The ceremony was set for the night of the full moon, three weeks after Callum’s capture, and standing at the edge of the same courtyard where Maren had first pressed her fingers to my wrist and changed the entire shape of my life, I understood that everything about this moment had been deliberately chosen to answer that first terrifying night — the same stones, the same torches, this time filled with pack members gathered not in fear but in genuine celebration.
“You look terrified,” Dee said, adjusting the sleeve of a dress I still couldn’t quite believe I was wearing, having flown in three days earlier the moment I’d called her with an explanation so absurd she’d initially assumed I was joking.
“I’m not terrified. I’m processing an enormous number of things at once, one of which happens
