DEREK
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The clay felt cool in my palm–damp, smooth, still soft enough to shape but beginning to dry around the edges. It had been warming by the Bondfire for hours, waiting for hands like mine. And yet… I had no idea what to carve
The priestess who gave it to me said nothing. Just handed me the blank token and nodded. A tradition. A prayer. A promise.
I turned it over slowly between my fingers, walking a few paces away from the crowd. Around me, couples laughed and clung to each other. Wolves shifted under starlight, dancing, drinking, sharing meat and bread beneath paper lanterns strung through the trees. It was a right for wishes.
For blessings
And mine felt heavier than the fire could carry.
1 crouched near a stone bench and pressed the tip of my thumbnail into the center of the clay. A crescent shape. I didn’t know if it was the moon, or a mark, or something else entirely. But the motion felt right.
I drew a line through it next. Then three dots–Aiden’s name in shorthand, a symbol I’d seen him draw when he didn’t want anyone to know it was his.
He’d dropped his own token in the children’s bondfire earlier, feet barely tall enough to reach the edge of the stone basin. “I’m not telling,” he’d told Elena when she asked him what he wished for. He’d been wearing a sly smile. He had it all figured out
And me?
I didn’t even know what shape my wish should take.
I pressed the clay flat with the heel of my hand and started again.
This time, I didn’t try to make it look like anything. I just carved the truth.
Elena.
Aiden.
Us.
I pressed my thumb into the center of the disk–my mark, different than the one I’d leave on her neck when she finally accepted the bond–and closed my eyes.
Let me fix what I broke. Let me be the mate she needed before I knew how to be one. Let me find the path back to her, even if it takes the rest of my life.
When I rose, the clay was warm in my hand. Like it had taken something from me and decided to hold it close.
I walked to the Bondfire.
I used to make offerings without thinking.
When I was a kid, it was a game–shaping clay tokens into little swords or wolf paws, tossing them into the fire without a second thought. I’d wish for dumb things. A new dagger. A faster shift.
Once, I wished for Cassandra to kiss me at a summer bonfire. She did, later that night. I thought the Moon Goddess
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had answered me. Thought I understood what devotion meant.
I didn’t.
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Even after I became Alpha, I kept treating the Bondfire like it was a tradition, not a conversation. Something I did because it was expected. My tokens were polished and emply. Decorative things. Half the time I let someone else shape them.
But this one… this was different.
This one felt carved front bone.
It wasn’t a wish. It was a vow. A plea.
The kind of thing you say only when you’ve run out of chances and still find yourself asking for one more. There was no illusion of control left. No careless ambition.
Just a quiet desperation to make something right that I should’ve protected in the first place.
I didn’t want a blessing.
I wanted redemption.
And I didn’t know if that was something the Moon could give.
The basin at its base burned low, flames curling over old offerings: wax, parchment, dried flowers, bones, coins, tokens like mine now blackened around the edges. Wishes made by wolves all across the territory–some selfish, some sacred, all hungry.
I dropped mine in.
It landed with a quiet thump and cracked open along the edge. Fire licked the mark. My mark.
I didn’t feel peace.
I felt purpose.
And that would have to be enough.
Later, I stood near the edge of the crowd, watching Mason and Erin. They were laughing, dancing, spinning in tight circles near the food tables.
They looked… right.
Not just happy–matched. Like the bond had done more than tie them together. It had sharpened them, sanded the worst edges down and made the best ones shine.
I watched Mason dip Erin backward, her head thrown back in laughter, curls tumbling loose.
He was going to be Alpha. And she had been a rogue.
And yet he never looked at her like she didn’t belong.
He never made her earn her place beside him.
I had done that to Elena
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Treated her like something temporary. A possibility. A problem I needed to solve instead of a partner I needed to
trust
“And I couldn’t take it back.
But maybe I could show her that I saw it now.
I turned away from the dancing.
That was when I saw her.
The Moonstone Priestess. Older than most wolves, eyes like silvered bark, hair twisted in tight braids that shimmered with ash. She wore no shoes. Her feet were dirt stained, grounded.
She walked straight up to me, no hesitation.
“You carry it heavy,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your wish,” she said, tilting her chin toward the Bondfire. “It’s not weightless. It doesn’t float.”
I hesitated. “I didn’t think it had to.”
“No.” She smiled faintly. “Not for you.”
She looked at me for a long time. Not like she was seeing me, but like she was seeing through me. To everything I was holding in my chest.
“The Moon does not weave blindly,” she said finally. “She ties the thread to the soul.”
And with that, she turned and walked away.
I watched her vanish into the crowd, her voice still echoing somewhere between my ears and my ribs.
The thread to the soul.
I didn’t know what the hell it meant. But it didn’t feel like a blessing
It felt like a warning.
I spent the next hour trying to find Elena.
She hadn’t been near the fire when I dropped the token. She hadn’t joined the dancing. I didn’t see her in the food tent or the side garden where she liked to sit.
It wasn’t like her to hide during pack celebration. Especially not one tied to her brother’s engagement.
I asked Chad. He shrugged. “She was around earlier. Looked tired.”
I asked Carly. “Maybe check the archives,” she said. “She likes it quiet sometimes.”
But the archives were empty.
Finally, I caught sight of her.
On the stairs leading toward the Moonstone packhouse.
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She was alone. A linen shawl around her shoulders. Hair up in a loose twist. Her bare feet were quiet against the
stone.
“She looked over her shoulder once.
Not a
at me.
At the stars.
Then she continued walking-
I took a step toward the stairs. One foot on the first stone.
Then I stopped.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because she didn’t see me.
Maybe because I didn’t want to follow her like a ghost. A memory of who I used to be, haunting the life she was trying to rebuild.
I stood there for a long time.
Letting the night settle around me.
Letting the fire burn behind me.
Letting the weight of the wish I’d made curl into my chest like smoke.
And I said the words again, just for me:
I’m going to get her back.
If it’s the last thing I ever do.
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Chapter 175
