Chapter 2

Marcus’s POV

“You can nod,” I said. “That isn’t speaking.”

She nodded.

It was three in the morning, in the old Moon Room at the top of the Mandai Ridge pack house. One tall window, no curtains, and a pale square of moonlight on the wooden floor. A low table. Two cushions. A jug of barley water that neither of us had touched.

She sat across from me in her black veil, perfectly straight, hands folded in her lap. She’d sat like that for two hours.

I had never been so nervous in my life.

“The elders say I’m supposed to stay silent too,” I said. “But it’s a long night. I’ll talk. You listen. If it’s too much, lift a finger.”

She didn’t lift a finger.

Kai stirred inside me. My wolf is a big, old-fashioned animal who dislikes small talk and dislikes uncertainty even more. But for two hours he’d been strangely quiet, lying low in my chest, his ears turned toward the girl across the table like a dog listening to a distant bell.

“I’m twenty-eight,” I said. “Alpha since I was twenty-six. My father died in a car accident on the PIE, and they gave me the pack before I’d finished crying. I didn’t want it. I don’t think I’m good at it.”

The veil tilted a fraction.

“That’s a joke, mostly. I’m reasonably good at it. But every morning I wake up and think, today they’ll find out I’m making it up.” I rubbed my bare wrist. There’s a mark there, from the wristwatch I’ve stopped wearing. “Elder Wee wants a Luna by the next full moon. They’ve picked someone. They think I don’t know.”

Silence.

“It’s Natalie Lim. The Beta’s daughter. I’ve known her twenty years.” I shook my head. “She’s lovely. She’d make a perfect Luna. She’d smile at every council meeting and never once tell me what she really thinks.”

A very small, very quiet breath came from behind the veil. It might have been a laugh.

“You think that’s funny.”

She lifted one finger.

“I meant it as a compliment.”

The finger stayed up. Then, slowly, it turned. She held out her hand across the table, palm up, and after a long moment, I put mine into it.

Her fingers were tiny and warm. And callused, at the tip of the first two, and the side of the thumb, in a place I couldn’t name. She turned my hand over and drew, very lightly, on my palm.

One letter. Then another. It tickled. It sent a shiver straight up my spine.

N. O.

“No?”

She drew again. It took a while. I held my breath so I wouldn’t miss it.

N. O. T. E. V. E. N.

“Not even,” I read.

Another letter. She was shaking. I could feel it through her fingertip.

C. L. O. S. E.

“Not even close,” I said, slowly. “You’re saying I’m wrong. That Natalie wouldn’t.”

She curled my fingers shut over the words like she was giving me a coin. Then she opened her hand and drew once more, very small.

I. M. H. E. R. E.

I’m here.

A weight shifted in my chest. It was so gentle I almost missed it. A latch coming loose. A door opening on a room I hadn’t known was locked.

“You know her,” I said. “You know Natalie.”

A nod.

“You like her?”

A pause. A very small movement of the veil, back and forth. Not no. Not yes. The kind of shake that says it’s complicated.

“That’s fair.” I laughed quietly. “Everyone’s complicated.” I hesitated. “Are you frightened?”

Yes. She drew it on my palm with a trembling finger.

“Of me?”

No.

“Of the morning?”

The finger stopped. Then, very slowly, Y. E. S.

I looked at the silent figure across the table, at the moon on her shoulders, at the small, brave hand in mine, and Kai said one word.

Careful.

I don’t know why. I couldn’t have told you. I only knew that this girl who wouldn’t speak was the first person in years who had made me feel less alone, and that if I wasn’t careful, I would ruin it.

“Whatever the morning shows,” I said quietly, “I chose you. In the dark. Before I knew a name. That doesn’t change.”

Her whole body went still.

Then, very gently, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against our joined hands. The veil brushed my knuckles. I felt her breath. I felt her shaking.

I sat there in the moonlight, not moving, not speaking, for what felt like a very long time.

~

The sun came up gray and gold over the rainforest.

Cicadas started first, that huge steady buzz that rolls out of Bukit Timah every morning like a tide. Then birds. A distant train on the Kranji line. The light turned the window from black to violet to pink, and I heard heavy footsteps come up the stairs.

Elder Wee. Two other elders. Beta Richard Lim, in his best suit, sweating. Behind them, a dozen wolves of the pack, whispering.

Mrs. Katherine Wee stopped in the doorway. She is seventy-one, thin as a rake, with a walking stick and eyes that miss nothing.

“Alpha Goh,” she said. “The night is over. You may lift the veil.”

I stood. My knees had gone stiff. She stood too. Her hands were clenched in her lap.

“Ready?” I asked her, softly.

She gave one tiny nod.

I took the hem of the black silk in both hands. It slid up like water. Beneath it was a heart-shaped face, small and pale, with dark eyes that looked up at me like a deer’s in headlights. A mole beside the left eye. A smudge of ink on her chin.

I knew her.

Not from that night. From years. From a pack picnic when I was seventeen, and a bag of oranges, and a shy girl who’d stood in the sun with her mouth open and never said a word.

“Serena?” I said.

The hall behind us went silent.

“Serena Lim,” said Elder Wee, in a voice like a blade coming out of a sheath. “The Beta’s younger daughter. The one who has no wolf.”

“I,” Serena said. It was the first word I’d heard from her. Her voice was soft and hoarse and shaking. “I can explain.”

“You lied to the Alpha.”

“I didn’t...”

“You stood in your sister’s place at the Veil Night. You took another woman’s number.” The elder’s stick struck the floor once. “In sixty years of this pack, no one has dared.”

“Katherine,” said her father, gasping. “There must be some mistake. Serena, tell them. Tell them you were confused.”

“Dad, I...”

The door banged open.

Every head turned. Natalie Lim stood in the doorway in a silk dressing gown, with her hair loose and her hands clasped to her chest and her eyes wide and wet and horrified. She looked like a girl who’d been dragged out of bed.

“Serena!” she cried. “What have you done?”