ログインDEUS POV"She needs to be moved to the clinic immediately," The healer said, already pressing two fingers against Tatiana's throat to check her pulse again. "I can't do anything more for her properly out here on this floor.""Move away," A voice cut sharply through the noise before I could even respond, and I looked up to see my father shoving through the crowd toward us, his face a mask of barely controlled fury unlike anything I had seen from him before.I didn't answer him. I scooped Tatiana up into my arms instead, her body frighteningly light and limp against my chest, her skin still faintly warm with that strange crimson shimmer that hadn't fully faded yet."Someone clear the doorway," I shouted, my voice cracking slightly with panic I could no longer keep out of it. "Now, please, she needs help right now."Carlos moved instantly, pushing people aside, clearing a path toward the main doors even as his own face remained twisted with a grief and confusion I understood completely,
DEUS POVHer eyes stayed gold, and she was trembling so hard against my hands that I could feel it traveling straight up through my own arms, something moving beneath her skin that I had absolutely no way of explaining to her or to myself in that exact moment."Deus, something is happening to me," she said, her voice stuttering with panic. "I feel it, right under my skin, moving, like something is trying to get out.""I don't know what's happening," I admitted, keeping both hands firmly on her shoulders, trying to hold her steady even as I felt her whole body shaking harder with each passing second. "Just breathe. Look at me. Just breathe.""I can't," She gasped. "Deus, it feels like it's on fire."Behind me, someone in the crowd let out a sharp, audible gasp, and I turned my head just enough to see what had drawn their attention so suddenly.A faint shimmer of deep crimson had begun spreading across the bare skin of her arms, subtle at first, almost like a trick of the candlelight, e
TATIANA'S POVThe ceremony hadn't even started yet, everyone still finding their seats, servers still moving quietly between tables with trays of drinks nobody was paying attention to, when the entire hall went still in a way that made my skin prickle before I even understood why.I looked up and saw him.Deus was walking straight toward me, cutting directly across the open floor in front of the raised platform where he and Veronica were supposed to stand in less than twenty minutes, and every single person in that hall had already turned to watch him do it."Deus, what are you doing?" I whispered, half rising from my seat as he reached the table where Carlos's family had placed me, exactly the seat of honor Carlos had promised me days earlier."Something I should have done weeks ago," he said, and his voice carried further than I expected it to, loud enough that the tables closest to us went completely silent, loud enough that I saw Mrs. Hale's head snap up from across the room."Not
DEUS POVThe invitation sat on my desk for almost an hour before I actually made myself open it, my own name printed across the front in formal gold script, the Hale family seal pressed into the wax like this was something to celebrate instead of something closing in around me from every direction at once.I finally broke the seal and read it through twice, though I already knew exactly what it would say before I even opened it. The formal reaffirmation ceremony. The closing night of the Moonrise Festival.My name and Veronica's, printed together, the entire pack invited to witness it happen in person.There was no version of tonight where I walked away from this without losing something.I found my father in his study later that afternoon, going through paperwork at his desk with the same controlled focus he brought to everything, and I stood in the doorway for a long moment before he even looked up."I need to talk to you," I said."I assumed you would," he said, setting his pen dow
VERONICA POVI read the notice three times, trying to understand it.My name, printed right beside his in elegant gold lettering, as if it had never actually been in question, like the entire academy hadn't spent the last several weeks whispering about locked classrooms and mysterious scholarship girls before this single piece of paper reminded everyone exactly where things actually stood.I ran my fingers over the raised print, smiling to myself, already picturing the ceremony in my head.My mother found me sitting at my desk that evening, the notice still spread out in front of me, and she settled into the chair across from me with the same satisfied expression I had been wearing all day."You've read that thing at least a dozen times now," she said, amusement clear in her voice."It never gets old," I admitted, tracing the edge of the paper one more time."I take it you're pleased with how the timing worked out," she said. "Your father made sure the closing ceremony would fall righ
TATIANA'S POVThe banners went up sometime overnight, because when I walked out of my dorm that morning, the entire courtyard looked completely different from how it had looked the evening before, strings of deep purple and silver fabric stretched between the buildings, catching the wind in a way that made the whole academy look like it was already celebrating something I hadn't fully understood yet."Isn't it exciting?" Liana said from somewhere behind me, practically skipping to catch up, all traces of her usual coldness replaced by genuine enthusiasm now that there was something new to gossip about."The Moonrise Festival is only a few days away, and apparently this year is supposed to be the biggest one they've held in over a decade.""I've never actually been to one," I admitted, mostly to myself, studying the banners as we walked."Of course you haven't," she said, though for once it didn't sound like an insult, just an observation."Every major pack family in the region is expe







