DERER
I stayed in the grotto long after she was gone.
The trees didn’t move. The water barely rippled. The only sound was my own ragged breathing and the distant echo of paws crashing through underbrush.
I can’t.
That’s all she’d said.
Just those two words, strangled and breaking, before she shifted and ran. No explanation. No warning. One second, I was holding her like she was mine again, like the past and the pain had burned away under moonlight- and the next, she was gone.
My hands were still half–outstretched, empty and shaking My heart pounded like it didn’t know what to do without her.
I sat back slowly, lowering myself onto the cool moss–covered stone, not caring that I was still bare. The wind moved over my skin like a ghost. Her scent lingered in the clearing–salt, wildflower, heat. But the space between us had cracked wide open again.
And this time, I didn’t even understand why.
I’d thought we’d turned a corner. That something in her had finally softened. That when she looked at me, when she touched me, when she let me in–it meant something.
But maybe I was wrong.
Maybe it was too much. Too soon. Maybe she’d only meant for tonight to be a memory. One last moment before she put up the walls for good.
Still, I couldn’t shake the look on her face right before she bolted. It hadn’t been cold. It hadn’t been rejection.
It had been fear.
Pain
Like she was on the edge of remembering something she wasn’t ready to face.
And I’d pushed.
God, I’d ruined it.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and stood slowly, muscles aching from the shift, from the tension coiled deep in my chest.
By the time I climbed back up the path toward the estate, the sounds of the pack had begun to return. Not here, not in the sacred hush of the grotto, but farther off–toward the center of Moonstone territory.
The Moonlit Shift had ended. The others would be gathering for the Bondfire by now.
It felt like walking between worlds as 1 left the shadows of the woods behind. One moment I was wrapped in
memory and moonlight and the scent of her skin, and the next I was stepping into firelight and laughter and life.
The pack was scattered across the lawn, shifting back into human form, wrapped in blankets or finding clothes
Chapter 172
left in the tree hollows
They were glowing. Joyous, Released.
I couldn’t help but envy them.
Because for them, the ritual had brought peace.
For me, it had opened a wound.
+25 BONUS
My clothes were still where I’d left them, half in a heap. I dressed in silence, every movement mechanical
I scanned the crowd forming near the center of the Moonstone grounds, but I didn’t see her right away.
There were couples tucked together, pack members huddled close under lanterns strung from low tree branches, and the ever–present low hum of conversation that followed any powerful ritual.
Then I saw her.
She was already dressed, standing near the edge of the circle with her friend Dawn and that woman–Erin–the rogue. No, not just a rogue. Mason’s fated mate. That fact sill hadn’t settled fully in my head.
Erin looked calm. Not submissive, not tense, just… present. Like she belonged here. I watched her for a moment and caught the way Mason glanced at her across the clearing, something soft and completely unguarded in his
eyes.
I turned back to Elena, but she didn’t look at me. Not once.
Maybe she hadn’t noticed me. Or maybe she had, and she was avoiding my gaze.
I knew better than to push.
The Alpha stepped up onto the platform in the center of the lawn. His voice cut through the chatter, warm and rich like a storyteller at the edge of a fire.
“The Moonlit Shift reminds us who we are,” he said. “That we are more than flesh and fur. That we are part of something older, something sacred. The bond between wolf and Moon, between mate and pack–it lives here, in each of us. And now, we honor that bond in flame.”
The platform had been transformed into a wide, raised square framed in blackened stone and stacked high with seasoned logs and wild herbs. I could smell the lavender and sage from here.
It was beautiful. Bigger than the one the children had used earlier, this one felt… ceremonial.
A priestess in pale silver robes approached the pyre. Her presence sent a hush over the crowd. She bowed her head and raised her arms, palms glowing faintly with moonlight.
“We honor the Moon Goddess with fire,” she intoned, “And with the symbols of what we release–and what we become.”
