Sierra POV:
The air in the clearing, once alive with the thrum of the ritual, grew thin and still, as if the very forest held its breath.
Shane looked down at the crimson ribbons pooled in my hands, then up at my face. His eyes, dark and unreadable, held not a storm, but the profound, unnerving quiet of the deep woods.
Without a word, he reached out.
The moment the rough callouses of his fingertips brushed against my knuckles, a strange, searing heat shot up my arm, a sensation so alien it made the pulse in my wrist give an unnerving lurch.
I drew in a sharp breath, my heart beginning to hammer a frantic, unfamiliar rhythm against my ribs.
From across the clearing, a low growl rumbled from Lucas's chest, the sound of grinding stones.
"What is this, Sierra? A little game to reclaim my attention?" Lucas sneered, taking a menacing step forward. "Offering your ribbons to a useless stray, a man who lacks the courage to even wear his own fur? It is a pathetic spectacle."
Without so much as a glance in Lucas's direction, Shane carefully took the ribbons and wound them around his own wrist, securing them with a knot that was both firm and deliberate.
"You have one night to dispense with this foolishness," Lucas barked, his face flushing a mottled red with wounded pride. "Tomorrow, at dawn, you will crawl to the main house and beg Jessica's forgiveness. Otherwise, you'll be scouring the latrines for a month."
He spun on his heel, yanking Jessica toward the hulking shape of his off-road truck. The tires chewed at the damp earth, spitting a cloud of mud and grit that struck my face like a slap.
I coughed, the bitter taste of dirt coating my tongue.
The next morning, the sky was a bruised, heavy gray, thick with a fog that muffled all sound.
I made my way up the steep mountain trail toward the Moon Goddess Shrine, an ancient stone altar where generations of wolves had left carved wooden plaques, praying for the pack's prosperity.
Shane walked beside me, his tall frame a silent bulwark against the raw, biting wind that swept down from the peaks.
"I have a call to take, from the city," Shane said, his voice a low murmur as we neared the summit. "Go on ahead. I will not be far behind."
I nodded, continuing alone into the dense, white curtain of mist.
The damp air settled deep in my bones, making the old injury in my knee throb with a dull, familiar rhythm.
As I drew near the stone altar, I heard voices, faint and distorted by the fog.
I halted behind the broad trunk of a pine tree.
Through a thinning patch of mist, I saw Lucas.
He was holding Jessica's hand, guiding her with a theatrical gentleness over the slick, moss-covered rocks.
A cold knot of realization tightened in my gut; he was meant to be in the main house, awaiting my groveling arrival. Instead, he was here, parading the pack's most sacred ground before his new pet as if it were a common tourist attraction.
He shrugged off his heavy woolen jacket, draping it over her shoulders to press his warmth into her.
"Lucas, do you imagine Sierra is entirely heartbroken?" Jessica asked, her voice laced with a cloying, false innocence.
A harsh, grating sound that was not quite a laugh escaped Lucas's throat.
"It is an Omega's tantrum, nothing more," he said. "Giving her ribbons to that stray was a cheap gambit to force my hand. The creature is obsessed."
A wave of bile rose in my throat.
Jessica reached out, her fingers tracing a leather cord that hung around his neck.
From it dangled a massive, yellowed wolf fang.
"This thing is rather hideous, Lucas," Jessica pouted. "Why do you insist on wearing it?"
It was a Rogue's Fang.
When I was eighteen, a rabid, packless wolf had torn through our camp.
Lucas had not yet weathered his first shift.
I had thrown myself before him, allowing the beast's jaws to close on my hand, to shear off the top of my pinky finger, just to create the opening I needed to drive my blade into its eye.
I had pulled that fang from the rogue's dead jaw myself and given it to Lucas as a ward against harm.
He had sworn on the Goddess's name he would never take it off.
"You are right," Lucas said, his tone utterly dismissive. "It no longer suits my station."
He lifted the leather cord over his head.
With a smile meant only for her, he fastened the necklace around Jessica's neck.
"There. It belongs to my beautiful future Luna now."
A fresh wave of nausea washed over me.
I took a stumbling step backward, desperate to flee the scene.
My boot came down on a dry twig.
Snap.
The sound was no louder than a mouse's bone breaking, yet in the preternatural quiet of the fog, it was a gunshot.
*Lucas's head swiveled toward the trees, his eyes igniting with the feral, crimson glow of a cornered Alpha. But it was not guilt that burned in them—only the rage of a thief caught with his hand in the offering bowl. *
