The Luna They Didn't Want

CHAPTER 1: THE CEREMONY MAREN I remember the exact moment my husband decided he didn't want me. It was the same moment he agreed to keep me forever. Three years ago, I stood in the center of Shadowhollow's great hall in a white dress that took my mother four months to alter because nothing fit right the first time and there had to do a lot of adjustments to the clothes completely altering the look that the designer had in mind, until it became something of a maternity dress. The whole pack was there at the ceremony, it was not every day that a bloodline from which Caspian was from, got married to someone beneath him. Every warrior, every elder, every omega and beta and pup old enough to stand still for an hour. They came to watch their Alpha claim his fated mate. I came hoping he'd look at me like he meant it. Caspian stood across from me at the altar, tall and golden and exactly as beautiful as every story about him promised, I had heard rumors about him, huge, well muscled, 6'7, and capable of breaking a mountain with his bare hands, a man who had ripped through enemies like sandpapers and once I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of him in my city, while I was undercover, scouring the city. That was when I had heard my wolf chant mate for the first time, and the instant eyes on him as I saw him recognize me, even with 30 feet distance between us, I had turned away and ran back home, burying myself in my room, hoping this was nothing but a dream. But that very night, there had been a decree and I had been named as his future mate, sealing my fate and inevitably becoming the person who was hated by the entire 12 territories of both mated and single women who had tried to get a chance with him. I'd heard the whispers since the bond announcement went out — *the Alpha's mate, did you see her, did you see the size of her* — and I'd told myself it didn't matter. The moon goddess didn't care what I looked like. She'd tied us together for a reason bigger than any of that. I believed it right up until he took my hands into his, soft like he was treasuring it or being careful, but the look in his eyes made any hope that I had started blossoming internally in me, wilter very quickly. His fingers were warm. His face was not. He looked at me the way you look at a bill you can't avoid paying — already calculating how to get through it as fast as possible. The elder reciting the binding words kept going, voice rising and falling in that ceremonial cadence I'd practiced hearing in my head for weeks. I kept my chin up. I kept my breathing steady and tried not to let my heartbreak show on my face, this was not the time to embarrass him,. I told myself: *he just needs time.* Then he said the words back to me — the binding words, the ones that make it real — and right after, just loud enough for the front three rows to catch it, he muttered, "I didn't ask for this." The room went quiet in that specific way a room goes quiet when everyone heard something and is deciding whether to pretend they didn't. I smiled anyway. I don't know where I found it or why I had done it, maybe here was something else deep rooted inside me that could withstand the humiliation and still smile at him, like he had not spoken and I let him put the mark on my neck, and I became Luna of Shadowhollow Pack in front of three hundred witnesses who all saw exactly what he thought of me and said nothing. He didn't reject the bond. That would have required actual conviction. He just made sure I knew, every day since, that he'd kept me out of obligation and nothing else. That was three years ago. Today I'm sitting at the head of the pack council table, twenty minutes into a meeting my husband was supposed to attend, listening to Garrett — head of our eastern patrol — explain why two scouts came back early from the Thornridge border with nothing useful to report. "They said it felt wrong and wouldn't cross the border to investigate further," Garrett says, like that's an answer. "Wouldn't elaborate past that." "Wolves don't say 'felt wrong' for no reason." I keep my voice level, trying not to let the worry show yet. "Send Yusra out instead. She's the best tracker we have that can do the job well and she doesn't spook." Garrett nods and makes a note, in the book kept Beside him for meetings like this where he jotted down vital information or orders. Beside him, Tomi — my beta, my actual ally in this pack, the only person at this table who looks at me like my opinion matters because it does, not because protocol says he has to pretend it does — catches my eye for half a second. A check-in. *You good?* I give him the smallest nod back. I'm fine. I'm always fine, even if I had become numb to this and fine is the only word I repeat so many times hoping it would become true one day. Caspian's chair sits empty at the end of the table. It's been empty for most meetings this month. Nobody comments on it anymore. There was a time, the first year, when people would glance at it and then glance at me, like I was supposed to explain where my own husband was. I stopped explaining a long time ago. Now the chair is just furniture. We move through the agenda — trade terms with the Ashford pack, a dispute over hunting territory near the river, a request from the omega quarter for better heating before winter that I approve on the spot because some decisions don't need six people's permission, they need someone willing to sign off on basic decency. Tomi makes a note to reallocate the budget. Nobody questions it. The meeting ends soon afterwards after all the important things had been hashed out. People filed out in ones and twos going back to their various duties. Tomi lingers, like he does most days now, pretending to gather papers he doesn't need to gather. "You heard about tonight?" he asks, once it's just us. "Heard what." "Selene's hosting something. Dinner. Caspian's expected to be there." He says it carefully, the way he says most things involving her. "You're invited. Apparently." *Apparently.* As if my own presence in my own pack's social calendar is a rumor that needs confirming. "Of course I am," I say, and I almost manage to make it sound like I'm looking forward to it. I'm not.