, he likes me.”

“He also fears you,” Lila murmured, proud.

Theo didn’t disagree.

I breathed out. “Okay. Maybe. If we can make it mine.”

Nora’s smile reached her eyes. “We always do.”

Bree twirled her pen, the picture of efficiency. “We’ll handle silhouette. Color you choose. Fabric you test. And if they try to buy the street again, we bite fingers.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a felony,” I said, almost giddy with relief.

“We’ll do it in the Wilds where laws blur,” Lila said, cheerful menace in her tone.

I snorted and finally ate. The venison was perfect—spiced with something bright that cut through the fog in my skull. Across the table Theo murmured something into Lila’s hair that made her laugh and press closer; his hand slid to her thigh under the table. The runes along the cornice pulsed once, like a tut. Lila stuck out her tongue at them and then kissed his jaw slow, shameless. Someone wolf-whistled two tables over; Theo’s glare shut it down.

“You two are a menace,” Bree said, fond and exasperated.

“Jealousy ages you,” Lila replied.

“Some of us already moisturize,” Bree said primly, then elbowed me. “Drink your starlit water.”

I drank. The fizz went cool through my chest, the little astral pops settling something frayed inside me.

A pack of she-wolves drifted by—a knot of silk and sharp perfume. One of them glanced at me, nose wrinkling like I was a scent she couldn’t place. “Thought she’d be taller,” she said to no one and everyone.

Lila went still. Theo didn’t. He merely lifted his gaze; not dominance, exactly, but the promise of it. The girl flushed and pivoted like her shoes suddenly had a different destination. The wards hummed, satisfied.

“Annoying,” Nora said, but there was no bite. She was past the phase that cared. “They’ll talk either way. Before, you were an insult to their ambitions. Now, you’re proof they weren’t chosen.”

“It’s not a merit badge,” I muttered. “It’s a bond. I didn’t engineer it.”

Theo’s mouth curved. “They will learn the difference.”

We ate. And for a moment—just one—the noise of the hall blurred into something like normal. Lila accused Bree of hoarding the starfruit tarts. Bree accused Lila of being a feral magpie around shiny things. Nora proofread my rune notes between bites like an angel with a red pen. Theo tracked the room with his eyes and held Lila like the world could try and it would never take her.

“Okay,” Lila said at last, smacking her hands together. “Post-lunch plan: quick stop at the Loomery. Then charms with Bree. Then you nap, because your face says ‘running on fumes and resentment.’ Tonight we practice hair.”

“I can do my own hair,” I said, reflex and pride.

“Mm, yes,” Lila said gravely. “And you do it so well when you’re pacing.”

“Rude.”

“Accurate,” Bree echoed, smug.

Nora reached for my hand again, gentle. “How’s your heart?”

The question slipped under my armour. I watched light drip across the table from the stained glass—the fae queen’s palm meeting the Lycan steward’s; two liars framed as saviours. “Cracking,” I said. “In a way that doesn’t hurt as much. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Both,” Nora said softly. “It’s always both.”

Lila’s voice gentled. “You don’t have to pick a lane today. You can be spooked and soft at the same time.”

Theo squeezed her. “And protected, regardless.”

I nodded, swallowing around the knot. “I… didn’t hate last night. The market. I hated being watched. I hated feeling like if I picked a dress it would be for them. But walking with them—” Heat crept up again; I forced the words out. “It didn’t feel like drowning. Not the whole time.”

Bree’s smile went sly. “Progress. We mark the day.”

“Don’t mark anything,” I said, laughing. “No engravings.”

Nora leaned back, eyes crinkling. “You’ll shift soon.”

“Next week,” I said, breath hitching. “If the Moon doesn’t decide to play another joke.”

“She won’t,” Lila said, faith like iron. “And if she does, I’ll fight her. Supreme Alphas can mediate.”

“Please don’t start a celestial war,” Bree murmured.

“Noted.”

Theo’s gaze cut to me, measuring, thoughtful. “The resonance numbers were real?”

“Ten,” I said, the word buzzing in my bones. “Out of ten.”

He whistled under his breath. “That’s… rare.”

“Understatement,” Bree said. “Try unprecedented on Academy record.”

“And confusing as hell,” I added. “No one knows why. The running theory is ‘because there are four of them’ and ‘because they’re only a rung below the Supremes,’ as if power stacks like bricks.” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care about the ladder. I care about not passing out every time they’re within a hundred yards.”

“We’ll build a buffer,” Bree said instantly. “Wards, charms, breathwork. We’ll make the bond behave on your terms.”

Nora nodded. “And if you ever want quiet, we take it. We go to the gardens. The wards there are gentler. Yours don’t flare as hard.”

“Thank you,” I said, so soft it barely made it past my teeth.

Lila slung an arm around my shoulders, dragging me against her with big sister ferocity. “We’ve got you, Rhee. Always.”

I let myself lean. Just a little. The sigils along the crown molding warmed and dimmed like they approved. Outside the tall windows, the day had turned bright and cold; the kind of blue sky that makes everything sharp enough to cut.

“Okay,” I breathed, bracing elbows on the table. “Dress after lunch. Midnight silk. Minimal spectacle. Personal space charm.”

“And bitey fingers as needed,” Lila said brightly.

“Metaphorical,” Theo added.

“Debatable,” Lila countered, kissing his jaw again just because she could.

The wards gave their prim little pulse. Lila winked at them.

I finished my starlit water and stood. The hall’s noise rolled over me without sinking hooks this time. For once, it didn’t feel like the whole Academy was clawing at my skin.

Someone at a nearby table let “sunshine” slip under their breath like it was dirty, like they could twist it into something cheap.

Yesterday, that would’ve cut deep. Today? Not so much.

Because Seth had already explained why he called me snowflake—not fragile, but rare. One of a kind, impossible to copy, melting in the palm of his hand if he wasn’t careful. And Rory? Rory couldn’t even say princess without smirking, but underneath the teasing, he’d told me it was his way of reminding me that I deserved to be spoiled, to be fought for, even when I didn’t believe it.

So yeah, I knew their reasons.

But Jax and Callum?

Nothing. Just their clipped, casual “sunshine” and “little Luna” tossed like inevitabilities, never explained, never softened. And I hated that it rattled me. Hated that I wanted to know what it meant to them—what I meant to them—when every part of me screamed I shouldn’t need that answer.

I wasn’t about to ask. Not yet. Not when my heart still cracked at the edges, not when trusting them felt like stepping barefoot onto glass.

But as the whispers trailed me out of the hall, the word didn’t bite the way it used to.