The Crescent Moon Pack hall had never looked so beautiful, and I had never felt so small inside it.
Grandpa Memphis tucked my hand into the crook of his arm as we crossed the marble threshold. He was eighty-three years old, the retired Alpha of this pack, and the only member of Julian's family who had ever looked at me like I belonged. Tonight he wore his old dress jacket, the one with the silver wolf pin on the lapel, and walked slow but steady because his pride wouldn't let him use a cane in front of his pack.
"Chin up, sweetheart," he murmured. "You're prettier than any chandelier in this room."
I smiled for him. It cost me something.
Across the hall, my mate stood at the head of the long table. Julian. Alpha of Crescent Moon, host of the evening, the man whose bite mark I still carried on the curve of my neck. He looked up. Our eyes met. For half a second I let myself hope—stupidly, the way I always did—that tonight would be different. That he would cross the room and put his hand on my back and call me his.
He looked away. Just like that. Then he turned and walked toward the bar, where Estelle Hughes stood waiting in a backless red gown.
My thumb pressed into the inside of my wrist. A small thing. A habit no one ever noticed.
"Breathe, Zora," Grandpa said quietly.
I was trying.
Estelle saw me before I saw her coming. She glided across the floor in a way that drew every eye, her smile wide and bright, her arms held out like we were old friends meeting after years apart. The pack members nearest to us turned their heads, the way wolves do when they smell blood in the water.
"Zora! You actually came." Her voice was honey poured over a knife. "I told Julian you might be too tired. He said you were stubborn that way."
I didn't answer. I was looking at her throat.
The moonstone necklace caught the chandelier light and threw it back in pale blue fire. I knew that stone. I had asked Julian about it once, six months into our bond, when he showed me his family's vault. He had laughed and closed the case. *A true mate bond needs no trinkets, Zora. Don't be like the other she-wolves.*
I had believed him. I had walked away from that vault feeling chosen.
Now it was hanging on her neck, and she was watching my face for the exact moment I understood.
My thumb pressed harder into my wrist.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Estelle reached up and touched the stone with two fingers, a slow, possessive gesture. "Julian gave it to me last week. He said it was time the future Luna of Crescent Moon wore it properly." She tilted her head. The pack members around us went very still. "You understand, don't you? The bond is sweet, but the Alpha needs a Luna who can stand beside him. Not a quiet little thing who hides in the kitchen. Julian and I have been talking for a long time about how to handle this gracefully."
Someone behind me sucked in a breath. Another wolf laughed under her hand.
I did not raise my voice. I did not raise my eyes.
"You're wearing my necklace," I said, low and even.
Estelle's smile flickered. Just for a second. Then she leaned in close, close enough for me to smell her perfume and the wine on her breath.
"It was never yours, sweetheart."
Grandpa Memphis made a sound beside me—a rough, choked thing that wasn't a word. I turned. His face had gone the color of wet paper. His hand was clutching the lapel of his jacket, fingers shaking against the silver pin.
"Grandpa—"
He staggered. I caught him under the arms but his weight took us both down, his body locking up, his eyes rolling back. The seizure hit him like a wave breaking. I went to my knees on the marble, his head cradled against my thigh, my hand already diving into his breast pocket for the bundle of dried herbs he kept there. *Lavender, valerian, skullcap.* I had watched his healer fold them a hundred times. I knew exactly what to do.
My fingers closed around the cloth packet. I pulled it out.
A red heel came down on top of my hand.
I looked up.
Estelle stood over us, one stiletto pinning the herbs to the floor. She ground her foot down, slow, deliberate, scattering the dried leaves across the polished marble in a wide brown smear.
"Oops," she said.
Something in me snapped clean through. I grabbed her wrist.
It was the first time I had ever put my hands on another wolf in anger. Her skin was cold under my fingers. Her eyes went wide—not with fear, with delight. Like I had finally given her exactly what she'd been waiting for.
Her free hand swept out to the side. A passing server's tray. A champagne flute. The crystal flashed once in the chandelier light as she swung it against the marble pillar beside us, and then the jagged half of the stem was in her grip, and then she was drawing it across my forearm in one long, smooth, practiced motion.
The pain came a half-second after the blood did. Hot and bright. It hit the floor in a slow red pool, mixing with the scattered herbs, mixing with Grandpa's saliva where his head had turned against the marble.
The banquet hall fell silent.
Every wolf in the room was staring.
And Julian was nowhere.
