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Instead, I find Noemi. Likely required by simple pack politics to be here with her family. An important family in the Southern pack, and just a silly omega with feelings that clearly don’t matter. Wearing a pain on her face that isn’t heartbreak, but a different type of hurting. Guilt consumes me, making me simmer with a sticky, unbearable culpability in all this.

But the copper-haired omega just shakes her head, as if to say, It’s not your fault.

When I look away from her, I do find Aurora. Dark hair, dark eyes. So similar to Augustus, but for their positions and gender. She stares back at me with an assured smile.

Aurora already knows what I’m going to do, and she gives me a look like she’s always known. Like a sister might.

My sister. Aurora, even after our fight, was there to save me. Was there to save everyone.

Finally, I look back to Augustus and make my decision.

Again.

Chapter 42 - Augustus

My heart hangs between Mylah and me as I stare at her, holding my breath, waiting for her to either crush my itor take my hands.

Everyone else in the room is waiting, too.

The seconds tick by. Then, slowly—painfully slowly—Mylah starts to move her hands toward mine. Mylah stares down at our hands, and she slides her palms against mine. I hold my breath, thinking that if I move a muscle, I might scare her off like a butterfly landing on my arm.

Touching her feels like completing a circuit. Like being connected once again to the other half of myself, a full circle.

It’s cliché to describe your fated mate as your other half, but I feel at home with her. With my hands in hers, I feel like my feet are fully and completely touching the ground.

“I’m in love with you, too,” she says, dragging her eyes up to mine. For a long, stupid minute, we just stare at each other. “And I want a life with you too, Augustus. A family.”

Even from within the moment, I can acknowledge that it’s sappy. That my friends are probably going to give me shit for all of this later.

But I still don’t care. I meant what I said to her—I will make sure everyone knows I choose her, no matter how sappy it is.

“Okay?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. A grin spreads over my face. “Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

She swallows, a tear tracing a path down her cheek. I can see the line it cuts through the light powder on her face. Then, slowly, she nods, “Yes.” She pauses, laughs. “Or—I do. Whatever.”

“You’ll need to say that up here,” the priest calls from the altar, lifting his hand. From his fingers hangs a lunar medallion, a crescent moon with a diamond in the center. “If you want it to be divinely recognized.”

Together, keeping one hand locked in hers, we turn and walk together toward the altar.

Everyone cheers.

I wasn’t expecting it—especially not in a room filled with advisers and foreign diplomats—but it feels good. In the front row, Denvil, Zade, and Brack watch on. Zade and Denvil are cheering with the rest of them, but Brack sits quietly, his arms crossed, a smile stretched over his face.

“Okay,” the priest says, when we’re standing across from each other again, “Thank you, everyone, who has gathered today to witness the union of our rightful alpha king.” He nods at me, then at Mylah. “And the love of his life. Please find your seats and quiet down so we can begin the ceremony. Again.”

As we recite the vows and let the priest guide us through the ceremony, I do my best to commit every detail to memory. The way her hair falls, how the sunlight slants in through the windows onto her dress, her flowers now rescued from the floor by Aurora, sitting on a table behind the priest.

Everything is bathed in golden sunlight.

Maybe a marriage blessed by the moon goddesses should be conducted at night, under the light of the moon, but I didn’t want to wait another second.

Besides, moonlight is simply a reflection of the sun. A translation of the day into night, a mirror of the transition that takes place every day.

And this is a transition, too.

For me. For Mylah. For the entire pack.

Maybe it should be scary, but the moment the priest says, “Take your loved one in your arms—” I take Mylah and kiss her, knowing that as long as we’re together, I can not only be a better king than my father, but then I was ever capable of being before her.