Mate?

Eliana Hart’s POV

“You heard me,” Kai said. He picked the letter back up like the matter was already closed. “Get ready. The ceremony is tomorrow night.”

“I—” I didn’t know what to say. My chest felt too full and too empty at the same time. “Thank you.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up again.

“You can go now,” he said. “I have more work to do.”

I stood on legs that felt like jelly and walked out of his study. The door clicked shut behind me, and I stood in the hallway for a moment, just breathing.

- - -

Sleep didn’t come easy that night.

I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. What if it’s a joke, I thought. What if he just wants to see how I’ll react, and tomorrow he’ll take it back.

The tears I had held back in his study finally came. Two years of insults, two years of being invisible in my own home, and now, out of nowhere, he was finally doing right by me.

‘I’m going to be crowned Luna of the Silver Crescent Pack,’ I thought.

Do I even deserve that?

“Of course you do, El,” Gemma said, her voice warm in my head. “You served this pack for two years without him even claiming you. Now he’s finally seen it. He must love us.”

“Don’t be naive, Gem.” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “He doesn’t love us. He never has. Maybe the mate bond will fix that once he marks me. Maybe then he’ll finally see me.”

I smiled anyway, even through the doubt, and let my eyes fall shut. His words kept replaying in my head until sleep finally took me.

- - -

By morning, the whole pack already knew.

“The Alpha announced it,” someone whispered as I crossed the training grounds. “He’s finally marking her.”

I walked past them with my chin up, checking on the people I had treated the day before, changing bandages and handing out ointment like it was any other morning. It didn’t feel like any other morning. It felt like a dream I hadn’t woken up from yet.

I had pinched myself twice already. I’d even asked my maid to pinch me, and she’d refused, laughing at me like I’d lost my mind. Gemma confirmed it for the third time before breakfast.

It’s real, El. He said it. Tonight, we become his.

The day crawled by. My maid, Petra, spent the afternoon fussing over me — brushing out my hair, choosing a dress, muttering under her breath about how she’d waited two years for this.

“Hold still,” she said, pinning a strand of my hair back for the third time. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m not shaking.” I was shaking.

She smiled and didn’t argue. She had known me since I first arrived at the pack house, a scared twenty-year-old with nothing but a bag of clothes and a name nobody bothered to learn or ask. She had been kind to me back then, when almost no one else was. Now she dabbed a sweet-smelling oil behind my ears and fussed with the hem of my dress like it was her own wedding.

“He’s going to see you tonight,” she said, “and wonder how he waited two years to do this.”

I didn’t believe that. But I let her believe it for me.

By late afternoon, the dress was ready — soft white fabric that pooled at my feet, simple enough that it didn’t look like it was trying too hard, which was exactly how Petra said it should look. “Let your face do the talking,” she told me, tucking one last flower behind my ear. I studied myself in the mirror for a long moment and barely recognized the woman looking back.

‘You look like a Luna,’Gemma said quietly.

“I don’t feel like one.”

‘You will. Tonight, everything changes.’

I wanted so badly to believe her.

By the time the sun dipped low and the sky turned the color orange, the whole pack had gathered at the ceremony grounds. Torches lined the clearing. The old stone altar sat at the center, worn smooth by generations of Alphas before Kai. I had seen other claiming ceremonies before — always from the edge of the crowd, always as someone who didn’t belong. Tonight I stood at the front instead, in a white dress that felt too fine for someone like me, my hands cold despite the summer air.

“You look beautiful,” Petra whispered before she stepped back into the crowd, leaving me alone at the base of the altar.

Beta Marcus stood near the front with the pack elders, his face unreadable. Members I had treated, members who had once spat at my feet, all stood in a wide circle around the clearing, watching.

Then Kai appeared.

He walked toward me in the ceremonial dark green that marked him as Alpha, and for a moment — just a moment — I let myself believe this was real. That two years of waiting had finally led here. Gemma pressed close to the surface of my mind, quiet and hopeful in a way she rarely let herself be.

“Eliana Hart,” Kai said, his voice carrying over the clearing. He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him. His fingers closed around mine, warm and steady. “Tonight, before this pack, I claim you as my Luna.”

The crowd murmured. Somewhere behind me, I heard someone whisper my name like they were testing whether it was true.

Kai’s thumb moved once across my knuckles. My heart climbed into my throat.

He leaned in. I felt his breath at my temple, felt the moment stretch out long and fragile, felt two years of waiting fold down into this one small space between us.

And then he stopped.

His whole body went still.

I felt his hand tighten around mine — not gently this time — before it slipped away completely. He straightened, and his head turned, slow and sharp, toward the crowd behind me. His nostrils flared. His green eyes had gone wide, almost wild, fixed on something past my shoulder.

“Kai?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer me. He took a step back. Then another.

The whole clearing had gone silent, every face turning to follow his gaze, and I turned too, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears.

That was when Kai’s voice broke out of him, low and rough, a sound that didn’t belong to the man who had just held my hand.

“Mate.”