Chapter Five: The Ceremony
Mina's POV
The ceremonial hall was already full by the time I arrived.
I stood at the back entrance for a moment, just breathing. The building was old… older than the school, older than most of the pack houses around it.
Stone walls. High windows that let the rising moon spill silver light across the floor. Rows of benches packed with pack members in their formal grays and blacks, all facing the raised platform at the front where the Elders sat in a row like judges at a trial.
Because that's exactly what this was. A trial.
Just dressed up as a celebration.
I found a spot near the back wall, half-hidden behind a stone pillar, and waited.
One by one, names were called. One by one, eighteen-year-olds walked to the center of the platform, stripped down to simple shift-clothes, and let their wolves out in front of everyone.
Most were ordinary. Brown wolves, gray wolves, a few golden ones that drew polite applause. The Elders wrote things on their clipboards. Parents in the crowd beamed with pride or sighed with quiet disappointment, depending on the size and color of what walked out.
I watched all of it with my arms crossed tight over my chest, my heart beating in a strange, slow rhythm that didn't match the rest of my body.
"Jace Grayson."
The whole hall shifted forward, like one body leaning in.
Jace stepped onto the platform without a flicker of nerves. Of course he didn't have any. He had grown up knowing exactly what he was going to become.
He shifted smoothly, instantly…and the wolf that emerged was massive, black-furred with streaks of dark gold, eyes the same cold gray as his human ones. A future Alpha's wolf. Powerful. Exactly as expected.
The crowd erupted into applause. Alpha Reuben, seated at the front, allowed himself a small, satisfied nod.
Jace shifted back, dressed again, and returned to his seat with the easy confidence of someone who had never once doubted his place in the world.
Ryder went next. His wolf was huge and brutal-looking, all muscle, with a jaw that looked built for tearing through things.
More applause. More clipboard notes.
Then Damian… sleek, fast-looking, golden-brown, the kind of wolf built for outrunning trouble rather than fighting it. Fitting.
Each time, I watched the crowd's reaction more than the wolf itself. The applause. The approval. The unspoken ranking happening in real time, eighteen-year-old by eighteen-year-old, sorted into who mattered and who didn't.
Then the Elder at the podium cleared his throat and looked down at his list.
"Mina Brown."
The hall went quiet in a different way than before.
I stepped out from behind the pillar.
Every head turned.
I walked to the center of the platform with my chin level, my hands steady at my sides, even though inside my chest that low vibration had turned into something closer to a roar held just beneath the surface.
"The Mute," someone whispered, not quietly enough.
A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.
I looked out at the rows of faces. Found Jace's first… arms crossed, jaw tight, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
Found Ryder next, already smirking, leaning toward Damian to whisper something that made them both grin.
Found Asher's eyes last. He wasn't smiling. He was simply watching, sharp and calculating, like he was waiting to see exactly how this would go wrong.
"Whenever you're ready," the Elder said, his tone making it clear he expected nothing.
I closed my eyes.
For ten years, I had built walls around the thing inside me. Brick by brick, silence by silence. I had told myself it was the only way to keep people safe. To keep myself safe.
But standing there, in front of everyone who had ever called me broken, ever thrown water on me, ever stepped on the only things I owned…
The walls didn't feel like protection anymore.
They felt like a cage.
Ryder's laugh cut through the hall, sharp and ugly. "Come on, Mute. Show us what you've got. Or is this where you finally admit there's nothing there at all?"
The crowd laughed again, louder this time.
Something inside me cracked.
My skin began to glow.
Silver light spreading from my chest outward, climbing up my throat, down my arms, threading through my hair until it shimmered like moonlight given shape.
The laughter died instantly.
The Elders rose from their seats. Alpha Reuben's hand froze halfway to standing. Jace's expression shifted from boredom to something I had never seen on his face before.
Fear.
My bones began to shift…not the slow, controlled process I had watched seven times already tonight, but something violent and enormous, my body stretching, growing, silver light pouring out of every seam like my skin could no longer contain whatever lived beneath it.
And somewhere in the white-hot center of all that pain and light, I felt my mouth open.
