26. Sol
CHAPTER 26
Sol
F itting in with the other pack princesses had proven to be a challenge. Most of them didn’t trust me, and those that did kept their distance for fear of the others. However, Kodiak’s eldest daughter, Ginny, offered to help prepare me for the mating ritual, and in the week since I’d come to that first meeting, she’d become someone I knew would be in my life for the rest of it.
“Hold still, Sol,” she said, tracing the brush over my shoulder and down my arms. She’d spent the better part of the last hour drawing spiraling circular patterns over my skin, going over them until they appeared as black as the night sky. “The ones on your arms are the most important. They’ll be the ones everyone sees.”
“What do they mean again?” I asked, wincing as I tried to remember everything she’d told me over the last seven days.
“The spirals are for the moon,” she said with a gentle smile, “and the triskelion represents the never-ending cycle of birth, life, and death.”
“Cheery,” Guin said, taking a drink of whiskey before coming closer to inspect Ginny’s handiwork. Between the two of them, they’d done my hair and perfected my makeup, though I suspected that wouldn’t last much longer than the mating ceremony. Once Orion got me in private, he’d take pride in smearing anything on my face, especially my lipstick.
“The infinity symbols obviously represent you and Orion,” Ginny said, finishing her final swoop on my wrist. “Matings last forever.”
I pursed my lips and ruminated on that, wondering about all the mates I’d met in the pack thus far. There were a few elders that had survived the last attack by the Scorpions, some of them having been together for sixty or seventy years. Their companionship thrived on each other, and neither would be alive without the other.
“Has anyone survived losing their mate?” I asked.
Ginny winced as she stood and dropped her brush in a cup of water. “My father believes my mother was his mate, that they would have grown into a mating bond had she lived.”
“But you don’t think that?” I raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “They say you go rabid.” She told me about the former alpha and how he’d nearly killed a few pack members before Kodiak put him down.
I pursed my lips as I considered. Would Kodiak want someone nearly as dominant and alpha as him? Or would he be better suited to a submissive shifter? And would it be someone in the pack? How did such a thing work?
“I think you’re almost done,” Ginny said, pulling her curls into a hairband on top of her head before narrowing her eyes on me.
“Are you mated?” I asked.
“Hell no,” she said with a laugh. “I’m only eighteen. I hope I’m not mated for at least another ten years. I still have to go through my transition.”
“Is it always two people?” I asked, standing so I could smooth out my black dress and examine my makeup one last time. “Or have there been mates of three or four?”
Ginny considered that for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible, but I’ve never heard of it.”
I thought about Poe and Lycan. They were close, so close that if any shifters could mate the same person, they might…if they didn’t end up mating each other. In the shifter world, silly things like gender and sex assigned at birth didn’t matter. The magic would pair two people together by compatibility, not body parts. There were several same gendered couples in the pack, and no one batted an eye despite the relatively conservative mindset of the rest of Montana.
“Enough about that. Today’s your day.” Guin squeezed my shoulders in reassurance, meeting my gaze in the mirror.
“What would our mother think…if she were here?” I took a moment to remember what little pieces I could of her, hoping wherever she was, she was proud of me…proud of us.
“I think she’d say you were about to be late to your own mating ceremony.” Guin laughed when I rolled my eyes. We still didn’t know what had happened to her, but I no longer believed the Bastards had anything to do with her disappearance. If it was the Scorpions, I would have expected them to use that information against us, but they hadn’t. I’d started to resign myself to the idea that we might never know.
“Ladies,” Lycan said from the door. “It’s time.”
I turned to my sister and gave her a hug. “Thank you for being here. I wish Maeve and Avalon could come.”
“We’ll do the normie wedding with them in a few weeks,” Guin said. “Tonight is about the pack.”
I nodded and took a deep breath, hugging Ginny as well.
“Thank you for everything. Thank you for being so kind to me.”
Ginny grinned. “I have a gut feeling you and I are going to be really good friends.”
“I’d like that.” It warmed my heart when she gave my fingers one last squeeze before gesturing to Lycan, who winked at Ginny before holding his arm out to me. I wrapped my hand in his elbow, and he led me through the empty clubhouse, decorated for the party afterward, and out into the crisp winter air. Most of the pack, the ones that approved of this mating, had gathered on either side of the path leading to the woods. My pulse raced as my knees shook, the churning in my gut reminding me all these people would have their eyes on me, waiting for me to take a step out of line.
“It’ll be okay,” Lycan whispered as we walked. “Just keep breathing and stare into Orion’s big blue eyes if you start to pass out.”
Ever since he’d rescued me, Orion and his wolf had merged in a way they never had before. His eyes rarely shifted back to brown these days, but I kind of liked that about him.
I chuckled and nudged Lycan with my shoulder. “I’m not gonna pass out.”
“All right, Princess,” he said in a mock disbelieving tone, but I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood. When we reached the end of the group, the pack filled in behind me, following Lycan and me through the forest, along a path that had been walked hundreds of thousands of times before. The dirt was well worn beneath my boots, and despite the frigid night air, I didn’t feel cold. Perhaps it was the mating magic; perhaps it was the new moon. Either way, my shivers were due to the fact Orion waited for me at the end, the man I’d been dreaming into existence since I was a little girl.
