Bound by Moonfire

CHAPTER4.FULLY FOUND

ARIA'S POV

"Aria? Are you dressed yet?"

Liora, my personal maid voice came through the door again, I had kept her locked out for almost twenty minutes, hurriedly dressing while adjusting my makeup to look even more flawless. I can't afford anything that will raise suspicion about my sadness tonight.

“Are you fine?” Liora's voice again, still muffled, and tight with that same edge of urgency it had carried since the first knock.

"Coming," I called, forcing my legs to move.

I opened the door and Liora was already reaching for my hands before I'd even stepped through, squeezing them tight, looking me over like she was checking for cracks.

"You look beautiful," she said. Then, quieter, just for me, "You okay?"

"I have to be," I said, and she didn't push it further. She knew better than anyone that some questions I couldn't afford to answer honestly, not tonight.

She helped with some final touches, adjusting my hair and helping me into my shoes. Then we head out.

The walk down to the ceremony grounds felt longer than it ever had before. Torches lined the path, flickering gold against the dark trees, and somewhere ahead I could already hear the low hum of the pack gathering, voices and laughter and the occasional shout of celebration that made my stomach twist tighter with every step.

There are at least two full packs in this building right now, and the thought of the gathering for me did nothing to ease my tension. I kept on walking slowly, my mind drifting to all that could go wrong in the right way to postpone this engagement, but all I thought about was either going to cause a war or disappointment in which I can't afford either.

I sucked in a sharp breath, reality dawning on be, I need to act like the queen, a Luna doesn't act scared, she accepts challenges.

By the time we reached the clearing, the entire pack had gathered in a wide circle around the ceremonial fire, same as it had been at sixteen. Same as it had been at eighteen. Only this time I wasn't standing here to prove I had a wolf.

I was standing here to prove I could be someone's wife and start a powerful alliance the whole of crescent hallow ever witnessed.

My father found me first, pride written plainly across his face in a way that almost made this bearable and worthwhile, it's being long since he last looked at me like I was his pride.

"You look just like your mother did," he said, voice thick with emotions.

Somewhere behind him, my mother's eyes caught mine, and for just a second that same strange, guarded look from earlier flickered across her face before she smiled it away.

Kael stepped forward next, dressed sharp, dark eyes bright with something that might have been excitement if I let myself believe it was only that. He took my hand, pressing a kiss to my knuckles that made half the pack sigh like it was the most romantic thing they'd ever witnessed.

"Ready?" he murmured, only for me.

No.

"Yes," I said.

The elder stepped forward, the same one who had stood over me twice already in my life, watching me fail. Tonight he held a different kind of weight in his hands, a ceremonial cord meant to bind instead of a moonstone meant to prove.

"Tonight," he began, voice carrying easily across the clearing, "we witness the joining of two great lines. Aria Devane, daughter of Alaric, and Kael Veyron, Alpha of…"

The fire beside us flared without warning, sudden and definitely not normal, flames leaping higher than they should have with no wind to explain it.

The elder faltered mid-sentence. Staring at the other elders who also look as convinced.

Whispers rippled instantly through the crowd, quiet at first, and then sharper, spreading out from somewhere behind me like a current I couldn't see the source of yet.

Kael's hand tightened around mine, his jaw going tense.

"What…" I started.

And then I felt it.

A pull, deep and sudden, somewhere low in my chest, like something had reached inside me without asking and yanked hard enough to steal the air from my lungs. My whole body went still before my mind even understood why.

The whispers behind me turned into gasps.

I turned.

He came through the trees at the edge of the clearing like the forest itself had made room for him, tall and dark and for a night built around vows and firelight and quiet obedience. His eyes found mine before I even fully registered his face, amber and burning, locked onto me like he'd been searching for me his entire life and had finally, finally, stopped looking.

The noise around us fell away. Kael's hand in mine. My father's voice, sharp and rising somewhere behind me. The elder stumbling over broken ceremonial words. None of it reached me anymore.

Because the second our eyes met, something inside my chest clicked into place with a violence I had no name for, like a lock finally finding the one key it had been waiting on my entire life.

I didn't know his name.

But some part of me, some part I didn't understand yet, already knew exactly who he was.

Mate.

My mate growled.