The Goddess Doesn't Ask (Steven's POV)

My father found me by the ballroom doors with a glass I hadn't touched. It was my eighteenth birthday. Two hundred guests, most of whom I had only met that night. A clock wound for the occasion. The shutters taken off the skylight so the moon could see us.

"Ready to meet your Luna?" he asked.

"No."

"Good. Nobody is."

My mother stepped up on his other side and fixed my collar, which did not need fixing. "Eighteen is not the finish line, Steven. It's the beginning of becoming an Alpha. It only gets harder from here."

"Not with a great Luna beside me," Dad said.

She stopped fixing my collar and gave him the look she had been giving him for thirty years. She had heard that line a million times, and she decided to believe it again.

A great Luna.

I had been looking for Melica since the doors opened.

She stood near them with Angeline's shawl over her arm, laughing at something Adrian had said without meaning to be funny. Three years ago, after her father died, she had stopped laughing at anything, and the whole pack had learned to walk around her. Tonight she was bright. She lit the corner she stood in and did not know it.

I started across the floor.

The clock ticked over to the hour. The moon came through the skylight and found me, one clean beam, and a line of it ran across the marble toward the doors. I followed it. I was close enough to see Melica's face change when she noticed me coming. Then I saw who was standing half a step in front of her with a hand out for the shawl.

The beam stopped at Angeline's shoes.

The mark finished writing itself on my wrist. It burned, then spelled her name.

Why?

The goddess doesn't ask what you hoped for. She tells you, and she lets you walk the rest of the way on your own.

I thanked her that night, in the right words, in front of the right people. I meant the part I could.

Melica was the first to clap. She clapped too long, and it started to hurt to watch.

I had been driving for ten minutes with that night running in my head. I was trying to work out how a man builds a life on a foundation he did not pour.

You'll wear a groove in that thought, Steion said.

It's a good thought.

It's a loop.

The service curve came into view, and Melica was on it. Walking alone with three bags on her shoulders and her chin held high. Pride. Despite everything that had happened to her, she had never been one to beg, and she kept her dignity anyway. I remembered her storming into the pack hall after Arnold Arvaunt decided to ally with the pack that killed her father. Her face had been full of tears, but none of them put out the fire growing inside her. From then on, I knew she could be a great Luna. Just not mine.

Adrian's car had gone through the gate a few minutes ahead of me with two people in it. Why is she out here alone? My grip tightened on the wheel. There had to be a reason, and I did not think I would like it.

She was close enough that I could have called her name. But she was as far from me as she had ever been. The road was the same road. It had just gotten longer.

You have a mate, Steion said.

I know what I have.

The goddess chose.

It wasn't the first time I had heard that.

Then why does she let me feel this?

She always has her reasons.

I never knew whether to pity or resent people who had blind faith in the moon goddess. If she was all-loving and all-knowing, why had she made me take this road and see her again? Why had she taken Melica's father so early? Why make someone so earnest in her faith suffer this much?

Name one.

I am a wolf, Steven. I am not her secretary.

I put my face in order before I touched the window.

"Melica," I said. "What are you doing out here?"

"Exercise," she said. "Doctor's orders."

"You don't have a doctor."

"I have a very strict one. He's imaginary."

Normally I would have laughed. I couldn't. The satchel in her arms was Angeline's, and I knew which car had stopped on this road and who had asked it to. I looked at the empty curve behind her, then at the three bags.

"Where's Adrian?"

She shrugged. It was a good shrug. She had been practicing it for years.

"Get in."

"I'm okay."

"That wasn't a question." I could not rush a sentence with her. I chose every word and set it down. "Don't make me carry you into my car."

She got in.

"Did Angeline ask you to walk?"

"It was my idea."

"You're a terrible liar."

"It's a gift."

She looked at the dashboard. There was nothing on it. I had cleared it the day before, in case she ever rode with me. I couldn't remember when I had started fantasizing about driving her, but lately the delusions kept getting stronger.

"Does your imaginary doctor take new patients?"

"He's full."

"I can wait."

"What for?" she said. "Maybe I could use my VIP privileges for you."

"A broken heart."

She burst out laughing. At least I got to see her smile again. Her eyes had always been either empty or filled with hopelessness. If there was a way I could make that smile mine, I would promise to be devout to the goddess herself.

"Happy birthday." I handed her a vintage necklace.

What are you doing? Steion said.

Talking.

You're flirting with a girl who is not yours.

I'm eighteen. I'm not Alpha yet. In a year, I will be married for the rest of my life. I'm allowed one short stretch of road.

Do you think you can change what the goddess wills?

I knew of someone who had. It was only a rumor. Angeline's parents were not fated mates. They had chosen each other. Maybe with enough persuasion, Angeline and I could both choose not to abide by it.

That was a special case, Steion said.

I had no answer for that.

Before we reached the front gate, I saw Arabella's crowd. Arabella Crossvixen was a year older than us, an Alpha's daughter and Calix's ex, which in her mind made her royalty. You would think someone of her status would not bother with the likes of Melica and Angeline. But life was just as boring at the top, and she would stoop this low to find entertainment in other people's suffering. Her gang watched the front gate, and they carried phones. I took the ramp into the basement valet lot and parked where no camera or classmate would see her step out of my car.

"Tell me if anyone gives you trouble," I said.

"Sure," she said.

I knew what sure meant from her. It meant no.

I reached across to push the door open. She was out before it finished swinging, and she did not turn around.

In the rearview mirror, Calix Montbeau straightened off a pillar the second she walked past him.

Calix leaned on things. He did not straighten for people. I had known him since we were twelve. His pack had once been one of the largest in the city, and before they lost their territory he had been happy-go-lucky and nonchalant. I had watched him stay against a wall while an elder Beta lectured him for ten minutes. But today I watched him watch her all the way to the stairs.

I wanted to believe he was only more guarded now, because of what his pack had lost. But something told me there was more to it.

I got out of the car and went after him. Before I could catch up, I found Angeline waiting on the east steps with her thermos.

"There you are." She handed it to me. "Melica walked in, did you see? She insisted. You know how stubborn she is."

It was a lie. Melica had told me the same one in my car, in fewer words and with worse delivery. I knew whose idea the walk had been. I knew whose satchel she had been carrying.

I said nothing. Angeline was my mate, and the only thing against her was a shrug from the girl I'd hoped would be.

She slid her hand through my arm and held on too tight. I let her, all the way to the women's powder room.

"You can go first," she said. "I'll just freshen up."

I hadn't gotten far from the door when I heard an obnoxious laugh from the room Angeline had just walked into. It was Arabella and her gang.

"She'll think we're being nice."

"It's her birthday. Of course she will."

"The candle's already in the cake."