Lunar Vow

Prologue

Fenris had been attending the lunar vows since he was a little pup, watching in amazement as his elders shifted into their wolf form and began searching for their mates, patiently waiting for his eighteenth birthday when he became of age and would finally get to experience his first shift. Wondering what it would feel like, longing to know what finding his mate would be like. Tonight he would no longer have to wonder because he would finally get to experience it. He was finally of age, and tonight was a total lunar eclipse, also known as a blood moon.

The pack's howls faded into memory as he ran beneath the crimson moon, his paws pounding the cold earth, his wolf crying out for his fated mate. Wolves were nothing without a luna, their bonds to one another fierce enough to tear the sky. Once a wolf shifts into their wolf form for the first time, their senses are heightened to the smallest scent of their mate, their bodies drawn to each other as if they were flies to honey.

The ache in his heart grew bigger. Watching as all of the other wolves tangled together in the shadows, giving themselves to their fated mates with no success in finding his. As the lunar vows came closer to their end with every passing hour, he stood at the very top of the cliff, howling as loud and fierce as he could muster, calling for his mate to find him. His longing scattered in the wind, his howl unanswered, realizing that tonight he would howl for no one, he would be going home without a mate, the realization causing his wolf to whimper as the sadness grew larger and larger until finally the lunar vows had ended, and he remained a lone wolf.