On the day of my Mating Ceremony, I, the intended Omega, made my way to my own ceremony grove alone, riding a lone cross-territory run while the pack fleet went on without me.

When the procession came to fetch the intended, my Alpha heir stopped me before the lead carriage.

"Seraphine Duskvane is riding in this one. I'll arrange a separate run for you."

I froze on the spot.

Kael Ashmore went on:

"Seraphine's against the whole idea of bonding. She wants to know what it feels like to be claimed."

"I already agreed. She'll be the one walking into the grove during the entrance rite."

I turned my head, and there was Seraphine, his childhood packmate, already draped in ceremony white and settled into the lead carriage.

Seeing me on the verge of tears, Kael sighed and offered comfort.

"The ceremony's just a formality. As long as the bond-mark's set, we're good."

"Besides, once Seraphine's had her turn, you can still walk into the grove again."

With that, he didn't so much as glance back, sweeping off with the whole pack procession thundering behind him, hooves and engines and dust rising in the dawn.

I closed my eyes for a moment.

It had been like this since we started preparing the ceremony.

All because Seraphine was against bonding, and would never have a Mating Ceremony of her own.

So she got to wear the ceremony white first. She got to choose the grove.

And now, even the ceremony itself, she got to experience first.

Somewhere deep beneath my ribs, my wolf lifted her head and let out a low, uneasy sound. Something about Seraphine's scent had never sat right with her, that cloying jasmine with the sour edge underneath, and now she paced, hackles half-raised, wanting to snarl and finding no room for it.

The signal light at the crossing turned red, and the fleet surged forward, leaving my single run far behind.

The driver, hands steady on the wheel of the obsidian carriage, called back over his shoulder:

"Miss, which way do we go from here?"

I looked at the procession, its tail already vanished past the tree line, and gave the driver a small smile.

"We're not going. Turn around."

Whether it was the ceremony or the male, I didn't want anything another she-wolf had already worn first.

……

The words landed in the quiet as the carriage's low hum shifted pitch.

The air went still for a few seconds.

The driver blinked, leaned back a little, and raised his voice a notch.

"What'd you say, miss? Turn around?"

I ran my fingers over the ceremony gown I was wearing.

I opened my crystal communicator. There on the lock face, our claiming portrait, me and Kael smiling like the two most blessed wolves under the Moon Goddess.

The scattered talk of passing wolves drifted in through the cracked window.

"Did you see that? That procession just now was something else. Storm-hawks overhead, a dozen carriages, the whole Ashmore line out in force."

"They say the grander the procession, the more the Moon Goddess favors the intended. That Alpha heir must love her so much."

My fingers paused, so slightly it was almost invisible.

Another voice sighed.

"Same blood, different fates, I'm telling you. I just came past the Southbay grove, and I even saw an intended making her way to her own ceremony on a lone run, no procession, nothing."

"No…"

The screen went dark, the hem of my gown crumpling between my fingers.

I swallowed down the ache in my throat and said it again.

"Yes, sir."

"Back to the hotel. I'm not accepting the bond."

The crossing light finished its count, red turning to green.

Behind us came the impatient blare of horns.

The driver closed the mouth that had been about to say something more, spun the wheel fast, and swung the carriage around.

As the carriage settled into a smooth drive, a mind-link sending came through from Kael.

【I'm the one who had the procession leave you behind on purpose. Don't chase after us.】

【Tell the driver to slow down. Don't cross paths with Seraphine when you reach the grove, she doesn't like anyone stealing her light.】

【And when you get there, come in through the back by the feast-kitchen. Seraphine's sensitive about how things look, and if wolves see you and her entering the same ceremony grove and start talking, it'll be hard for her to explain.】

It was rare for Kael to send me a sending this long.

From appearances to the finest detail, every single word had Seraphine's interests folded into it.

Yet just a short while ago, when I'd been drawn off the lead carriage and set apart in front of the whole pack,

he'd never once considered whether wolves would talk about me, whether I'd lose standing.

My wolf went very quiet then, that low keening sound dropping into something colder, something that had stopped hoping.

I opened the sending panel and typed, one character at a time.

【I'm not bonding with you. Do whatever you want.】

Just as I was about to send it, sendings began exploding across the top of my screen.

