His Warrior Luna

5 First Stirrings

Before the ceremony began, my father laid out a few rules for the evening. Since this was an unprecedented event, he’d planned how to integrate both the sacred ceremony and this monumental event of his daughter’s wolf ascending. The Moonflowers would stay open until dawn, when they would close with the rising sun as the moon’s influence diminished.

“We must insist that only pack members shift and run with Clara tonight as we greet her wolf,” my father ordered. “Enjoy the fragrant blessings of the Mother until we return and mark her, accepting and sealing her consciousness into the Silver Pack.”

A new wolf was required to run with their pack. After the run, the Alpha would bite and mark them high on the shoulder, creating a connection that would link their mind to the rest of the pack.

To be unmarked by an Alpha was the ultimate punishment. It labeled one as either a Lone Wolf or Rogue, a Nobody without a pack. When wolves switched packs due to mating, the mark of the mate bond did the same thing. If they moved without a mate, then the Alpha would symbolically perform the bite, claiming his new wolf.

If a wolf was banished, the Alpha took a claw and drew a line through his mark, severing that connection–The Official Mark of the Rogue.

This was information we learned in school the year before our eighteenth birthday, but it was an open secret long before then. To not be marked was a buried, subconscious fear of many young wolves, but I never worried about that.

My father loves me with everything in him.

The full moon was rising, and the vines on the columns behind me began to vibrate as large, white blossoms with deep, purple centers and long tongues of pollen began to bloom. Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved watching the Moonflowers open. Each one was larger than my hand, with my fingers spread as wide as they could go.

They only bloom once every three years, during the Flower Moon in the late spring. Every established pack has been given a cutting to nurture and tend, and the flowers’ growth is a direct reflection of its pack’s strength and virility, and it allows its members to reap the benefits it provides.

The smell of the flowers is heavenly, and in that fragrance is our secret to long life and health. As we breathe it in, we breathe in the essence of the Moon Goddess herself, and it’s why the Flower Moon is our most important ceremony.

But the Council chooses every year which pack will receive the highest honor of being chosen to host the official, prestigious ceremony that invites the upper echelon of our society, the leading members of the packs, and other notable figures. It is considered the pinnacle of our societal and political status to host, be invited to, and be seen attending.

And the fact that I was getting my wolf on this night of all nights, my mother said the Moon Goddess had special plans for me, and I was chosen for something special and destined to be the greatest Luna in three hundred years, the last time it was rumored a wolf was blessed this way.

Just when the flowers began to vibrate and their leaves shifted, I felt the first pangs of my shift starting. They were low, but seemed to vibrate in time with the vines behind me. As they increased, I released a low moan.

My mother, keeping an eye on me, was waiting for this moment and ushered me behind the roaring fire. The heat at first felt good against my skin, which was pebbled from the cooler night air coming from the lake, but quickly worked its way to unbearable.

My mother took her place beside my Father, on the front row with the Council. I had just enough time to see the full bloom of the flowers before the low pangs spiked into sharp pains. I gasped at the intensity of it.

I knew it would be painful. That’s all the new wolves could talk about: the indescribable pain of the first shift. Joffrey had received his wolf almost six months ago, and I felt like he tried to downplay the experience for my benefit. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t be seen as weak. I was the daughter of the Alpha and Luna of the mighty Silver Pack. I wouldn’t embarrass them in front of the gathering of these people.

I was thankful the fire hid most of the sounds that escaped me.

But I was alone, divided by the fire. Horrible scenarios, the stories told in the dark about failed shifts and half shifts, plagued my mind, creating a cold chill of fear to pierce my heart. I had to remind myself I was still surrounded by people who loved me.

So I did as my mother taught me. I stopped fighting the pain, and I turned my face up to the moon, asking for her strength. My muscles strained and pulled against my bones as they rearranged themselves. I knew my dress was quick release, but I tore at it instinctively, hoping to relieve some of the building pressure and heat.

My skin felt like it swelled like a balloon, getting tighter until it popped, and I felt fur explode all over my body.