Blood Marked: The Bone Moon Alphas

CHAPTER 14 The False Moon Ball

It had been three weeks before the Bone Moon returned.

Three weeks before I knew I was going to die on my birthday.

Nocturne Academy held a False Moon Ball every year to mock the real Bone Moon — a night where every wolf wore masks so no one knew who was Alpha or Omega, where you could dance with anyone without rank.

Lucien had insisted I go. "You need normal. Before... before everything."

I didn't have a dress. Lira's old pink one was still in my bag from Ashen Hollow, torn at the hem.

I was going to hide in the kennel.

Then someone knocked.

Four knocks. Four different doors.

First — Kieran. He didn't knock, he materialized. On my cot was a box. Inside, a dress made of shadows that weren't shadow — black silk that moved like smoke, that clung and then floated. And a mask, black, with tiny silver stars.

"Don't wear anyone else's dress," he said gruffly, not looking at me. "You are not pink."

He left before I could thank him.

Second — Jax. He kicked the door open, literally. Box. Inside, a dress that looked like a storm — grey and gold and short enough to make Mama Agatha faint. Mask made of lightning glass.

"Sunshine, you better wear this one, because I paid a witch in the Hollow to make it and she threatened to curse my d**k off if you didn't."

"Jax!"

"What? It's a very nice d**k! It deserves not being cursed!"

He fled, red.

Third — Silas. No knock. A book appeared on my pillow. Inside the book, a dress pressed flat like a flower — silver-white, soft as paper, that shimmered with words when you moved. Mask that covered only the eyes, made of mirror.

"I saw this in your mind," his note said. "You saw it in a shop window when you were twelve and Gregory said wolfless girls don't get pretty things. Now you do."

I cried.

Fourth — Rhys. Gentle knock. He stood in the doorway, holding a box like it was a baby bird. Inside, a dress the color of fresh blood and fresh snow, off shoulders, with sleeves that looked like bleeding roses. Mask of red lace.

"I made it," he said quietly. "My blood can... it can weave if I tell it to. I wanted you to have something no one else has ever worn. Something that was only ever yours."

Four dresses. Four masks. Four boys who didn't know how to say "I like you" without buying the entire shop.

Nyx: Wear all four. Make them fight.

I did something smarter. I took Kieran's skirt — the shadow silk. Jax's bodice — the storm top. Silas's sleeves — the word-shimmer. And Rhys's mask — the bleeding roses.

I sewed them together myself, with shaking hands, in the kennel.

When I walked into the False Moon Ball, the music stopped.

Three hundred wolves in masks turned. I couldn't see faces, but I could smell them — pine, rain, old paper, blood — finding me instantly across the room.

Kieran was first. In a black suit, no mask anymore — he had taken it off the second he smelled me. He stared.

"You... you combined them," he whispered, reverent, touching the shadow silk at my waist that he had chosen.

Jax appeared, gold mask pushed up, mouth open. "Holy s**t. Sunshine. Holy — Silas, look what she did! She wore mine!"

"You wore mine too," Silas said, appearing on my other side, silver mask in his hand, his eyes drinking in the word-shimmer sleeves. "You remembered."

Rhys just stood a little apart, red lace mask still on, eyes wet. "You wore my mask."

"I wore all of you," I said, suddenly shy. "Because I didn't know how to choose."

That was the wrong thing to say. Or the right thing.

Kieran's shadows flared possessively. Jax's lightning crackled. Silas's eyes glowed. Rhys's hands fisted.

The band, sensing tension, started playing faster.

Kieran held out his hand. "Dance with me. First dance is shadow's right."

I put my hand in his. He danced like fighting — sharp, possessive, his hand on my lower back pulling me too close, his shadows hiding us from view so no one else could see my face.

Mid-song, Jax cut in, literally zapping Kieran's hand.

"My turn, shadow boy. You had 30 seconds. That's more than you deserve."

He spun me, dipped me, made me laugh — real laugh, loud, for the first time since coming to Nocturne. His hands were on my waist, his gold eyes never leaving mine.

"You're beautiful," he said, simple, like it was a fact. "You have always been beautiful, even when you were wolfless and covered in Lira's old clothes."

I was blushing so hard my marks glowed through the dress.

Then Silas was there, hand on Jax's shoulder, and Jax — for the first time ever — let go without a fight, because Silas looked at him and said please in his mind.

Silas danced like he read minds — because he did. He knew where I would step before I did. He held me like I was made of old paper, precious.

"You look like peace," he whispered against my hair. "You look like quiet."

Rhys was last. He didn't cut in. He waited by the punch table until I came to him, because he was Rhys.

He took my hands, and we barely danced, just swayed.

"You didn't have to wear my mask," he said softly.

"I wanted to," I said. "It's the most beautiful."

He kissed my knuckles, over the spot where his blood moon mark would later appear, though neither of us knew it then.

We were in the middle of that slow dance when the False Moon — the fake moon made of lanterns — cracked and fell, and Lira, drunk and jealous in pink, screamed: "SHE'S WEARING FOUR DRESSES! SHE CAN'T CHOOSE! SHE'S A WHOLE!"

The hall laughed. I froze, humiliated, 19 years of being laughed at rushing back.

Then four voices said at once, low and deadly:

"She doesn't have to choose."

Kieran, Jax, Silas, Rhys stood around me, a wall.

Kieran looked at Lira and said: "She gets to have all four. Any problem?"

The hall went dead silent.

And that night, for the first time, I walked out of a ballroom not alone and not laughed at, but with four Alphas fighting over who got to carry my shoes because my feet hurt.

Nyx, watching the memory with me as we ran toward the bone tree now, sighed:

That was a good night. Let's not die tomorrow, little bone. I liked being chosen.

"We won't," I whispered back, holding onto Kieran's neck as he ran with me toward a God. "We won't."