Ever since I'd been added, Kael's mind-link circle, which had always been dead silent, suddenly came alive.

【Seraphine: Just a casual little Mating Ceremony today~】

A dozen crystal-captured images flooded the sending-stone in an instant.

The backdrop was the inside of the ceremony carriage. Seraphine had pulled Kael close for a whole string of intimate paired shots.

Finger hearts, cheek pressed to cheek……

My eyes lingered on the last image for a long time.

In it, Kael had laid his head in Seraphine's palm, smiling with a tenderness, an indulgence, I'd never seen.

That exact pose. When we were sitting for our claiming portraits, I'd shown him a reference of it. He'd called it sappy and childish.

The replies came pouring in.

【The two of you really are the perfect match. The pair I've been rooting for since we were pups finally happened.】

That was Kael's returned packmate.

He said he was grateful to me for healing the heartbreak Seraphine had left Kael with when she ran to the far territories, that the two of us were simply made for each other.

【If I'd known your ceremony was today I never would've skipped the gathering. I could never stand watching that plain little she-wolf swoop in while Seraphine was gone. Is there still time if I book a storm-hawk and run over now?】

That was Kael's cousin.

Kael had once asked me to carry some scent-sealed lineage records he'd left at the den.

The rain came down in sheets that day. My footing slipped on the wet ridge trail and I went down hard against a stone.

When I limped over to hand them to him, he'd nearly howled with relief, saying those records were tied to a great cross-pack alliance, that I was his lifesaver.

And then there were Kael's cousin, his den-brother, his elder from the Royal Academy……

Every single wolf in this circle. Kael had introduced me to all of them. To my face they were polished and kind, heads dipped in easy courtesy.

Behind my back, they tore me down and insulted me at will.

A plain she-wolf, a desperate clingy stray worming her way in while the den stood empty……

Kael sent one flat line.

【Don't bring her up. Just tell Seraphine how beautiful she is.】

Teeth clenched, hands shaking, I hammered out a few lines.

【Two-faced, all of you?】

【Do you people not disgust yourselves?】

The second my sending popped up, the circle went silent for two heartbeats.

The last message read:

【Oh crap. Wrong circle, everyone.】

Kael's mind-link call flared through fast and frantic, cutting off my typing.

I let it through.

No apology, no explanation. Just one word, nearly cold.

"Apologize."

The absurdity of it spread through me before I could stop it.

"Me? Apologize?"

I could have laughed from sheer rage.

"Apologize for what? For all of you cursing me behind my back? Or for building a second circle after you dragged me into this one?"

The link went quiet for a few beats.

I heard Kael give a helpless sigh, the sound coming warped and close through the bond.

"Willow, you're not a moonstone. You can't expect every wolf in the pack to like you."

"Every wolf in that circle grew up running beside me and Seraphine. You showed up out of nowhere. It's normal for some of them not to accept you. Seraphine adding you to the circle was already a lot of respect."

I tipped my head back and forced the tears down. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf had gone very still, ears flat, as if she too were bracing against something.

"So?"

Kael paused a beat, his voice dropping lower.

"Just apologize to the circle. Say you don't mind it."

"Seraphine……she's crying so hard right now. She feels terrible, blames herself, thinks it's all because she added you."

There was a gaping hole in my chest, cold wind howling straight through it. The faint mark at the junction of my neck and shoulder, the one that should have warmed when he called, sat cold as river-stone.

So all it took was Seraphine crying, and I was supposed to bow my head to the wolves who'd insulted me.

He seemed to say something else, but I couldn't make out the words after that.

The tears blurred everything. My voice broke as it came out.

"Kael, let's end the bond."

"I'm not going through with the Mating Ceremony. I'm not letting you mark me either."

Kael didn't answer.

Someone muffled the link on his end. Faintly, through it, came the rustle of ceremony wrappings and paper, and Seraphine's crying. Even through the bond her scent reached me, that cloying jasmine gone sour, cold iron beneath the sweetness.

And Kael's patient, gentle coaxing.

"There, there. Willow says she doesn't blame you. She's just too sensitive, that's all."

"Dry your eyes. You're up soon. Didn't you say you wanted to look flawless when the pack captured the memory-crystals?"

