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Chapter 4

Clara
At ten o’clock, the Mating Ceremony began.

The ballroom at the Meridian Hotel held more than two hundred guests from four packs.

The screen behind the stage was working again. It was running photos of Dominic and me, from college until now.

In every one I was leaning on his shoulder and grinning like an idiot.

The emcee checked his watch three times.

“Is our Luna on her way?”

Dominic stood at the side of the stage, and his face kept getting darker.

My parents sat in the front row. My mother called me again and again.

“Why isn’t she answering? Is she feeling sick?”

Dominic opened his mouth. Jo got there first, with a laugh.

“Helen, you know how she gets in the morning. Last night she said she wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with it. She’s probably making everyone wait on purpose.”

My mother’s head came up.

“When did she say that?”

Jo stumbled. “I mean, you know her. She gets in a mood and threatens to leave him.”

Dominic didn’t correct her.

The tables had started to talk.

“What time is it now?”

“That Omega’s got some nerve.”

“Two hundred people waiting on one girl. Unbelievable.”

Each word landed on Dominic’s face.

He tried the mind-link and got silence. That was nothing new. My wolf hadn’t been strong enough to hold a link in three years.

If he’d marked me, he wouldn’t have needed one. He’d have felt it at 3:07, wherever he was standing.

I’d asked him twice. The first time, Jo had a race. The second time, he said it would mean more at the ceremony, in front of everyone.

He took out his phone and called me.

Back in the apartment, my phone buzzed on the pillow.

It rang out. He called again and it rang out again.

He ground his teeth and sent a text.

Aurora. Everyone is waiting for you.

Thirty seconds later, another one.

You can be mad. Don’t play games with the ceremony.

The screen went dark.

I wanted so badly to tell him I wasn’t playing.

He was the one who’d been playing with my life.

The emcee had run out of things to say, so he played the interview we’d taped the month before.

On the big screen, the interviewer asked me a question.

“Aurora, you could have said no. Why did you agree to be his Luna?”

I thought about it for a while on camera.

“Because with him, I don’t have to be so understanding all the time.”

The room was still murmuring.

“After my wolf got hurt, a lot of people thought I was a burden. Dominic’s the only one who told me I didn’t have to force myself to live like a normal wolf.”

Off camera, Dominic’s voice cut in, laughing.

“She is normal. She just needs a little more sleep than the rest of us.”

On the screen, my eyes turned red.

“He promised me,” I said. “Whenever I close my eyes, he’ll keep watch.”

The ballroom went quiet, a table at a time.

My mother stood up.

“I’m going to go see Rory.”

That was when Dominic’s phone lit up with an automatic health report, generated by my wristband.

Total sleep: 7 hours 3 minutes.

Abnormal wake-up: 3:05 a.m.

Severe heart rate fluctuation: 3:06 a.m.

Heart rate record ended: 3:07 a.m.

He stared at the screen, and the anger set on his face like cement.

Jo leaned over to read it and spoke immediately.

“The machine’s broken.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Seriously, it’s garbage. It was going crazy when I unplugged it.” Her voice was speeding up. “You know what a good actress she is. She probably changed the numbers herself.”

Dominic’s head snapped up.

“How?”

His eyes had gone red.

“She hasn’t moved since three o’clock! How did she change them?”

Jo stumbled back a step.

Every voice in the ballroom stopped.

His hand started to shake.

He was remembering how my head had dropped over his arm. How cold my face was. Dr. Ellis saying check her breathing, her pulse. My mother saying what matters is that she’s okay.

He turned and went off the stage.

A chair went over. A tray of glasses hit the floor.

Jo ran after him. “Dominic! Stop scaring yourself, she’s obviously faking again!”

He ran every light between the hotel and our building and left his car on the sidewalk.

He didn’t wait for the elevator.

He took the fire stairs, all eighteen floors, without stopping.

The soup was still sitting outside the door, stone cold.

The old medical record lay on the floor beside it. He picked it up on his way past, and then he stopped and read it.

Temporary cardiac arrest following sudden waking.

Recurrence may be life-threatening.

The paper shook in his hand.

He opened the door.

“Aurora?”

Nobody answered.

He walked toward the bedroom one step at a time.

“I’m back.”

His voice had gone hoarse.

“It’s your ceremony today. Come on. Stop it now.”

He pushed the door open.

I was still on the bed, with the mask over my eyes and the blanket up to my chin.

Exactly the way he’d left me.

He stood in the doorway for a long time and couldn’t make himself move.

Finally, he forced a smile.

“Okay. You win.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have let Jo scare you with that cannon. Get up, and we’ll go to the hospital, okay?”

The body on the bed said nothing.

He walked over, took me by the shoulders and tried to lift me.

My arm stayed locked against my side. The elbow wouldn’t bend.

Dominic went completely still.
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