The ceremony

Lena's Pov

"If you scrub that pot any harder you'll go straight through the bottom."

I didn't look up. "I'm almost done."

"Lena." Cook's heavy hand landed on my shoulder. "Go home. Get ready. The ceremony starts in two hours."

"I still have three more pots."

"I'll finish them." She took the scrubbing brush from my hand and pointed at the door. "Go. You smell like onions and grease and that is not how a young woman should arrive at the Moon Ceremony."

"I wasn't planning on arriving at all," I muttered.

Cook froze. "What did you say?"

I straightened and wiped my hands on my apron. My knuckles were raw. They were always raw. "I said I wasn't sure I wanted to go."

Cook stared at me like I had just announced I was moving to the human world. She was a large woman with a permanently red face and very little patience for nonsense, but she had always been kind to me in the rough unspoken way that some people are kind, giving me the longer shift when my mother's medication bill came in, pretending not to notice when I slipped leftover bread into my bag at the end of the day.

"Every unmated wolf above the age of twenty attends the Moon Ceremony," she said slowly. "It is pack law, Lena. You don't have a choice."

"I know."

"Then why are you standing here arguing with me instead of going home to get dressed?"

I looked at the remaining pots. At the dirty water. At the stack of coins on the counter that represented six hours of my life.

"Because the ceremony is pointless for me," I said. "And I'd rather be useful."

"Go home," she said. "Get dressed. Attend the ceremony. That is an order."

Our cottage sat at the very edge of Blackridge Pack territory, the kind of location given to families the pack tolerated but didn't particularly want to look at.

I pushed the front door open quietly. My mother was sleeping lightly these days. The cancer had been with us two years now and the medication made her head hurt and the last thing she needed was the door banging.

I checked on her quickly. She was resting. Her breathing was steady. Good.

I left her coins on the kitchen table and went to get ready.

Nadia was already in my room when I got there. She had been climbing through my window since we were nine years old, faster than the front door and it meant she could check on my mother on the way without making it awkward.

She looked up and immediately frowned. "You look terrible."

"Good evening to you too."

"Are you actually okay? About tonight?"

I turned to the mirror and started working on my hair. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because of two months ago."

I kept my hands moving. "That was nothing. The wolf made a mistake."

"Lena—"

Two months ago Cook had sent me to deliver refreshments to the Alpha's meeting hall. I knocked, entered, kept my eyes down and set the tray on the side table and turned to leave.

And somehow, I still don't know exactly how I glanced up as I crossed the room.

Damien Stone was looking directly at me.

Everything stopped. Something moved through my chest, deep and sudden and completely unlike anything I had ever felt. My wolf stood up like she had been struck by lightning and said one word in a voice I had never heard from her before.

Mine.

Three seconds. Maybe four. We looked at each other across that room. Then his jaw tightened. And he looked back at his papers.

The wolf made a mistake, I told myself. It wasn't real. Things like that don't happen to people like you.

"That was nothing," I said to Nadia. "Tonight is just a ceremony I am legally required to attend. I'll stand in my spot, watch the Moon Goddess do her thing, and come home. That's all."

She handed me the green dress without another word. I took it. The stain on the communal dress had reached a level even I couldn't defend.

The ceremony ground blazed with lantern light. The stone altar was draped with white jasmine. Elder Mara stood before it, silver haired and unsmiling. Three hundred wolves filled the circle.

I took my place at the outer edge. The furthest ring from the altar. That was where omegas stood.

Victoria Hale arrived like the occasion had been waiting for her. Ivory silk. Pearl clips. Her father at her side with the expression of a man who already knew how the night would end.

Her eyes found me immediately.

"Lena." My name in her mouth like something she'd stepped in. "Borrowing clothes again?"

"Lending," I said. "It's a mutual arrangement between friends. You should try having some."

Nadia covered a laugh with a cough.

"Careful," Victoria said softly. "Tonight is an important night."

"I appreciate the concern," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me I have a ceremony to attend."

I turned away before she could respond.

Elder Mara raised her hands. The clearing fell silent.

The blessing began.

I had told myself not to hope. I had believed myself.

Then the bond hit me.

A force through my chest so sudden my breath caught. My wolf surged forward.

Him, she said. There. Now. Him.

My head turned without my permission.

Across the clearing. Through the lantern light.

Damien Stone stood at the very front. Tall. Still. Already looking at me.

Two months ago I had told myself the wolf made a mistake.

She had not made a mistake.

The bond was alive and real and screaming and from the look on his face I knew he felt it too.

Then the light bloomed from the altar. Silver white. Spreading outward like moonlight on water.

It moved past the outer ring where I stood.

It settled directly over Victoria Hale.

The crowd erupted. Damien crossed the ceremony ground toward her.

"The Moon Goddess has spoken," he said. Calm. Final. "Victoria Hale will be the Luna of this pack."

I stood completely still while the celebration moved around me.

My wolf was still screaming. Still pulling toward him. Still certain.

So why, as Damien stood beside her receiving congratulations from the entire pack, did he glance in my direction just once?

Not with confusion.

Not with regret.

With something that looked exactly like a decision already made.