I spoke each word like a nail driven into wood. "I will not mate with you, Fenris."
His grip on my wrist tightened. "If not me, then who?!"
He was banking on the fact that the Blackthorns needed the Vargr pack's protection.
And he was certain my heart still belonged to him alone.
I met his furious gaze without flinching. "A lone wolf. A drifter. A turned wolf from the outer territories. Anyone would do."
"Anyone but you."
Fenris's breath caught.
He closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.
Then he reached into his coat and pressed something into my hand.
I recognized it at once: the gift I'd given him ten years ago, the day he left for the front.
Back then, it had taken me half a year to find the moonstone, and another half to have it carved into a ring threaded with silver.
When I placed it in his palm, I'd said, "May we be like this stone. Hearts never parting, forever bound."
The ring looked exactly the same as it had then.
But all I wanted now was to sever every thread that tied me to Fenris Vargr.
He didn't know what I was thinking. His voice softened. "Seraphina, I fought on the frontier for ten years, and you waited for ten. Every wolf in Aurelia knows the depth of your devotion."
"Saying you won't mate with me now, that's just anger talking."
"This ring is the one you gave me before my first campaign. I'm leaving it with you. On our mating day, you'll tie it on me yourself."
He thought that lowering his tone and producing an old keepsake would be enough to coax me down the steps he'd so graciously laid out.
Where did he get that kind of confidence?
Fenris said his piece and left. The scent of woodsmoke and scorched earth lingered in the room long after the door closed, and beneath it that acrid note of decay I hadn't noticed in my previous lives. My wolf turned away from it.
I picked up the moonstone ring and tossed it into the painter's supply case.
"Miss, this looks far too valuable. I couldn't possibly keep it."
The painter fished the ring out carefully and held it back to me.
I waved him off. "It's yours."
"Do a good job on the portrait. If I'm selected, there'll be more where that came from."
The painter thanked me over and over.
"A beauty like you, Miss, is certain to be chosen."
I smiled and said nothing.
In the days that followed, while I waited for word from the Moonhold Citadel, Fenris came calling constantly.
Every visit, he brought armfuls of gifts.
Moonstone-studded hairpieces, bolts of the finest silk fresh from the southern territory looms, and all manner of rare curiosities, until they spilled across my courtyard in heaps.
I stared at the mountain of offerings, lost in thought.
My mother took my silence for hesitation. "Seraphina dear, are you having second thoughts?"
"Fenris is clearly still devoted to you, and you haven't been selected yet. There's still time to fix things. Just say the word and we'll arrange a mating ceremony, do it properly..."
I knew my mother had always been fond of Fenris.
Growing up, anything she made for me, she made a second one for the Vargr den.
Winter pelts, summer shirts, nightclothes, boots and wrappings.
All sewn by her own hand, stitch by stitch.
She'd loved him like a second pup.
She never could have imagined that Fenris would prove so heartless, that he would bring ruin on every last member of our pack.
I wrapped my arms around her and said softly, "He has feelings for someone else."
She asked who.
I shook my head. "All you need to know, Mother, is that he is not the right wolf."
Worry creased her face. "But Fen... but Fenris has made it known that anyone who dares court you is making an enemy of the Vargr pack."
"If you aren't chosen this time, what will become of your future..."
My hands clenched, nails biting into my palms.
Fenris wanted to bring home a decorative mate, a bond in name only.
Every noble-blooded daughter in Aurelia was his for the choosing.
Why did he insist on clinging to me?
Was it simply because the Blackthorns had fallen far enough to be bullied?
Too bad for him. He'd miscalculated.
The summons for the Alpha Supreme Heir's Luna Selection arrived, just as I'd expected.
My mother rose before dawn to help me dress.
The ceremonial robes were elaborate, the moonstone circlet heavy on my head.
She steadied my shoulders, her eyes rimmed red. "Seraphina, whatever happens, selected or not, your father and I and every last member of this pack will stand behind you."
A sharp ache bloomed in my chest. I nodded. My wolf pressed close from the inside, quiet and warm, the way she always did when the hurt ran too deep for sound.
The carriage bound for the Moonhold Citadel had been waiting outside the territory gate for some time.
After saying goodbye to my parents and my sister, I climbed in alone.
