Celeste does not soften it for me, which I realise almost immediately is intentional, because she watches my face closely as she speaks like she is gauging not whether I will understand, but whether I will accept it. The forest around us is quiet in that suspended way it gets when something old is being spoken aloud, and I sit on the fallen log she gestures toward with my hands resting loosely in my lap, trying not to clench them even though tension hums under my skin.
“You already know most of what I’m going to tell you,” she says calmly, her gaze steady on mine, “the red moon calls to you, your wolf responds, and the pack responds to your wolf, because that is how it has always worked.”
Axel and Atticus flank me without touching, close enough that I can feel them there without being cr
