Chapter 1—The Burden of the Goddess

Celeste's POV

I was not ready and I knew it.

Three days. That was all I had left before everything changed and no matter how many times I told myself I was fine, my wolf was not buying it.

She had been restless since I woke up, turning over and over inside me the way she did when something big was coming. I lay there for a while staring at the ceiling before I accepted that sleep was done for the night.

I sat on the edge of my bed and pressed my palms flat against my thighs, trying to think clearly. The bond hummed the way it always did, that constant awareness in the back of my chest that reminded me I was connected to four men whether I liked it or not.

Aiden and Jayden on one side, pulling like they always did, strong enough that some mornings I felt them before I was fully awake. Mason and Jason on the other, quieter but there, steady in a way I had never quite known what to do with.

I did not want four. I never had, but the bond did not ask what I wanted and my wolf had never once pretended otherwise.

I grabbed my jacket, pulled it on and went to find my father.

He was in the living room, phone in hand, glasses sitting low on his nose the way they always did when he was reading. Liam Reed looked up the second I walked through the door.

He had this thing about him, my father, where he always knew before you said anything. Twenty four years of being his daughter and it still caught me off guard sometimes.

"Sit down, Celeste."

"I haven't even said anything."

"I know." He put his phone down and waited.

I dropped into the chair across from him and pulled my jacket around me even though the room was not cold. It took me a second to find the words and when I did they came out smaller than I intended.

"I don't want this, Dad. I know I'm supposed to. I know what the bond means and what it makes me and I know the Moon Goddess doesn't get things wrong."

"But if I'm being honest with you right now, I just want Aiden and Jayden. That's it. Two men, one bond, a normal life. Not four alphas and two packs and a title that hasn't existed in three hundred years. I don't want any of it."

My father did not rush to answer. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and looked at me the way he always did when he was about to say something he needed me to actually hear.

"Do you know what a Fourfold Luna actually means, Celeste? Not the name. What it means."

"It means I belong to four men instead of two."

"It means you lead." His voice was calm and even. "The last woman chosen for this bond lived three centuries ago. And when that bond sealed, two packs became one unit under her authority. Not her mates' authority. Hers."

"The Moon Goddess didn't put this in your blood because she needed to fill a role. She put it there because you are the only one who can carry it."

I looked down at my hands. "That's a lot."

"It is," he said. "I'm not going to tell you it isn't. But you didn't come here for me to make it smaller than it is. You came here because you needed someone to remind you who you are."

I stayed quiet for a while after that. Outside I could hear the neighbourhood going about its morning, cars moving, someone's dog barking down the street. Normal sounds. Ordinary life. The kind I kept telling myself I wanted.

But my wolf had gone still inside me. Not the restless pacing from earlier. Something calmer than that, like she had been waiting for this conversation and now that it was done she was ready.

I took a slow breath. "Okay."

My father nodded once. He did not make it into more than it was and that was exactly why I had come to him.

***

The three days went faster than I expected.

There were fittings and meetings and elders coming in and out with opinions and more information than I could hold in my head at once. My ceremonial dress was white and fitted and nothing I would have chosen on my own.

I wore it anyway and told myself that was practice for everything else coming.

On the morning of the ceremony I stood in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror for longer than I needed to.

I looked fine. Composed, put together, ready on the outside in all the ways that counted when people were watching. On the inside I was something else entirely but I had learned a long time ago that what's inside doesn't have to show on your face if you don't want it to.

The grounds were full when I arrived. Both packs, Ashen Hollow and Ulfsang, arranged in the old formation around the bonding stone. The air felt charged in a way that made my wolf lift her head and pay attention.

I walked through the center of it and kept my eyes forward.

The four of them were already at the stone. Mason and Jason stood to the left, calm in the way they always seemed to be. Aiden and Jayden to the right, and even from where I was walking I felt the pull of the bond sharpening the way it always did when I was close to them.

The elder started speaking. The words were old and formal, the kind that had been said over this same ground for generations, and I listened and breathed and told myself I was ready.

Then I looked at Aiden.

He was already looking at me. And something about the way he was standing, the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, made the breath catch in my throat.

Something was wrong. I did not know what yet. But I felt it and my wolf felt it and neither of us could look away.