It took a long while before the whimpering on the other end of the sending-stone finally quieted.

Then Kael's voice came through again, clear and edged with impatience.

"Enough. Go make your peace in the mind-link circle, now. Our Mating Ceremony is nearly upon us and here you are throwing a fit. It's the night the moon binds us, and I have no patience left to coddle you."

Then, remembering what I'd just said, he let out a scoff.

"Besides, if the bond really doesn't happen, could you actually stand to walk away?"

Ten seasons at his side. He didn't believe I'd ever leave.

I ended the link, shifted toward the side, and pushed the carriage window down.

I let the wind pour in, tearing apart the ceremony braids and moonflower dressing that had taken three full hours to finish.

The driver of the obsidian carriage, who had heard every word, opened his mouth, hesitated, then closed it again.

In the end he couldn't hold it back.

"Miss, what kind of male did you go and find? A wolf like that can still claim himself a mate?"

"When I claimed my Luna, I'd have set her above the whole pack if I could. Carried her over the den-threshold on my own back."

Carried?

A faint bitterness spread through my chest, and deep inside me my wolf stirred, uneasy, pacing.

Kael had carried me once too.

That season of the great storm, snow half a wolf deep swallowed the whole of the Royal Academy grounds. Even the training runs were called off.

My fever burned so hot the healers feared for me. My denmate kept swapping out cold cloths, one after another, each one frozen stiff, until she was nearly in tears from panic.

It was Kael who forced his way past everyone guarding the she-wolves' quarters and carried me on his back all the way to the Healing Hall, three miles across the frozen territory.

Drifting in and out, I felt him shivering with cold, stumbling again and again through the snow.

Yet I was warm, impossibly warm. Not even the wind reached me.

Because he'd stripped off his own fur-lined cloak and draped it over me, and by the end he was drained and frost-bitten, his scent gone sharp with cold cedar and stale rain.

Back then his heart was so real that even a sky full of wind and snow could see it.

The driver clicked his tongue after he heard it.

"So how did he turn into this?"

I shook my head in silence.

I didn't know either.

Maybe he'd changed the moment Seraphine came back to the territory.

The first time he lost his composure over Seraphine, he smashed the paired clay cups we'd shaped with our own hands at the hearth.

The first time, on a rain-soaked night, he left me stranded at the pack hall past the moon's height and turned back to go fetch Seraphine.

The first time I lay under the healer's knife, he was riding the high wind-runs with Seraphine at the festival grove.

From the moment Seraphine declared herself set against any bond, it was as if Kael had found his excuse, showering her with open, shameless favor.

Countless first times, countless times I gave way, all piling up, until without my noticing it had become this.

When I left the mind-link circle, Kael dropped a single mark of question beside my name in the thread.

And then nothing more.

In his eyes this was just me staging a little protest, baring my teeth over nothing.

It wouldn't be long before I came crawling back, meek, gaze lowered, ready to tilt my head in deference and admit I was wrong.

But this time, I was truly worn out. So worn that my wolf had gone quiet inside me, curled small, unwilling even to howl.

Under the front-runners' discreet, startled stares, I gathered up the heavy skirt of my ceremony gown and went back to my room.

I stripped away the moonflower dressing. I peeled off the ceremony gown.

Collapsed onto the bed, staring up at the guesthouse's snow-white ceiling, I still felt dazed.

How had it come to this so suddenly?

Just last night, on this very bed, I'd been too thrilled, too full of hope to sleep, the mark at my neck warm with foolish waiting.

When I opened my crystal communicator, Seraphine had just posted to the howl-network.

【In case certain people get sensitive again, let me share a crystal-vision first so the whole territory knows the truth. This was purely a run-through of the ceremony. Kael and I never crossed any line, all right!】

Attached was the vision of the ceremony procession beneath the moon.

I called it up, like I was punishing myself.

Watching Seraphine in a ceremony gown, gliding gracefully toward Kael through a ring of applauding packmates.

Swearing before the ceremony-keeper, under the Moon Goddess, that they'd never part, that only death would sever them.

Then the passing of the claiming-tokens, fingers laced together.

The longer I watched, the more a bitter laugh slipped out of me, and something in my chest cracked with each frame.

Everything but the claiming-bite. They'd done it all.