Chapter 3 — Luna in Name Only
1050 Words
LIORA
By sunrise, the entire pack knew Selene would stand beside Ronan at the Moon Renewal Ceremony.
The notice appeared on the household schedule:
Lady Selene Ashford will represent the Luna during today’s rites.
I read it twice on my phone, then looked at the silver gown across my bed.
Not Selene’s.
Mine.
The dress had been made for the first ceremony after Ronan named me Luna. Its embroidered moons had faded, but it was still mine.
I dressed without calling a maid.
When I fastened the ceremonial necklace around my throat, the moonstone rested cold against my skin.
Ronan had assumed I would stay away.
The ceremonial hall was full when I arrived.
Sunlight poured through the glass ceiling. Families crowded the lower floor while elders waited near the raised platform.
Ronan occupied the center in his Alpha’s coat.
Selene stood at his right.
Her new silver gown shimmered. Milo waited near the steps in a dark suit.
From a distance, they looked like a family portrait.
The conversations nearest the entrance died first.
Ronan followed the silence and found me. His expression shifted—not with guilt, but calculation.
He descended from the platform and blocked the aisle.
“Liora.” His eyes moved over my gown. “You should be resting.”
“I rested.”
“I told the council the infirmary had exhausted you.”
“You told them Selene would take my place.”
His gaze dropped to the necklace.
Around us, people pretended not to listen.
“The announcement has already been made,” he said quietly.
“So was our mating ceremony.”
His mouth tightened.
“This is one morning.”
“It is my office.”
“Do not make this uglier than it needs to be.”
The words made something inside me settle.
“I am not the one wearing another woman’s title.”
Behind him, Selene’s hands tightened around the ceremonial bowl.
“I can step down,” she said, loud enough for the nearest elders to hear.
Ronan turned toward her. “No.”
Then he faced me again.
“Stand with the healers.”
I looked past him.
The Luna’s place remained at his right. Selene occupied it beneath the carved silver moon of Blackwood.
If I obeyed, the pack would remember that I had accepted it.
“No.”
Ronan’s gaze sharpened, but it was not an Alpha command.
I walked around him.
Whispers followed me to the platform.
High Elder Carden raised his staff.
“The rites have begun,” he said. “Further disruption would dishonor the Moon.”
“I agree. The Luna should perform her duties.”
Ronan climbed the steps behind me.
“Selene represents Eamon’s household,” he announced. “Liora remains the recognized Luna of Blackwood.”
A correction without an apology, but it gave me my place.
I stepped beside him.
Selene moved to his other side.
The ceremony continued.
A farming family approached with the season’s first apples. The father bowed to Ronan, then offered the basket to Selene.
She reached for it before glancing at me.
“I believe this is yours,” she said with a careful smile.
The farmer hesitated.
“It is an offering to the Luna,” I said.
His face reddened as he crossed to me.
“May Blackwood remain strong through winter,” I told his family.
Ronan said nothing.
Then the doors at the far end of the hall opened.
Silence swept through the gathering.
The ceremonial wolf entered alone.
He was enormous, silver-gray and scarred across one shoulder. He lived beyond Blackwood Hall and appeared only during the oldest rites.
No Alpha owned him.
No one commanded him.
Selene moved to the front of the platform. Someone had instructed her.
She lowered herself gracefully to one knee and extended her hand.
The wolf stopped before her.
He sniffed her fingers.
Then he turned away.
A murmur passed through the hall.
Selene remained kneeling, her smile fixed too carefully.
The wolf crossed in front of Ronan.
“Guardian,” Ronan said, offering his hand.
The animal did not pause.
He descended the platform and walked straight toward me.
My breath caught.
Animals had watched me differently all my life. Dogs followed me through the clinic. Injured wolves quieted beneath my hands.
I had always assumed they sensed what was missing.
A woman without a wolf.
An empty place where a second presence should have lived.
The guardian stopped before me.
His pale eyes met mine.
Warmth moved beneath my skin.
Not a voice or thought. Something vast and distant, like moonlight touching deep water.
The wolf lowered his front legs.
Then he pressed his head to the floor.
Someone gasped.
The guardian of Blackwood was bowing to me.
“She is wolf-less,” a man whispered.
The wolf lifted his head beneath my open palm. His tense body relaxed at once.
Behind me, Elder Carden whispered, “Impossible.”
Ronan stared as though the floor had shifted beneath him.
Selene had risen.
For one unguarded second, the sweetness vanished from her face.
Recognition.
Then fear.
She noticed me watching and lowered her eyes.
Ronan approached slowly.
“He recognizes my mother’s scent on the necklace,” he said.
No one answered.
His mother had worn it for twenty years.
The guardian had never bowed to her.
Elder Carden struck his staff against the floor.
“The guardian has given his recognition. The ceremony will honor it.”
Ronan finally looked at me.
“Take your place, Liora.”
I returned to the platform with the guardian walking beside me.
Selene stood below us.
It should have felt like victory.
Instead, nausea twisted through me so violently that the ceremonial bowl slipped in my hands.
I caught it before it fell.
Ronan turned. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
But the floor tilted.
I left the platform and hurried into the empty antechamber. My stomach cramped, though nothing came up.
Stress, I told myself.
Exhaustion.
The incense.
My phone vibrated against my hip.
A clinic reminder lit the screen.
Cycle tracking: nine days late.
I stared at the date.
Counted backward once.
Then again.
The nausea returned.
This time, it had nothing to do with Selene.
- Writer
