bChapter /bb183 /b

    Jessica

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    They say the Moon first bound wolf to wolf with a kiss of fire and sorrow. A mark not of love, but of chains – blood made covenant, pain made vow. I used to wonder if such tales were only meant to frighten pups into obedience.

    If the Goddess is merciful, then I have never known mercy. She has dressed my fate in thorns and woven chains of silver into my blood. She made me thest, the only, and cursed me with the hunger of all the worlds.

    Should I fall to my knees and thank her?

    Should I raise my eyes to her pale throne and whisper a hymn?

    No.

    For she has given me nothing but doubts, and trials I never longed for in this lifetime.

    “You can live a thousand lives, Jess, and I will chase you in every one of them.” His words haunt me, whispered once beneath the branches, when we were children and foolish enough to believe in forever. But forever is no gift – it is the cruelest curse.

    My bare feet touch the moonflowers scattered along the path. Their petals crush beneath me with a sound like sighs, releasing the scent of night itself. I should mourn the ruin of them, but I cannot for moonflowers have always been mine

    My favorite.

    My secret sce.

    Grayson once ced them in my hands, a clumsy offering wrapped in silence, his eyes lowered as though ashamed of such tenderness. And I loved him for it. I love him still.

    Now they are strewn beneath me like a bridal shroud, pale faces bowing to witness my undoing.

    It is cruel that the Goddess makes me tread upon them, as though mocking what little joy I have ever imed.

    Yet even as their blossoms bruise beneath me, I think only of him. Of the boy who knelt with trembling hands, and the man who now waits in the circle with eyes that burn like a vow.

    My hair is crowned with moonflowers, their pale faces trembling in the dark, petals loosening one by one as though fleeing before the Goddess’s eye

    Above, the moon reigns eternal, her cold eye unblinking. I wonder if she always knew it would be Grayson and me. bIf /bevery turn of the heavens, every thread of sorrow, was spun only to lead me here – to him.

    Did she smile when he ced moonflowers in my hands?

    Did sheugh when I whispered his name into the dark, believing it safe, believing it mine aloneb? /b

    If the Goddess knew, then she is cruel beyond measure. For to tie my soul to his bis /bbno /bgift- it is torment.

    17:47 Mon, b15 /bSept

    To love him is to bleed.

    To be chosen for him is to be chained.

    And still, I would choose him in every life, a thousand times over, though it damns me to eternity without peace.

    The moon bears witness as I step closer.

    My dress drags through the petals like a tide across the dead, my crown trembling as though the flowers themselves

    grieve for me. And there he waits – Grayson – my ruin, my salvation, my curse made flesh.

    My gaze climbs to himb, /bstanding at the altar’s heart as though the stones themselves were raised to guard him.

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    38

    How cruel, that the boy who once pressed moonflowers into my hands with trembling fingers now stands before me with shoulders set, mouth hard, eyes lit with something between hunger and grief.

    He has never softened for me. Not once. His mouth was made for frowns, for sharp words that struck harder than ws.

    b“/bYou’re nothing but trouble,” he would say.

    Trouble.

    As if I chose the way my wolf wed at his presence, the way my breath failed when he neared. As if I were not born already bound to him, stitched to him by a Goddess who delights in cruelty.

    But I think we both know the truth. I am only trouble because he is here. Because his scent lives in my marrow, because his shadow has always been the horizon of my life.

    My wolf was quiet until him. My hunger was dormant until him. It is not I who bring the ruin it is he.

    He is the storm that wakes the beast inside me. He is the reason I cannot belong to any other. And perhaps that is why he has always frowned at me, because he feels it too – that I am the end of his peace, and he the end of mine.

    I take a step, and the earth itself seems to flinch beneath my bare feet.

    My dress sways about me, heavy with cold, and I wonder if the Goddess means to freeze me still before I can reach him.

    But my wolf does not still. She prowls inside me, restless, her ws dragging against my skin as though carving a path to

    him.

    She knows him. She always has.

    The moment his eyes pierced mine across the circle, she pressed forward, spine arched, fangs bared – not in defiance, but in recognition.

    Another step, and his gaze sharpens.

    The night is bitter, the cold a scourge against my skin, yet I do not falter.

    Step by step, I am summoned.

    Each pace drags the world tighterb, /buntil there is naught but him, myself, and the bond burning unseen between us.

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    38)

    Grayson does not move. His shoulders are squared, his jaw set like judgment itself. His gaze binds me, more chain than sight, and I cannot look away.

    All the frowns he has ever worn, all the cruel words he has ever given me, live still in the corners of his mouth. Yet his eyes – godsb, /bhis eyes – are the fire in which I am undone. They tell me he has waited, that he has fought, that he will not be

    — denied.

    The Goddess mocked me with choices, but there were none. There was only him. Only this. Only the path that led me

    here, into the circle of stone, into the firelight, into his shadow. And now, as the howls rise to crown the night, as the cold

    cuts through my skin and my wolf ws for release, I know the truth that terrifies me most: fate did not bring me to him. I brought myself.

    For I have always belonged to Grayson, in life, in death, in every cursed breath between. And tonight, beneath the pale tyranny of the Moon, he will im what was his from the first heartbeat.

    Around us, the Alphas are gathered, their silence heavier than steel. They do not breathe, they do not stir, yet I feel their hunger pressing close, a thousand unspoken oaths circling like vultures.

    Thest step is the hardest.

    AD

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