Howl: I Met My Mate

They say you can tell how a person truly feels about you by how they look at you when you are dying. If that is true, then my husband never loved me at all. The blood was everywhere. It soaked into the white fur rug Cade had imported from the Northern Mountains for our Luna ceremony. It stained the silver hem of my dress. It pooled under my shaking hands as I tried to hold it in my chest, as if I could push my life back inside. The blade was still in me. A thin, elegant dagger with a crescent moon hilt. Selene's dagger. I recognized it because she had shown it to me a week before, laughing. "A gift from Cade, when we were fated," she had said. "He said it would protect me." It had just killed me. My breath was coming in short, wet gasps. Downstairs, the entire pack was celebrating. The music was so loud the floor vibrated. Hundreds of wolves dancing to celebrate their new Luna. No one could hear me dying upstairs. No one except Selene. She crouched down in front of me, her beautiful face calm. Her long black hair was perfect. Her silver Luna candidate dress — the one she shouldn't even have been wearing to MY ceremony — was spotless. "Shhh," she whispered, brushing a strand of hair from my sweaty forehead like we were sisters. "Don't fight it, Elara. It will be faster if you don't fight." I tried to grab her. My fingers slipped. "You should have known," she leaned closer, her voice so soft only I could hear. "An Alpha never marries for love. Cade Wilder rejected me, his fated mate, in front of the Moon Goddess herself to marry you. Do you know what that costs a wolf?" I shook my head, tears burning my eyes. "He did it for your land. White Moon sits on the largest silver mine in the territory. Your father was dying. He needed a strong son-in-law to protect it. It was a contract. My Cade made a contract with your father, and you were the price." A lie. It had to be a lie. Cade loved me. He had held me when my father died. He had said my lack of a wolf didn't matter. He had knelt when he proposed. But the memory that flashed through my mind was from last week. Me asking him, "Do you ever regret rejecting your fated?" And him going still. Too still. And saying, "A good Alpha doesn't think about what-ifs." He had never said no. Selene smiled, seeing the realization break me. "Now the council has officially given him the rights to the mine. Your father's Alpha ring is on his finger. You... you poor, wolfless girl... you are useless now. And you know what useless things do, Elara? They disappear." Footsteps. Heavy, fast, taking the stairs two at a time. My heart — my stupid, dying heart — leapt. Cade. He would save me. He would smell the blood. He would kill her. The doors burst open. Cade Wilder stood there in his black Alpha ceremonial suit, his dark hair messy, his chest heaving. His golden eyes were glowing — his wolf was at the surface. He had heard it. He had come. Behind him, two of his Beta guards. Selene instantly transformed. Her face crumpled into a perfect mask of horror. She threw herself away from me and screamed, "Cade! I tried to stop her! She had the blade! She said she couldn't do it! She said she would rather die than be Luna!" She was a better actress than I ever gave her credit for. Cade's eyes snapped from her to me. To me, on the floor. Dying. With her dagger in my chest. I reached for him. My hand left a bloody print on the white marble. "C-Cade... please..." He flinched. He actually flinched away from my blood. His eyes, those beautiful, cold, golden eyes that I had loved since I was sixteen, looked at me with something I had never seen before. Not love. Not panic. Disappointment. And suspicion. As if I really had done this for attention on my Luna night. That was when I knew Selene was telling the truth. A sob tore out of me that had nothing to do with the blade. I loved him. Moon Goddess, I had loved him with every broken piece of me. And he was letting me die. The darkness started to creep in from the edges of my vision. The music downstairs seemed to fade. I heard Selene crying in his arms. I heard one of the guards whisper, "Alpha... we need to call the pack doctor..." But I was already gone. The last thought I had as Elara Wilder, Luna of Blackstone, was not of love. It was of hate. --- I woke up to the smell of lavender and dust. It was wrong. The afterlife shouldn't smell like my mother's old linen spray. I sat bolt upright, gasping, my hands flying to my chest. No blood. No blade. No pain. My white dress was gone. I was wearing a faded, oversized t-shirt that said WHITE MOON HIGH TRACK TEAM. A shirt I had thrown away three years ago. My room. Not the cold, obsidian bedroom in Blackstone Castle where I had died. My small, warm, messy bedroom in my father's packhouse in White Moon. The one with the glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck to the ceiling when I was twelve. My breathing was ragged. This had to be a dream. A cruel dream from the Moon Goddess before she judged me. Then my phone buzzed on the bedside table. I grabbed it with shaking hands. The screen lit up. August 10th. And a text preview at the top. Cade Wilder: My Luna-to-be. Dinner with your father tonight to finalize the contract? Can't wait to make you mine forever. 6 months to go, my love. Six months. I dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor. August 10th. That was six months and two weeks before my wedding. Six months and two weeks before my Luna ceremony. Before the blade. Before Selene. Before I learned I was just a contract. I stumbled out of bed and ran to the mirror. A girl stared back at me. Twenty-two. Long, dark hair not yet cut into the sophisticated bob Cade preferred. Eyes bright, not tired. Cheeks full, not hollow from a year of trying to be a perfect, wolfless Luna for a pack that never accepted me. No scars. No dark circles. No mating mark on my neck — Cade had never marked me in my first life. He said he was waiting until I was "ready." Now I knew why. You can't mark a woman you plan to discard. A laugh bubbled out of me, raw and hysterical and broken. I was dead. I had died on my Luna ceremony floor. And the Moon Goddess had looked at me, a wolfless girl who had never even shifted, who had died unloved and unclaimed, and she had said, "Again." She had sent me back. Six months to rewrite everything. This time, I would not smile and nod when my father said marrying Cade would save our pack. This time, I would not ignore the way Selene looked at Cade like he was hers. This time, I would not be the weak, wolfless Luna who died in a pretty dress begging for a man who wouldn't even touch her blood. This time, I would find out why my wolf never came. This time, I would make them all bow. My phone buzzed again. Another text from Cade. Cade Wilder: Elara? You okay? You left me on read. In my first life, I would have typed back instantly with a heart. I would have spent an hour picking the perfect dress for dinner. In this life, I picked up the phone, my hands steady now, my tears dry. I typed: Me: Don't call me your Luna. The contract is off. We need to talk. And I hit send. Outside my window, over the White Moon forest, the moon was full. And for the first time in twenty-two years, I swear I felt something stir inside me. A growl. Low. Sleepy. Ancient. My wolf. Finally awake.