Chapter 4

The night of the mating ceremony, there was an eclipse.

The torches before the altar had been burning since afternoon, and the pack members stood in rows all the way down to the foot of the hill.

Theron stood in the middle of the altar dressed in black, with Celine beside him, her white robe trailing on the ground.

The Elder raised his hand to announce the start of the ceremony, but Celine suddenly knelt.

"On the night of the blood moon three years ago," she said, lifting her face to Theron, "someone put wolfsbane in your waterskin."

She raised a hand and pointed at me below the altar. "And the person who poisoned you is still standing here tonight."

Every head turned at once.

"Three years ago, I was still in Silvermoon territory," I said. "Why would I travel all the way here to poison Shadowridge's Alpha?"

Celine's voice was soft. "Then explain this."

She pulled open her collar and held up the stone.

"I used this stone to stop Theron's bleeding. It matches the one around your neck. Tell everyone where you got yours."

"It was my mother's," I said. "One she gave to me. The other was sewn into the cloak she left me."

"And the cloak?" Celine asked.

"Lost."

"Lost where?"

I said nothing.

Celine smiled faintly, then turned to Theron.

"Alpha," she said. "What were you clutching in your fist that night three years ago?"

The crowd below the altar fell silent. Theron stood in the middle of it all without moving.

"A moonstone," he said.

Celine shuffled forward on her knees. "Alpha, Ella cannot shift, yet she possesses the moonstone you were clutching at the scene. What reason could she have had for being there, except to poison you?"

Theron slowly turned toward me. "Ella. Say she's lying."

"Theron, does anything I say matter?"

He did not move.

I stepped back. "I told you that I saved you that night, but you never believed me."

I took another step. Crescent Cliff lay directly behind the altar.

I stopped three paces from the edge, turned my head and looked at Celine. "You say you took the poison for him that night."

She lifted her face slowly.

"Then tell the whole pack which side of his body was wounded."

A torch popped. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Everyone on the altar began turning toward Celine. Even Theron slowly turned to look at her.

She could not answer, because she had never touched him.

That night, she had hidden behind the rocks until I fled, then emerged to pick up the stone I had left behind.

I watched her face go pale. Then something shifted beneath her white robe, and a short blade slid free, its edge stained purple with wolfsbane.

Celine cursed, "Bitch!"

Theron's pupils contracted, and he lunged for me like a madman. "Ella!"

For the first time in three years, he had chosen me.

It was too late.

The moment Celine's blade sank into my shoulder, the ground vanished beneath my feet.

I fell backward. The last thing I saw was Theron sprawled at the cliff's edge, his fingertips less than half an arm's length from mine.

He was shouting something, but I could not make out what he was saying.

With one free hand, I bit open the crystal vial hidden in my sleeve and swallowed its contents.

Blood poured from my shoulder, running down my arm and over the back of my hand.

At that instant, a bright, intricate pattern surfaced on the back of my hand and climbed along my veins.

Heat flared in my chest. The moonstone I had worn for nineteen years rose from beneath my collar and blazed with light.

I opened my mouth to cry out, but my heart stopped at that exact moment.

As darkness closed over me, a faint wolf's growl sounded in the depths of my mind.