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And it hits me that I know exactly where I am.

The lunar pool.

It’s the lunar solstice. That is the lunar pool. This is the lunar solstice celebration.

One that all the Kault packs come together to celebrate. One that my family has never once attended, being on the outskirts. Being outcasts, we didn’t have the protection of pack mates. We never would have ventured this far into Kault territory.

That is, until Gavyn arrived on the scene and started convincing the other fringe shifters that we could become our own pack. That we could unify and stand up to the Kault oppressors. I remember him standing in the doorway talking to my father, who told me to stay in my room no matter what happened.

My father was civil enough. Not like he would be challenging Gavyn. More than anything, my father just wanted to be left alone out on our farm, with the chickens and cows and crops.

That day, Gavyn was calm, civil. Simply announcing to my father that if nobody opposed him, Gavyn would be “our” new alpha leader. But not alpha king, because Gavyn wasn’t planning to do things the Kault way. Rich, coming from a guy who, it’s rumored, has killed several omegas “accidentally.” These things just happen, apparently, when you get a little too rough. It’s happenstance.

Now, I hear his voice—Gavyn.

“You asked for a sacrifice, well—here’s your sacrifice.”

I am raised up over the water by the man holding me. My wrists and ankles are bound. It’s freezing out here already, and I know the moment I hit the water, I will just sink down and down.

The lunar pool is said to be endless, maybe even cutting straight to the core of this earth. Eventually, I’ll be just another icy body down there, bobbing around as a sacrifice to the moon goddesses.

“Lunara, help me,” I mutter against the tape, though I know she can’t hear me. Maybe the moon goddesses all hate omegas, too.

The man holding me over the water begins to mutter an incantation. I know that, at the end of it, I will be dropped. The people watching go quiet, but I can feel their impatience like a physical weight.

“Mondale, Dahlia, Suki, please—” I mutter the names of the moon goddesses quickly, though I’ve never really much prayed to them before. Perhaps they can step in on this and let Gavyn know that they don’t actually want me as a sacrifice.

The incantation ends.

This is it. I am dead. Turns out, it can be worse than in my mother’s nightgown in my own bed. I could be in my mother’s nightgown in front of a hundred shifters, either freezing or drowning—who knows what will happen first.

“Please, Dahlia, Suki, Lunara, Mondale, accept this as a token of our—”

“Stop!”

Chapter 4 - Augustus

My headache has gone from bad to worse.

Denvil, Zade, Brack and I are wandering into the festival together. The music, fire smoke, and general chaos are not making the pain any less annoying.

Earlier tonight it was splitting, stabbing into my brain again and again, something like fear, terror, aching. It ripped through my head like a man lost in the jungle, hacking for a way out. Of course, that was after we got back from our little morning mission, so I was free to bury my face in my bed and try to block out the worst of the ache. For hours, I was in the same position, stomach churning, knowing, deep down, exactly the reason for the pain.

I’ve known since the day I saw her that all these feelings, unexplained pain and distant, longing aching—it comes from her.

Comes from my refusal to give in to biology. My body’s rebellion at the distance from her. Some days it barely goes by without a flicker. Others, especially when she must be in her heat, it’s like fighting my own inner demon.

Now, I shuffle through the Moon Goddess festival with Denvil, Brack, and Zade, bringing up the back of the pack and nodding at the shifters who dip their head to me in deference. It is lucky for me that none of them would dare to talk to me of their own accord. I am in no mood to make conversation with our pack mates tonight.

All I need, tonight, is to make it through this festival without somehow losing the Moon Goddesses’ favor for our pack. Although now that I think about it, is it possible that we do not have it in the first place?

Denvil carries the baby nonchalantly on his hip, as though it’s something he’s always done. As though he’s got a whole brood of them running around at home.

I happen to know that’s not true—he’s just like me. Too busy being a king, running things as alpha, to have time for something like that.

At least, until we eventually marry someone picked out by the council and have the obligatory heirs. All four of us will go through it. As the oldest, and the one whose father actually selected a betrothed for him before passing, it looks like I’m going first.

Around us, the festivities are in full swing.