1. Just Nerves.

~ JOCELYN ~

Tonight is going to be the most important night of my life.

Tonight is the night I become Luna of the Nightfall Pack.

Tonight is the night I marry the love of my life, Alpha Caspian King.

Tonight is going to be awesome.

Staring at my beautiful reflection in the floor-length mirror, I keep reciting those four sentences and holding my breath while adjusting the invisible fringes of my white wedding dress. The dress is a lovely dream that is snug around my curves and purposefully designed with white gemstones in order to sparkle when I walk into the gardens and towards the altar.

Long story short, I should feel beautiful. I should feel ready.

But all I feel is this strange discomfort pinching inside my chest.

“You look beautiful.”

Mara, one of the elder seamstresses in the room, whispers to me with a smile. She has been fussing over me and my gown since afternoon, and she also helped me get dressed and did my makeup.

I manage to flash her a quick smile, “Thank you, Mara.”

Her hands rest on my shoulders for a short moment before dropping. “The goddess is with you tonight, so don't be nervous, okay?”

“No, I'm not nervous.” I lie.

She must have detected my lie, but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she just nods and gives me a moment to calm my nerves as she returns to packing and arranging some of her working tools into her bag.

The room returns to being quiet again.

The silence is the type of silence that seems to be waiting for me to yell that I am nervous.

Still staring at myself in the mirror, I try not to let my jittering nerves get the best of me.

I have imagined this night over a thousand times. I have dreamt of standing beside Caspian in front of the whole Nightfall Pack, claiming my place beside him as his one and only Luna.

And yet…

I press my palm to my chest. The discomfort hasn’t left. Instead, it keeps growing heavier and heavier with each passing second.

“Get it together, Jocelyn.” I rub my chest and shake my head, pushing the nerves to go away.

My bond with Caspian is finally going to be sealed tonight. My future with him is finally going to be solidified.

I love him with all my heart. This is everything I have ever wanted.

I was eight when I first met Caspian. He was already the alpha heir to the Nightfall Pack, all handsome and kind and so out of my league. I was just the orphaned girl with glassy blue eyes and long untamed red curls, dropped into the packhouse by a stranger who was kind enough to bring me into this pack.

No one spoke to me much back then. Not even the pups. I was the outsider. I was the unwanted.

But not to Caspian.

He found me crying under the willow tree behind the training fields one day. I had scraped one of my knees when I was trying to run away from Lycena Bale, the Gamma's daughter, and her gang of fellow bullies. My heart was shattered with all kinds of ugly names that they threw at me.

But when Caspian found me, he was sweet and gentle. He sat beside me, wordless, then he handed me a bunch of moonflowers he had plucked from the packhouse garden just to cheer me up.

I had flinched when he also wiped my teary cheeks, and he made me smile when he said the moonflowers would bloom better if I smiled.

I didn't believe him, but I smiled anyway.

From that moment on, he became my whole world.

We started as friends first. Then… something more. I was always careful not to ever overstep my boundaries because he was the alpha heir, and I was just a nobody.

But my heart never obeyed my logical instructions.

I have always been in love with Caspian King, my best friend, but I knew we could never be together.

Or so I thought.

As our friendship grew over the years, our wolves came of age, and by a twisted fate, we ended up being mated to each other. The day we discovered we were fated, Caspian confessed he loved me and kissed me like I was his addiction, and I felt like the universe had finally apologized for everything I had lost in my life.

Caspian was finally mine. And I was his.

But lately…

Lately, he has been… distant. Not cruel. Caspian has never been cruel to me or to anyone. I just feel that he has been busy or just… distracted. He is also cold sometimes. Like there is a door between us he won’t open, no matter how many times I knock and beg him to let me in.

I keep telling myself it is just stress. As the Alpha of this pack, he has expectations, responsibilities.

However, the discomfort in my chest keeps warning me that something is… off.

A knock sounds at the door.

“Jocelyn?” comes a soft voice.

It’s Beta Callan’s mate, Judith.

“Come in.”

The door opens and she enters.

“My goodness.” She gushes over my appearance. “Alpha Caspian is going to have a hard time focusing on anything else that's not you tonight.”

“Thank you.” I give her a smile that isn't really joyful over the moon.

“It’s time.” She announces and happily kisses my cheeks before leaving the room.

After the door shuts, I suck in a deep breath into my lungs and hold it in there.

It's time.

“I'll be leaving as well,” Mara smiles at me as she hangs her bag on her shoulder. “See you at the ceremony, Luna.”

Luna.

That title reminds me that I am doing the right thing tonight. Smiling, I give Mara a nod, silently thanking her one last time before she leaves.

When the door shuts again, my heart starts pounding harder inside my chest.

It's just nerves.

“Help me goddess,” I whisper to myself and take one final look at the mirror before I pick up my bouquet of moonflowers from the bed and move towards the door.

With slightly trembling hands, I open the door and leave the room.