The Ugly Luna

CHAPTER 1

ELLIE

The gown they sent me smells like the back of a closet—dust and mildew, with a faint sour note underneath. I hold it up in the gray morning light coming through my window.

The hem is frayed. There's a stain near the waist, the color of old tea. One of the seams along the side has already given up.

It's perfect, actually. Exactly what she wanted.

I set it down on the bed and reach for the little tin on my nightstand instead. My mother's tin, dented at the corner, the lid worn smooth from years of my thumb.

Inside is the ointment I make myself now, working from the pages of her manual. I dip two fingers in and start on my face.

It goes on cool and then warms against my skin. In the mirror, I watch it happen the way I've watched it happen every morning for years—the dullness settling over me like a veil. My skin turns sallow.

The light goes out of my hair. My features, which my mother once told me were too much like hers, blur into something forgettable. Something you'd look past in a crowd.

Hide your beauty. Until your wolf wakes, promise me.

I promised her. I was seven years old, kneeling beside her bed, watching the color slowly drain from her face as the light faded from her eyes.

My throat tightens at the memory. Even now, I can still see her reaching for him. For that bastard. A man no different than a sperm donor to me.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for him one last time, desperate for even the smallest lie—some shred of comfort to carry with her into death.

He wouldn't even give her that. He couldn't bring himself to pretend, not even as she lay dying, that he'd ever loved her.

I hated him then. I hate him now.

I push the memory away and put on the rotting gown. Today is my half-sister Clara's Luna ceremony, and I have been ordered to attend.

It's also my eighteenth birthday. Not that anyone cares.

I don't think anyone has cared about anything involving me since the day my stepmother, Bailey, and her daughter, Clara, walked into this house.

My father didn't even wait for my mother's body to grow cold before bringing them home. You'd think he'd at least try to hide the fact that he cheated on my mother.

He didn't.

He paraded the daughter he'd fathered while my mother was still his mate as though there was nothing shameful about it.

I give myself one last look in the mirror, making sure I look as awful as possible before stepping out.

The ceremony hall is on the far side of the compound, and by the time I get there, the courtyard is already filling with people.

Silver banners hang from the stone arches, the Moon Wolf crest stitched in thread that catches the light. Somebody has strung lanterns between the pillars.

There are flowers everywhere, white ones, the kind that only bloom under a full moon, and their scent is so thick it's almost a taste.

I keep to the edges. That's the trick—stay near the walls, move slowly, keep your eyes down. An ugly girl in a ruined dress is easy to ignore, and being ignored is the safest thing I know how to be.

"Oh, my God."

I don’t have to look up to know who it is. Clara, comes sweeping toward me in a cloud of perfume and satin—and she doesn’t come alone.

She’s got a little cluster of pack daughters trailing her, and she’s already turning to make sure they’re watching. She never does this without an audience.

Even I have to admit, Bailey, spared no expense. Her gown is deep crimson, fitted to the waist and pooling out into a train, threaded through with gold.

Her dark hair is piled up and pinned with jeweled combs. She looks exactly like what she is: the daughter this family chose to love.

She stops a few feet away and looks me over slowly, top to bottom, and her lip curls.

“I honestly thought you’d have the decency not to come,” she says, loud enough for the people nearby to turn. “But no. You had to drag that in here.” She flicks a manicured hand at my dress, then wrinkles her nose at her friends. “Careful. Don’t stand too close—God, can you even smell her?”

They laugh, right on cue.

I lift my head. Just enough. I let my voice come out quietly, the way a mouse might speak if a mouse could speak at all.

"You're right," I say. "I didn't have anything else to wear." A small pause. "The gown was picked out for me. Sent to my room this morning." Another pause, softer still, my eyes wide and innocent on hers. "I just assumed whoever chose it knew best. I'd hate to embarrass the family by disagreeing with their taste."

I watch it land.

Because everyone here knows who runs my wardrobe. Everyone here knows there's only one person in this pack who'd bother dressing me at all. It's the same woman standing twenty feet away in matching gold. I haven't accused anyone of anything. I've only agreed with her.

Her mouth opens. Closes. A flush climbs up her neck, blotchy and red against all that careful powder, and for one beautiful moment, she can't find a single word.

"I—that's not—" She catches herself. Her jaw tightens. "Watch your mouth."

"Of course," I murmur, and lower my eyes again.

But something is wrong.

I feel it before I understand it—a heat starting low in my spine, spreading out through my ribs, catching. My breath goes short. The perfume, the flowers, and the smell of the crowd all sharpen at once. Underneath the heat, there's a pressure building, something turning over inside me that has never turned over before.

My wolf.

Not here. Not now. I press my back against the cool stone of the pillar, dig my nails into my palms, and try to hold it down. But the wind shifts.

It comes across the courtyard and finds me. Threaded all through it is a scent I have never smelled in my life and somehow know better than my own name. Woody, spicy, and something warmer beneath it, something that reaches straight past every wall I've ever built and closes a fist around my heart.

My head comes up on its own.

He's already looking at me. Across the whole crowded hall, past the banners and the lanterns. He’s has gone completely still, and his eyes are locked on mine like there's nothing else in the room.

The heat surges. A hook behind the ribs pulls toward him, hard.

“Mate.”