The Moonstone gardens were bathed in gold and green, lanterns swaying gently overhead. Laughter floated on the cooling breeze, curling like smoke among the trees.
It should’ve felt perfect.
It didn’t.
Above us, the clouds clung stubbornly to the sky, hiding the moon.
The longer they lingered, the tighter my chest wound.
A full moon should’ve been a blessing tonight–a benediction on Mason and Erin’s bond. Instead, the clouds. shifted restlessly, thick and uneasy, as if waiting for something they couldn’t name.
I stayed near the tree line, hands stuffed into my jacket pockets, trying to ignore the tension crawling along my spine.
This wasn’t my day. Wasn’t my pack.
And yet, it mattered more than anything I’d ever stood witness to.
Mason paced like a caged animal at first, but the moment he caught sight of Erin, all that nervous energy disappeared. Elena was there too, calm and steady, moving through the gathering with a lightness that stole the air from my lungs.
I watched her from a distance. Couldn’t seem to help it.
She wasn’t dressed up in glitter or silk like some high–ranking Luna might have been. She wore a simple, elegant dress that floated around her legs when she moved, the kind of dress that wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
And gods, it impressed the hell out of me.
Elena smiled easily, smoothing a wrinkled jacket here, fixing a wayward flower crown there, crouching low to whisper something that made a giggling child race away in delight.
She wasn’t putting on a show.
She just was.
Present. Real. Solid in a way that most wolves spent lifetimes chasing.
I stood apart and watched her live.
The ceremony itself was short, heartfelt, messy in all the right ways. Mason’s voice cracked when he said his vows; Erin’s hands shook when she slipped the ring onto his finger.
When the magic finally surged through the clearing–golden and thick, vibrating through the ground beneath our feet–the entire pack howled, the sound raw and joyful.
For a moment, I let myself wonder what our wedding could have been.
Not a fantasy. Not some distant dream.
That day was real. I could still feel the weight of it in my bones.
The event hall had been strung with thousands of tiny lights, catching in the folds of white linen and silver–leaf
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garlands. Everything had smelled like roses and new beginnings.
+25 BONUS
I remembered the way I’d turned during our first look the way the world had fallen out from under me when I saw her.
Mia.
She’d smiled at me, shy and luminous, clutching her bouquet so tightly I thought the sterns might snap.
For a second, it had been perfect.
She wasn’t Moonstone’s princess yet. She wasn’t anyone’s political prize. She was just a woman in love, standing in front of a man too broken to recognize what a miracle that was.
And I had wrecked it.
The memory of Cassandra’s arrival split through the rest like a blade. Her cloying perfume and purposeful chaos. The desperate belief that running to her was the right thing–that loyalty owed to the past meant more than the life waiting for me at the altar.
If I hadn’t turned. If I hadn’t left her standing there, veil trembling, heart breaking-
We would have been bound that day.
No doubts. No ghosts. No war left between us.
But I had failed her.
And now, standing in the golden glow of another’s wedding, I realized something colder and truer than anything I had ever admitted:
I hadn’t just failed her. I had failed myself.
Failed the life we should have had.
I tilted my head back instinctively, searching for the moon, needing to see it, to feel it.
But the clouds stayed.
Thick. Suffocating.
Wrong.
The celebration burst to life afterward. Food, wine, music. Wolves spilling across the garden like a tide.
I wandered the edges, drinking it all in.
Aiden was racing with the other pups, his hair sticking up wildly, frosting still smeared across his cheek from the cupcake table. He shrieked with laughter when a bigger boy tackled him into a pile of leaves.
Elena stood nearby, laughing too–throwing her head back with such unguarded joy it hit me like a blade between the ribs.
This was her world.
This was the life she deserved.
And gods, I wanted to be part of it.
I wanted to step into that circle and stay there.
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No courtship rituals, no politics, no ancient grudges hanging between packs like ghosts.
Just family. Home.
+25 BONUS
A flash of movement caught my eye–Logan, lingering near the back of the clearing, half–shielded by a weeping willow. He wasn’t laughing. Wasn’t joining the toasts or the dances.
He was watching.
Not with fondness. Not with celebration.
His arms were crossed over his chest, a drink dangling loosely from his fingers, his mouth set in a grim line.
A thread of unease twisted through my gut.
I catalogued the details automatically: stiff posture, clenched jaw, eyes that flicked often–not toward Mason and Erin, but toward Elena.
Noted.
Filed away.
I drifted back into the edge of the crowd.
An elder clapped me on the back, shoving a mug of mead into my hand and telling me it was time to “loosen up, son.” I managed a smile, took a sip of the cloying drink, and made polite small talk for a few minutes.
I grabbed Aiden and helped him get rid of the frosting that He’d somehow managed to smear across his face.
But the wrongness pressing down on me didn’t lift.
If anything, it thickened.
The air hummed strangely, like the world was holding its breath.
The lanterns overhead swayed, but not with the breeze. The trees stood oddly still, as if the entire forest was straining toward something.
Waiting.
I caught sight of Elena again just as the call went up for the bouquet toss.
She grimaced, mock–groaning as she was roped into the ring of single wolves gathering in the center of the clearing.
Before I even thought about it, my feet were moving too.
I caught her elbow, leaned in close.
“Come on,” I murmured. “Let’s skip this one.”
She turned toward me, surprised–but not pulling away.
I didn’t wait for an answer. I just took her hand and steered her gently toward the edge of the clearing, out beyona the circle of lanterns, into the softer dark.
It felt like stepping into another world.
The air was cooler here, brushed with the scent of honeysuckle and old earth. Crickets chirped softly, the sound rising and falling like a tide.
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She shivered.
Without thinking, I shrugged off my jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
She gave me a half–smile that damn near knocked the wind out of me. Tugged the jacket closer.
Overhead, the clouds thinned. The moon slipped free–silver and cold, a lone eye staring down at us.
We joked for another moment and then a sharp, brutal pressure slammed into my chest.
I staggered, grabbing at her without thinking.
She gasped, clutching the front of my shirt.
My knees buckled, and I dropped to one.
Pain lanced through me–raw, tearing.
I felt it–something slithering into the connection between us, prying, clawing.
No.
No, no, no.
“Elena-!” I growled, dragging her down with me, shielding her with my body.
Her hands found mine, fierce and desperate.
I saw the terror in her eyes.
“Hold on, Elena.”
The magic surged—sick, dark, wrong.
I could see it now. A dark thread winding around our bond, squeezing.
Trying to sever.
