I’d been fourteen and hadn’t understood.
I did now.
“What about you?” Victoria asked, lowering her hands to her thighs. “What did it feel like the first time you ran your territory as alpha? Not the political weight of it. The physical thing. The actual moment.”
No one had ever asked me that.
I looked out at the forest, at the canopy spreading in waves around us.
“I was nineteen,” I said. “Terrified. I’d been alpha for three days, and I didn’t know what I was doing. My father’s advisors kept giving me conflicting information about border protocols, and I couldn’t tell who to trust.”
The memory sat heavy inside me, making it a challenge to breathe.
“I shifted and ran along the border,” I said. “All by myself. I ran for hours, following the markers my father had shown me when I was young. And somewhere around the eastern ridge, a part of me settled.” I paused, searching for words but everything felt inadequate. “Like the land recognized me even if I didn’t recognize myself yet. Like I was finally enough for this at least, even when I wasn’t sure I was enough for anything else.”
I didn’t usually say things like that out loud. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I had.
Victoria nodded, like she understood the parts I hadn’t said.
Which was somehow worse. Or better. I’d stopped being sure there was a difference by day three.
The temperature had dropped. The canopy held the cold air after dark, and the balcony caught the wind. Victoria crossedher arms over her chest and her skin prickled. She didn’t say anything about being chilly because she wouldn’t.
I noticed first. My wolf took note a breath after that.
Every instinct I had was oriented toward her comfort, and I’d stopped trying to argue with that instinct by day four.
I didn’t say anything. I simply moved closer and put my arm around her, pulling her against my side.
She went still.
I waited.
She didn’t pull away.
After a moment, so small I almost missed it, she leaned in.
The wolf made a sound I couldn’t define. If pressed, I’d say he was unbearably pleased.
She fit against my side in a way that made the parts of me that were always loud go quiet.
I looked at the forest. She looked at the forest. Neither of us acknowledged what was happening.
I’d run this territory for thirteen years. I’d negotiated with alphas who wanted me dead. Held borders that tried to fracture. And made decisions that kept hundreds of wolves safe.
None of it had ever made me feel as settled as sitting with this woman did.
How could I find the words to tell her something like that?
Victoria tipped her head back to look at the sky.
“That’s the Hunter’s Moon constellation,” she said, pointing. “The three bright stars form the belt, and the fainter ones around them create the bow. Sailors use it for navigation in the northern waters because it stays fixed relative to the pole star.”
She traced another pattern in the air.
“And that one is the Healer’s Hand. Five stars arranged like fingers reaching. It rises in spring and sets in autumn, which makes it useful for tracking the growing seasons.”
She kept talking, naming constellations and explaining the navigational logic of each one. She wasn’t trying to be charming. She just found it interesting, and she must realize I did too.
