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.

Now here he was, telling me they hadn't crossed any lines.

Seraphine's sendings kept coming through the howl-network, one after another.

Tilting her head in deference to the pack elders, gathering the moon-blessing pouches offered for the new bond, pouring the ceremonial mead, the Ashmore patriarch's toast beneath the rising moon...

Before I even realized it, all of this had gone far past what Kael had promised me. She was only supposed to walk through the entrance of the Ceremony Grove. Nothing more.

It wasn't until the very last part, the scattering of moonflower petals over the pack, that Kael's mind-link sending finally trickled in.

【Are you at the den-lodge yet? Wait a while longer in the side chamber. Sera's having fun, so she went ahead and did the rest of the ceremony too.】

【Don't be upset about it. Just think of it as making up for how you made her cry earlier.】

The side chamber was only two doors away from the ceremony grove.

Even so, he wouldn't come look in on me. Not once. His scent never once drifted toward my door, that cold cedar and tarnished copper that used to find me before he did.

I didn't answer Kael.

I just cropped a corner of the crystal-image Seraphine had spread across the network, the one showing my sacred feast-offering already smashed beyond recognition, and sent it to him.

【Why did you let her touch my feast-offering.】

【It's just a feast-cake, what's the big deal, I'll have the lodge-keepers go bake another one.】

I bit my lip until it went white. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf went very still, the way she went still when a wound was too deep to howl over.

【Everything you promised me. Have you forgotten all of it?】

Why, when I was already this far past disappointment, did my heart still hurt this much?

The mating gown I'd searched more than a dozen den-halls to find, the one Seraphine secretly tried on and stretched out of shape. Kael had said, what's the big deal, just get another one.

The little moonlit garden grove I'd fallen in love with, the one Seraphine quietly swapped for a grand, dreamy ceremony hall. Kael had said, do what she wants, she has better taste.

By the very end of the ceremony planning, my one and only request was that I bake the sacred feast-offering with my own hands.

I'd told Kael this was the biggest wish I had as a hearth-keeper.

Seraphine hadn't returned to our territory yet, then.

Kael had stood outside my soon-to-open den-kitchen and gently tweaked my nose.

"My baby's so easy to please."

"Fine. When the day comes, I'll keep an eye on every single guest at the mating ceremony. Every wolf has to clean their plate and then howl an eight-hundred-word rave for our master hearth-keeper."

I laughed and threw myself into his arms.

"Such a smooth talker!"

I dragged the progress bar of the crystal-image back again and again, watching that short clip.

The feast-offering I'd come to the lodge early to finish had been torn to pieces.

Before anyone had even taken a bite, Seraphine smeared it across the face of one of Kael's packmates.

The whole gathering burst into laughing and shoving, wiping honeyed frosting on each other.

My wish, trampled underfoot, smeared across the wall, scraped into the kitchen scraps. The warm honey and browned sugar of it, my own scent baked into every layer, ground into the floor by careless paws.

The reply on the other end paused for a few seconds.

The next second, it drove straight into my heart again.

【Willow Thornheart, a person shouldn't be so ungrateful.】

【It's just a feast-cake, why make such a fuss. Not a single one of your kin showed up, even the she-wolves at your side were ones Sera rounded up to save you from an empty grove.】

The scar was ripped open all over again.

I jabbed at the sending-stone so hard it clicked and clicked.

【The reason my pack wouldn't come. Aren't you the one who knows best?】

The other end went silent.

The pain I'd buried settled back down into my lower belly, dragged up by the memory.

That day. Blood everywhere on the floor, a tearing, ripping agony.

On instinct, I'd sent the mind-link call to the one I trusted most.

The instant the link connected, a spoiled, shrill she-wolf's voice was already yelling.

"Hey, hey, big busy Alpha, you promised to run with us all day today, cut it off, cut it off, no answering the link!"

Along with the clanging, festive racket of the ceremony procession, and then the severing hum of the link being cut.

I lost a pup.

When I woke, I was lying in the Healing Hall.

The first face I saw wasn't Kael's. It was my den-mate's.

She was the one who'd caught my scent gone wrong, found me collapsed at home after her patrol, carried me to the Healers, and pressed her paw-mark to the treatment consent for me too.

I'd known her less than a moon then. She took the risk and signed her name for me.