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“I was pissed off,” I admit, looking down at the table. “Cruel fucking joke from the goddesses. Pairing me with a nobody omega from the outskirts? Me, a king-to-be? You know my father never would have had it—he would have killed her if it wouldn’t have risked killing me, too. Anything to keep me from doing something stupid. I think—if he had found out about the pairing, I genuinely think he might have cast me out. Found someone else to lead.”

Zade stares into the distance, his hand around his glass. Around us, the party goes on, laughter and clinking glasses filtering back to us. In the corner of the room, a quartet plays renditions of pop music. A chandelier hangs over the center of the ballroom, catching and throwing light out joyfully.

It’s golden, everywhere. And I imagine the reason I haven’t seen Noemi is that she feels just about the same as I do about the party. Like it’s a lie. A performance.

Usually, she’s good at those. Maybe she’s at the end of her rope.

“I get it.” Zade’s voice pulls me back into the present moment. Still looking off into the distance, he goes on, “I get why you had to do it. I think you’re right about your dad. I could see him doing that. He was so about control.”

It feels like cold water to the face that someone else was able to see it so clearly, even being on the outside. Like sitting here with my clothes off, my best friend barely even realizing how vulnerable it makes me.

“But…why keep it up now?”

I blink at him. “What?”

He gestures around us at the party, at all the people here I don’t know.

“Why keep doing all this? Engaged to Noemi, when your mate is right here. Is she a good person?”

“Of course,” I snap, frowning.

Zade’s eyebrows shoot up. “Okay. Do you…love her?”

I can barely speak. Do I love bright, brilliant Mylah? Who learned chess from reading books and beat me in a day? Who tries to escape and stands up to me and does terrifying things in the name of freedom?

“Of course I do.”

Zade blinks, face softening. “Other than where she was born, would she be a problem? Like, do you think she would interfere with your ability to do your job?”

“No.” I take a breath. “She only makes me better. In every way. I…not that it matters, or that it’s the biggest thing, but the damn headaches went away when I let myself be with her.”

My friend blows out a breath. “So I just don’t get it. Why go through with what’s making you miserable when what makes you happy is right there?”

“Because.” I tap my knuckles angrily against the table. “Because there’s a threat to this pack. I…I keep thinking about that day, when Denvil found his men like that. There are so many risks to being with Mylah—I open her up to danger. As much as I don’t believe this shit, it will make some of the shifters in my pack suspicious. Why would the moon goddesses pair such a strong alpha with an omega from the outskirts? They’ll think it’s divine truth that I’m not meant to lead. And there’s also the matter of Noemie. She…I…” I shake my head. “She’s got ties to the Oceanic pack. We might need them if this threat gets any bigger.”

Zade nods, looking off into the distance, as though digesting. “Firstly, I mean, I get that it’s always the way things have been done, but I don’t think it’s fair to marry someone for their connections. Noemi deserves better than that.”

“I know.”

Zade presses his lips together, runs a hand over his curls. “As for the threat thing, I’ve been thinking about that, too. That it could be bigger than Gavyn. But you get to have a life, too, you know? And so does your mate.”

“And the pack deserves a strong leader. Safety.”

“You spent your entire childhood preparing to be the leader of your pack,” Zade pushes back, “not a single other shifter in your pack can say that. And, for the record, I think going against society, doing what you want—that’s strong. Shows that you make your own rules, and you’re governed by nobody else. Especially not the ghost of your father that sticks around in that annoying fucking adviser.”

That makes me laugh—of course Zade noticed Kellen. Of course he doesn’t like him.

“And,” Zade clarifies, turning toward me, “if the goddesses paired her with you, then your mate must be one hell of a woman. And aren’t we suffering right now from dissenters? People on the outskirts getting restless? Maybe the goddesses knew exactly what they were doing. Maybe she’s the answer, not the problem.”

I blink into the distance, the chandelier going a little hazy as that thought permeates my brain.

Maybe she’s the answer, not the problem.

Mylah grew up out there. I made up the bit about interrogating her, but she does know about living on the outskirts. Their grievances. The things that might make them unite against us.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, shaking my head, “you—” But I stop when Zade’s eyes flick up and behind me, focusing on something just over my shoulder.

I turn and catch her scent.