Chapter Eleven
1339 Words
Solstice Invitation
The invitation arrived on heavy cream-colored card stock, sealed with black wax impressed by the Nightshade crest—a stylized bat entwined with thorns. Jonah found it slid under the lodge door just after dawn, no footprints in the fresh snow to show how it had gotten there.
He carried it straight to Luna’s cabin.
She was at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee, hair still damp from her shower, the obsidian pendant catching the pale morning light filtering through the window. The wooden wolf Elias had carved sat on the windowsill now, keeping watch over the clearing.
Jonah laid the envelope in front of her without a word.
Luna turned it over, thumb brushing the wax seal. The paper smelled faintly of jasmine and cold night air.
“Damien?” she asked, though she already knew.
“Has to be,” Jonah said. “Vampires don’t usually play mail carrier for anyone else.”
She broke the seal.
The card inside was simple, elegant handwriting in black ink:
You are cordially invited to celebrate the Winter Solstice
at Nightshade Manor
on the longest night
A gathering of truce and light in the darkest season
Bring your voices, your stories, your warmth
We will provide the fire and the shelter
—D.B.
Below, in smaller script:
Luna—say yes. I want to see frost on your eyelashes in my garden. —D
She read it twice, a slow smile spreading across her face before she could stop it.
Jonah raised an eyebrow. “Good news?”
“An invitation,” she said, handing it over. “For the whole pack. Solstice night at the manor.”
Jonah read it, expression unreadable.
“That’s bold,” he said finally. “Bringing wolves into their stronghold on the longest night of the year. Vampires get… restless when the sun barely rises.”
“I know,” Luna said. “But Cassian suggested it. Damien wouldn’t extend the offer if he didn’t think he could keep us safe.”
Jonah handed the card back.
“And do you think he can?”
She met his eyes steadily.
“I think he’ll stand between us and anything that tries to hurt us,” she said. “Same as I would for his people on our ground.”
Jonah nodded slowly.
“Then I’ll start figuring out who’s willing to go.”
By evening the invitation had made its way through the entire pack. Reactions varied—curiosity from the pups, cautious interest from some of the adults, outright refusal from a few older wolves who still remembered vampire raids too vividly.
Mara gathered a small circle in the lodge after dinner: Luna, Jonah, Elias, and a handful of others who had become the unofficial council since the oath.
“We don’t have to go as a pack,” Luna said. “Anyone who wants to stay home should. No judgment. But I’m going. And I’d like some of us there—not as guards, but as… guests.”
Elias had been quiet all evening, carving another small figure by the fire. He set his knife down.
“I’ll go,” he said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
He met Luna’s surprised gaze.
“You shouldn’t walk in there without your beta,” he said simply. “Even if the beta’s still figuring things out.”
Relief and gratitude flooded her so quickly she had to look away for a moment.
“Thank you,” she said.
Mara reached over and squeezed Elias’s knee. “Good boy.”
They spent the next hour planning—who would attend (twelve in total, including the pups who begged to see the “vampire castle”), what gifts they might bring (handmade items, food that traveled well, stories and songs), and most importantly, the rules: no shifting inside the manor unless lives were at stake, no silver weapons visible, trust but stay alert.
When the meeting broke up, Elias lingered.
“I’m not doing this for him,” he said quietly once they were alone. “I’m doing it for you. And for the pack. But Luna… if anything feels wrong, we leave. No hesitation.”
“I know,” she said. “I trust you to tell me if it does.”
He nodded, then surprised her by pulling her into a quick, fierce hug—the first in months.
“You deserve to be happy,” he muttered against her hair. “Even if it’s not the way I thought it would be.”
She hugged him back hard.
Across the miles, Damien received his own update from Cassian.
“Twelve confirmed,” Cassian reported. “Including the alpha, her enforcer, the seer, and—interestingly—the beta who’s been less than enthusiastic.”
Damien looked up from the solstice preparations spread across his desk: seating charts that separated known troublemakers, menus featuring warm food and drink for the wolves alongside chilled synthetic options, a playlist of music that spanned centuries but avoided anything too mournful.
“Elias is coming,” he said.
Cassian nodded. “Word is he’s doing it for her, not for us.”
Damien exhaled slowly.
“That’s fair,” he said. “I wouldn’t trust me either if I were him.”
Cassian hesitated.
“My lord… Victoria’s supporters have gone quiet. Too quiet. No chatter, no sightings. Either they’ve accepted this, or—”
“Or they’re planning something for the longest night,” Damien finished.
He stood and crossed to the window, looking out at the garden where workers were stringing fairy lights through the night-blooming plants.
“Then we prepare for both possibilities,” he said. “Lights, music, warmth. And guards who know how to be discreet.”
Cassian bowed and left to relay orders.
Damien pulled out his phone and texted Luna.
Twelve wolves. My hall has never felt so honored. Or so nervous.
Her reply came quickly.
Twelve vampires have never had so many werewolves planning to bring them cookies. We’re even.
He laughed softly, the sound echoing in the empty study.
Tell Elias thank you, he wrote. From someone who knows how hard it is to stand in a room full of people you’ve been taught to hate.
He didn’t expect a response to that, but it came anyway.
I will. He’s trying, Damien. That’s more than I had any right to hope for.
The days leading to solstice blurred into a whirlwind of preparation.
The pack baked—cookies scented with cinnamon and clove, venison jerky, jars of wild blackberry jam. The pups practiced songs under Mara’s direction. Jonah organized transportation and contingency plans.
At the manor, Damien oversaw transformations: the great hall warmed with massive hearths blazing, tables set with steaming mulled cider alongside crystal decanters of bloodwine, the gardens lit with thousands of tiny lights that mimicked starlight on snow.
He found himself anticipating small things: watching Luna taste the mulled cider, seeing frost on her eyelashes as she’d written in his dreams, hearing pack voices raised in song echo off stone walls that had known only silence for too long.
The night before the gathering, Luna stood alone in her cabin wrapping a small gift—a hand-knitted scarf in deep crimson wool, soft as clouds.
She texted Damien a photo of it draped over her chair.
For the vampire who’s always cold.
His reply was a voice note—his voice low and warm.
“I’ll wear it every night I’m not fortunate enough to have you keeping me warm instead.”
She fell asleep with the phone on her chest, pendant warm against her skin, dreaming of lights in a winter garden and two worlds learning how to share the same fire.
Outside, snow began to fall—soft, steady, covering old scars in the earth with new white.
The longest night approached.
And for the first time in centuries, neither wolves nor vampires would face it entirely alone.
- Writer
