Chapter 2: The Impossible Mate

POV: Tahlia

I told myself I was wrong.

The Moon Goddess could not possibly have chosen me. Not for him. Not for the Alpha Prince every she-wolf in the kingdom already claimed in her dreams. The bond had to be a mistake, a cruel trick of the full moon, a temporary madness brought on by too much noise and too little air. I repeated the words in my head like a prayer that might still work if I said them hard enough.

You are imagining it.

He is not looking at you.

The Goddess does not make jokes this cruel.

But every step Ronan Edevane took across the courtyard made the pull stronger.

My wolf trembled with pure, stupid excitement. She pressed against my ribs like she wanted to claw her way out and run straight to him. I could barely breathe. The scent of cedar and rain and smoke wrapped tighter around me with every foot of distance he closed, sinking into my lungs and refusing to leave. My pulse hammered in my throat, my wrists, the soft place behind my knees. I locked my legs so I wouldn't sway. My fingers dug into the cold stone of the pillar until the edges bit my skin.

People started noticing.

First the ones closest to me. A woman in blue silk paused mid-sip and followed the line of Ronan's stare. Her eyes widened. Then the couple beside her turned. Then the warriors near the dance floor. Heads turned one after another, a slow ripple spreading outward until it felt like the whole courtyard had gone quiet just to watch.

"Is he looking at her?"

"He can't be."

"Tahlia Osadebe? The fat one?"

A sharp laugh cut through the whispers. Then another. Someone near the dessert tables pointed, bold and unashamed.

"Perhaps the Moon Goddess needs glasses," a woman murmured, delighted with herself.

"Fate has finally developed a sense of humor," someone else said, loud enough for half a dozen people to hear. "The Alpha Prince and the girl nobody wanted."

A third voice joined in. "Someone should tell the Goddess she mixed up the sisters. The pretty one's standing right there."

Heat flooded my face so fast I felt dizzy. I wanted to disappear into the pillar behind me. My hands curled into fists so no one would see them shake. I kept my eyes on Ronan, because looking anywhere else meant seeing the laughter on their faces. That old familiar burn was already climbing up my neck, the one that came every time someone decided my body was the evening's entertainment.

Ronan's friends closed around him like a wall. Three of them, tall, sharp-eyed, already half drunk from the earlier celebration. The tallest clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to jostle the glass in his hand.

"Tell me that pull isn't what I think it is."

Ronan didn't answer. His eyes stayed locked on mine.

Another friend leaned in, grinning. "Deny it. Right now, before the whole courtyard starts believing the rumors. Say the whiskey's playing tricks. We'll back you up."

The third, blond and loud, the kind who always laughed hardest at other people's pain, raised his glass toward me like a toast. "Or are you planning to introduce your chubby Luna to the kingdom tonight? Should we start clearing space at the head table? Maybe find her a sturdier chair?"

Laughter erupted, cruel and easy, needing no permission and expecting none. A few more voices joined from the edges of the circle.

"Can you imagine the announcement?"

"The future Luna of Silver Ridge, best known for emptying the banquet tables."

"His father will love that. The heir and the girl who can't fit into a proper ceremonial dress."

"Maybe the bond's broken. It has to be. The Goddess wouldn't do this to him."

Ronan still said nothing. He reached for another glass of whiskey from a passing tray, drained half of it in one swallow, and kept staring at me. The muscle in his jaw flexed once. His free hand curled and uncurled at his side. The bond between us pulsed harder, refusing to be ignored no matter how much whiskey he poured on it. I felt it in my teeth, in the roots of my hair, in the soft, traitorous place behind my sternum that wanted to believe this could still end differently.

For one fragile, stupid second, I let myself hope.

Maybe he was gathering courage. Maybe the bond felt as overwhelming to him as it did to me, and the whiskey was only buying him time to decide. Maybe he would walk over, claim me in front of everyone, and silence every laugh with a single word from the Alpha Prince. My wolf believed it completely. She was already painting a future where someone finally chose me without conditions, where the whispers stopped, where I stopped being the joke the territory told when it ran out of better ones.

I wanted to believe it too. I wanted it so badly my eyes stung.

I thought of every room like this one I had stood at the edge of, watching other girls get chosen, get claimed, get looked at the way Ronan was looking at me now. I had told myself for years that the Goddess had simply forgotten me. That it was kinder that way. That a mate who never appeared was better than one who appeared and turned away.

But he wasn't turning away.

He was still looking.

And for one reckless heartbeat, I let the hope grow teeth.

Then he started walking toward me.

The crowd parted for him the way it always did. Conversations died mid-sentence. Music kept playing somewhere far off, but no one danced anymore. Every eye followed his path across the stones. I felt the weight of hundreds of stares pressing against my skin like hands, curious, delighted, hungry for the spectacle.

"He's actually going over there," someone near the front whispered.

"This is going to be good," another voice answered.

Nadia stood somewhere to my left. I caught the flash of her silver dress in the corner of my vision and knew without looking that she was smiling. Of course she was. This was the kind of night she'd always known would come for me, the night the difference between us stopped being something people whispered and became something they could point at under the lights.

Ronan's steps were steady, unhurried, the half-empty glass dangling loose from his fingers. That unreadable smile still sat on his mouth, but it had sharpened, gone colder. My wolf whined inside my head, confused by the shift in the air between us. The bond still pulled, still sang, still insisted this man belonged to us. But something in the way he moved made the song feel suddenly off-key.

I couldn't move. I couldn't look away.

"She's going to cry," a warrior to my right muttered. "Watch."

"If she has any sense, she'll run before he reaches her," a woman answered.

I stayed exactly where I was.

He stopped right in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. Close enough that the bond roared between us, hot and impossible to ignore. His scent filled every breath I took until there was no room left for anything else. Cedar. Rain. Smoke. And underneath it, the sharp bite of expensive whiskey. I could see the gold flecks in his irises. I could see the exact moment his decision settled behind them. I could see that whatever hope I'd been holding had already been weighed, measured, and found insufficient.

He leaned in. Only I could hear the soft sound of his breath when he spoke.

Then he smiled.

Not kindly.

Cruelly.

The kind of smile that already knew exactly how much it was about to hurt.