We matched each other in so many ways. Never in my life did I believe I’d be so fortunate as to find him, and now that I had, the world could split apart and I wouldn’t be separated from him. My fox vision helped guide us along the path, but even if I didn’t have enhanced sight, I sensed both Orion and Kodiak a few yards up ahead. The pack bond had been growing stronger the more I stayed with Orion, and after tonight, I’d be able to find the rest of them through the alpha’s connection.
The trees opened up into a clearing where Orion and Kodiak stood in the middle next to a cement column. On top sat a dark chalice with swirling decorative designs on it, the same as what Ginny had painted onto my skin. Once my focus landed on Orion, I didn’t care about the rest of it. He’d been marked with similar spirals and dots, his bare muscular arms reminding me of the power that lived just beneath the surface of his decadent skin. His eyes and forehead had been painted dark, and his hair stuck out at all angles, making it seem like he’d just stumbled out of bed.
I loved the rumpled look on him, and when our eyes met, he pulled his lips into a huge smile, lighting up his whole face. I stopped on the other side of the column and Guin came to stand next to me while Lycan placed my hands in Orion’s. He held on to my fingers, taking a step toward me while everyone filled the space around us.
“You look beautiful,” Orion said telepathically, brushing his magic along the bond between us in a soothing caress.
“ So do you,” I replied.
“Brothers, sisters, family, and friends, thank you for coming to the mating of Orion and Sol.” Kodiak smiled and opened a book, flipping to a spot in the middle before continuing to talk. But my attention remained on Orion, as if I could tune the rest of the world out except for him.
“ You’re shaking.” He held my hands tighter. “Are you nervous?”
“A little,” I replied, “but not about the mating. Just being the center of attention.”
“Hmm, fuck what they think. You look good enough to eat.” He ran his tongue playfully over his canine while I held back a snort of laughter. “And I intend to do that the minute we get out of here.”
“Sol, tonight, you will also join the pack. You will become a Royal Bastard in name and spirit,” Kodiak said, using the name my family had always called me.
Isolde Vanderbilt was a spoiled princess that had no idea what life was, desperate for anyone to like her, terrified to step out of line. Sol Morrison embraced her wild side. She trusted that Orion would love her, knowing she deserved this life and everything in it. I had loved Isolde, but that name and her skin didn’t fit me anymore.
Kodiak used a beautifully made knife to make a tiny cut on his hand before holding it out, palm up, for me. Orion placed my left hand in Kodiak’s as the alpha handed me the knife so I could do the same. I winced as I made the tiny cut, but the wound was only temporary. Once I sealed the bond with the alpha, the magic would heal both of us, thus tying me to him and him to me for the rest of our lives. It was similar to mate magic, but not quite as intimate. Orion would have a mental link to me at all times, but Kodiak would only be able to contact me if he had to. It would reinforce what was already there and make it exponentially stronger.
I turned my hand over his, mixing our blood together as Kodiak put his other hand over mine.
“I recognize you as one of my family,” he murmured, staring me in the eyes as he said the words. “And my wolf recognizes you as one of my pack. You have the strength of the Bastards behind you, should you need it. And should the Bastards need your strength, we will require that you give it. Are you willing?”
“I am,” I said, and the moment the words left my mouth, the alpha’s magic surged into me, snapping the tiny tether taut, invigorating my molecules with everyone around me. I closed my eyes as it poured into me, and suddenly, I could sense Lycan’s jovial strength and Poe’s mysterious power. I sensed Ginny’s calm reserve and Larentia’s brilliant fierceness. If I wanted to, I could reach out on any of the threads and pull, but they could do the same to me, and brightest of all was the link to Kodiak—shimmering and splendid and strong. He emanated with the power of his pack, and never had I been more grateful to be a part of it.
“We do not enter into the bonds of pack and mating lightly,” Kodiak said. “Once you become family, the only way out is death.”
I shivered harder, but Orion gripped my hand in reassurance, sending another surge of warmth and adoration to me.
“Orion, once you complete the bond, there will be no others. You will use your body, blood, and soul to protect Sol. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” Orion said, maintaining eye contact with me.
“Sol, once you complete the bond, there will be no others. You will use your body, blood, and soul to protect Orion. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” I said, causing a round of shouting from the pack mates in the crowd.
“It is my very great honor to announce Orion and Sol mated in the tradition of our ancestors,” Kodiak said. “May you know great joy. May you never be torn apart.”
Applause rang in my ears as I stepped forward to kiss Orion. He cupped my jaw and nibbled on my lips, and I threw my arms around his neck, determined to remember the sheer happiness filling my heart forever.
Just as I stepped away from him, my attention caught on a burnt orange shape sitting in the distance, several feet behind Orion.
A fox.
A real fox. It seemed to smile, thumping its white bushy tail on the woods’ undergrowth before tilting its head in a display of curiosity and admiration. I’d been about to point it out, to wonder if it might be the same fox that caused my accident to begin with, but it stood and scampered away. And the moment passed.