Fern goes rigid beside me. I can feel her stare boring into the side of my face and can practically hear her preparing another volley of arguments. My wolf braces for the fight, ready to push back against whatever objections she raises.
But the objections don’t come.
I risk a glance in her direction and find her standing with her arms crossed over her chest and her lips pressed into a thin line. She’s not agreeing, not by a long shot. The anger I feel coming off her could probably melt steel. But she’s not saying no, either.
The silence holds for three heartbeats. Four. Five.
“Fern?” Nic prompts. “This only works if you consent. The ceremony requires willing participation from both parties. If you say no, that’s the end of it.”
She doesn’t look at him, and her eyes stay locked on mine. I watch the battle play out across her features—fear and fury and something else. Something that looks almost like resignation, or maybe exhaustion. Like she’s too tired to keep fighting battles she never asked to wage.
“Fine,” she bites out. “Let’s get it over with.”
Relief and guilt crash through me in equal measure. I got what I wanted, but it doesn’t feel like a victory. It feels like breaking something fragile that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to piece back together.
Nic nods as he looks between us again. “I’ll make the arrangements. Luna can help gather what we need for the ceremony.” He turns to Fern and softens his voice. “There’s a guest room on the second floor where you can rest and prepare. Connor will show you.”
“I don’t need him to—”
“Nevertheless.” Nic’s tone brooks no argument. “Go. Both of you. I’ll send someone when we’re ready.”
I step toward the headquarters entrance and hold the door open as I wait for her to move. Fern glares at me for a long moment with her jaw working like she’s biting back words she desperately wants to say. Then she stalks past me, and she deliberately bumps her shoulder into mine as she crosses the threshold.
The interior of pack headquarters is warm and welcoming, with polished wooden floors and walls decorated with photographs spanning decades of pack history. Pictures offormer Alphas hang beside images of past mating ceremonies, pack gatherings, and celebrations, and everyday moments captured for posterity. Fern doesn’t spare any of it a glance as I lead her up the central staircase to the second floor.
We walk in silence with her footsteps sounding behind mine. I can feel her anger like heat against my back, and my wolf whines at the distance between us. He doesn’t understand why our mate won’t let us close. Doesn’t understand why she flinches every time we reach for her.
The guest room sits at the end of the hall. It’s a comfortable space with a queen bed covered in a handmade quilt, an attached bathroom with a claw-foot tub, and windows overlooking the forest behind the building. Someone has already been here to prepare—fresh towels are stacked on the dresser, candles line the windowsill, and a simple white dress hangs on the closet door.
Fern stares at the dress like it’s a snake poised to strike.
“Luna probably sent it up for the ceremony,” I explain, though she didn’t ask. “Good thing she prepared early.”
“How thoughtful.” Her voice drips with sarcasm as each word comes out coated in ice.
I hover in the doorway and try to decide whether to stay or go. Every instinct screams at me to remain close, to keep watch, to make sure she doesn’t disappear out that window the moment I turn my back. But I’ve already trampled enough of her boundaries for one night. Maybe for a lifetime.
“I’ll give you some space,” I force myself to say. “Take a bath if you want. Try to relax. Someone will come get you when it’s time.”
She doesn’t respond. Just stands there in the middle of the room with her arms still crossed as she stares at that white dress like it represents everything she’s lost control of.
I pull the door closed behind me and lean against the hallway wall as my chest heaves. The wolf inside me paces restlessly, unhappy with the distance, unhappy with everything about this situation. He doesn’t understand why our mate is so afraid of us. Doesn’t understand why claiming her feels more like warfare than homecoming.
I need to run. To burn off this energy before I do something else I’ll regret.
I make my way back downstairs and out the rear entrance, stripping off my clothes as I cross the tree line and leaving them in a pile beneath a familiar oak. The transformation comes easily as my body reshapes itself in a cascade of snapping bones and sprouting fur. Pain flares briefly along my spine and then fades as the change completes. Within seconds, I’m on four legs, and my human thoughts give way to something simpler.
The wolf doesn’t think in words. He thinks in scents and sounds, in the feel of packed earth beneath his paws and the brush of pine needles against his flanks. He thinks in instinct, in the primal certainty of what needs to be done.
Run. Hunt. Protect.
I launch myself into the forest at full speed as my powerful legs eat up the distance and I weave between ancient oaks and towering pines. The last traces of sunset have vanished, replaced by the silver glow of a rising moon filtering through the canopy overhead. My nose fills with a thousand different scents—deer somewhere to the north, a family of rabbits huddled in their burrow nearby, the musty earthiness of decomposingleaves, and the crisp bite of approaching autumn carried on the breeze.
A creek cuts across my path, and I leap it without breaking stride as my paws barely touch the far bank before I’m running again. Faster now. Harder. Pushing my body until my muscles burn and my lungs ache and there’s nothing left in my head but the rhythm of my own heartbeat.
For a few blessed moments, I’m nothing but an animal. No guilt, no doubt, no second-guessing every decision I’ve made tonight. Just muscle and bone and the pure joy of movement, the simple pleasure of being exactly what I was born to be.
But even in this form, I can’t outrun my thoughts entirely.
