His Forgotten Silver Luna

The dress was ivory. Not white ivory, because Nova Sinclair had learned early that she was never quite allowed to claim the purest version of anything. White was for daughters of Alphas and Betas of standing. Ivory was close enough. She had told herself that every time she smoothed the fabric over her hips that evening, pressing out wrinkles that weren't there. The dress had cost her three months of savings from her work at the pack's medical hall folding linens, restocking herb drawers, doing the quiet tasks nobody else wanted. She hadn't minded the work. She'd been saving for this night since she was seventeen, when she first caught Damien Cross's eye at a winter solstice bonfire and felt the pull in her chest that every wolf recognised instinctively and spent their whole life hoping for. A mate bond. She was twenty-two tonight. And it was finally time. "You look " Remy Chase appeared in the doorway and stopped talking entirely. He was lean and wolfish, with warm brown skin and eyes that held the particular quality of someone who had chosen humour as armour against a difficult world. He was the only person in the Ironclad Pack who had ever sought her out deliberately, pulled up a chair beside hers at pack meals, made her laugh so hard she forgot what loneliness tasted like. He cleared his throat. "You look like someone about to get everything she deserves." "That's either kind or a threat," Nova said. "With me, always both." He crossed the room and stood beside her, both of them looking at her reflection. "How are you feeling?" "Terrified." "Good. Terrified means it's real." She exhaled. Her reflection exhaled back a girl with deep brown eyes, dark hair pinned at her nape with small silver flowers threaded through it, skin warm brown, expression carefully composed. She didn't look like a Luna. Lunas were magnetic, commanding. She was quiet, slight, omega. But Damien had chosen her. That had to mean something. "The elders aren't happy," she said quietly. Remy's jaw tightened. "The elders are never happy. Don't think about them tonight." He put both hands on her shoulders, steady and warm. "Damien Cross chose you. Out of every wolf in the northern territory. The Moon Goddess herself tied that bond. Nobody overrules that." She nodded. She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. Mostly. The ceremony hall blazed with torchlight. Two hundred wolves stood in attendance, arranged in a crescent around the central dais. Nova walked the length of the hall on Remy's arm and felt every eye move to her like a tide. She kept her chin level. Kept her hands still. Fixed her gaze on the altar at the far end and on the man standing at it. Damien was already there. He stood in black, which was simply what he always wore. He was twenty-five, Alpha for three years since his father's death, and he wore authority the way most people wore skin completely, without effort. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a face that was striking rather than handsome, all hard jaw and dark eyes. He was looking at her. From the moment she appeared in the doorway, he was looking at her with an expression she had seen perhaps twice before, one that made her feel like she'd been standing in shade her whole life and someone had finally moved the obstacle. She almost stumbled. Remy steadied her. When she reached the altar, Remy placed her hand gently in the space between them and stepped back. "You look " Damien started. "Don't," she said softly. "I'll cry and I refuse to cry in front of Elder Kane." Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "Okay," he said quietly. Elder Moss began the ritual words in the old tongue. Nova had memorised them recited them in her head for weeks, the way you rehearse things you can't afford to get wrong. She watched Damien's face while Elder Moss spoke. He watched her back. The mate bond hummed between them, warm and golden, alive. I would choose you, she thought. In any version of this. In any life. Elder Moss paused. The hall went very quiet. Nova noticed the quality of that silence first. How it was different from ceremony hush. How it had teeth. Elder Kane stepped forward from the front row. Tall, grey, pale-eyed. Coldly intelligent in the way of someone who planned very far in advance. "I invoke the Right of Challenge." The words dropped like stones into still water. Nova heard the ripple go through the crowd. Felt Damien go rigid beside her. Kane's voice was measured, addressed to the hall rather than to her. Pack law. Material threat to pack stability. The Right of any ranked elder to halt proceedings. He looked at Damien when he finished. A long, deliberate look. The look of a man who already knew the outcome of a conversation he hadn't yet had aloud. Nova turned to Damien. His jaw was set. His eyes had moved away from her face. "Damien." Her voice came out steady. She was proud of that. "Whatever he's said to you it doesn't change what the bond is. You know that." He looked at her. In his eyes she could see something that looked like pain. It just hadn't been enough. "I'm sorry," he said. Two words. Quiet. Almost gentle. Everything in her chest went still. His Alpha voice replaced the quiet one formal, absolute, the voice for declarations that became law the moment they left his mouth. "I, Damien Cross, Alpha of the Ironclad Pack, hereby sever and reject the mate bond between myself and Nova Sinclair." The bond broke. Like a bone snapping. A c***k she felt in her teeth, her spine, somewhere behind her eyes. The golden warmth she'd carried for two years extinguished pinched out like a candle flame and what flooded in its place was so cold and complete she couldn't immediately process it as pain. Her knees hit the stone floor. The hall erupted. Remy was shouting her name. She was aware of cold stone under her palms, ivory fabric pooling around her, candles still burning at the altar as though nothing had happened. She looked up at Damien from the floor. He was still looking at her. His expression had cracked at the edges. She could see anguish moving through him like weather. She would not cry. She had promised herself. "Get her out," Kane said to someone behind her. Already moving on. Already done with her. Hands lifted her enforcers, efficient, impersonal. She was carried toward the back of the hall like something that needed removing from a room. The last thing she saw was Damien's face. He didn't look away. She wished he had.