Chapter 3

The sun goes down and stains the sky a deep, saturated violet-red.

The territory procession is about to begin.

By the time I reach the parade ground, the streets are packed with pack members holding torches. By old law the procession runs by torchlight only, so that no wolf walks under a light he did not carry.

I push through the crowd, werewolf whispers rising on every side.

"Can you smell them?" an older she-wolf murmurs. "Selene and Alpha Arthur. Their scents are blending. They smell like they were made for each other."

In our pack, when a man and a woman spend too long in close company, their natural scents begin to braid together. It is the physical sign of a pair about to be mated.

Selene stands on a wooden platform above the crowd. The moment she spots me she waves, beaming.

"Elara! You finally came!" Selene shouts over the noise. "Later, could you stand under the arch and take a few photographs of us? I want the torchlight in them — I want to remember tonight forever."

I ignore her and look at Arthur, standing beside her. "Do you actually know what a guardian escort means under pack law?" I ask him. "Have you heard what the pack is saying about the two of you?"

Arthur's face tightens and he glares at me. "Don't challenge my authority in public, Elara. You are too sensitive. You spend all day inventing problems."

"It means I stand at her shoulder for one night," he says. "It means nothing."

"It means a claim," I say. "Under the old law, a guardian escort is a claim made in front of the whole pack. Whatever you do after tonight, the pack will have heard you make it."

He does not answer that.

Drums roll. The procession starts to move, heading for the stone arch at the edge of the territory.

By the time we reach the arch, the full moon hangs directly overhead. The full moon pulls at the blood of every werewolf, magnifying every sense and every feeling.

Selene stands at the top of the arch holding a ceremonial wooden token tied with a red ribbon. By tradition, whoever catches it receives the Moon Goddess's blessing of fertility and love.

She tosses it into the air.

Gasps break out across the crowd. Arthur leaps, his body cutting clean through the air, and snatches the token before anyone else can touch it.

The pack erupts.

"Alpha, take her as your second, if the Luna will not have you!" a drunk warrior bellows from the back. "She is worthy of you!"

A second. Not a Luna. A chair beside the chair, and every wolf in that crowd knows what it costs to sit in it.

Selene covers her face with both hands in fake modesty, peeking at Arthur between her fingers.

Arthur grips the token, pushes through the cheering crowd, and comes straight for the old tree where I am standing.

The moment he steps into the moonlight, something strange moves in my chest. The thin line that still ties my soul to his stops answering — unreachable, like a limb gone numb. Then I reach for her, the way I reach when I need to be faster or stronger than I am. There is nothing on the other end. Whatever I do from tonight, I do without a wolf.

"Elara, stop sulking!" Leo comes running up, out of breath. "Arthur caught it for you! He is using the old custom to declare himself to you in front of everyone. He is trying to make up for yesterday!"

Arthur stops in front of me and holds the token up before my eyes.

"I caught it to give you the highest blessing there is, Elara," Arthur says, low, with the smug certainty of a man who has already won. "Consider it a formal proposal. My apology for yesterday." He says it loud enough for the elders' stand to hear. "They want a claim witnessed. Let them witness this one."

I look at the token. I look at his hand. My hands stay at my sides.

Selene and Finn squeeze out of the crowd and come to stand beside Arthur.

"Take it, Elara," Finn urges. "Arthur is a good man. Remember Selene's first shift? That bone-breaking pain — she couldn't take it. That is why Arthur canceled your date that night and sat with her in the infirmary until morning. He is just protective by nature. Don't be so petty."

Arthur dips his head a little. "Can you forgive me for last night in the great hall?"

I look straight into Arthur's eyes and do not look away. My heartbeat is slow and steady, like an ordinary human's.

"It doesn't mean anything now," I tell him.

The words carry. Half the crowd is with him — I hear it before I see it, that low shifting sound a pack makes when it decides a woman is being ungrateful.

I do not wait for the other half. I walk to the elders' stand, and the crowd opens for me the way it opens for a thing it is afraid of. The clerk sees me coming and puts his hand flat on the registry. I take the pen out of his fingers.

I draw one line through my own name. Under it I write: no claim witnessed, no seat held. Then I set the pen down and let the elders read it. Not a ruling. A question, entered into the record — and the record is the one thing in this pack nobody can shout down.

Leo's eyes go wide with alarm. "Elara, what are you talking about? Has the moon cursed you?"

Finn rolls his eyes. "Arthur, she is playing hard to get. Punishing you on purpose. Let her go. She will cool off."

Arthur's face darkens and he pulls the token back. "Fine. If you insist on being a stone that refuses to warm, I will wait until you come to your senses and start acting like a Luna. Selene, let's go."

He turns and escorts Selene away. Finn and Leo follow, shaking their heads at me.

I do not watch them go. Their backs are already small, torchlight dragging long twisted shadows behind them. I come down off the stand and walk into the dark without hesitation.

The number is still in my pocket. I have not dialed it, and I have not ruled it out.

Not yet.

What they don't know is that this time, when I turn away, I am never coming back.