Chapter 9
Fern
There was no evening meal on the night of a full moon, for the wolfkin preferred to hunt for their dinner.
Practically, this worked for the Solvekh as well, since they couldn’t exactly wash dishes and sweep floors with their paws.
But while the other women in the sleeping quarters were looking forward to the break from work and the chance to connect to their beasts, Fern was anxious, and her wolf offered no reassurance.
Her wolf had been very silent ever since Darion’s punishment in the Council Chambers. What had begun as a night of affirmation—proof that she was wanted, that she belonged among her own kind—had driven her into darker shadows than she’d ever been before.
Fern paced the small space in front of the fireplace, chewing on her thumb.
“Nervous?” Annik asked.
Fern looked up, the three women bare and ready for the evening.
She still wore her dress.
“Aye,” she replied, pulling her braid apart with shaking hands. She supposed it was best to get on with it. “Does… does it hurt?”
They looked at each other, as if unsure how to respond. “It is unpleasant,” Vedia finally said. “At first. Your bones break and mend almost instantly, and your skin rips to regrow. I think it wasn’t until my sixth or seventh shift where I was finally used to the sensations.”
“Vedia!” Annik scolded. “You’re scaring the poor girl!”
“Better for her to know what to expect!” Vedia retorted.
Tegen pushed her way between them, hushing them both. “It takes some getting used to, this is true. But to give yourself over to the wolf is the most exquisite brush with true freedom you will ever experience, and makes the momentary discomfort worth every second.”
“Much like bedding for the first time,” Annik said with a knowing sigh. “There is pain in the beginning. Sometimes for longer than one would like. But after? Bliss.”
Fern snorted, recalling her own beddings. “Well, if you can count on the skill of your partner.”
“Oh dear, you still haven’t slept with a wolfkin yet, have you?” Tegen tutted softly. “Trust me, once the silly waiting period is over, you’ll wonder why you even bothered with human men to begin with.”
Perhaps she was right, but Fern worried that even if she was interested in being petitioned, it might never happen, anyway, because Darion had said something to her suitors.
Whether he’d held to his word that she wouldn’t be available for the next few months, or had decided she was permanently defective, she didn’t know.
What she did know was that all physical affection and flirting, harmless or otherwise, had almost completely disappeared following her night in the Council Chambers.
Even Jules would no longer look her in the eye.
And while many of the pinches, grabs, and slaps had been unwanted, their sudden absence was unnerving, and only further served to keep her wolf in hiding.
Her days of recent had been filled with nothing but unease from morning til night, especially once Hyde disappeared.
He’d stopped talking to her after she’d tried to intervene on his behalf out of guilt for her public censure, but then two days ago a different Solvekh had arrived to help her ready the room.
Hyde had been successfully petitioned after all, she’d come to find out, her failure compounding until her dread had metastasized in the pit of her stomach.
At long last, Marin walked in the room, but she did not need to ring a bell to get everyone’s attention.
“The moon has risen. Let us prepare to step into our rightful skins—gifts from the wolfkin who made us in their image.”
There was a basket of cloaks by the door, and each woman picked one up, a small token of modesty until everything was shed outside.
The nudity was the least of Fern’s concerns at the moment, but she was thankful for the cloak for at least keeping her lack of visible bite hidden from curious eyes.
The women had whispered often enough about her connection to Alpha Darion, and she would not add to the gossip of their strange relationship if she could help it.
For there was no relationship other than one of begrudging, irritating duty on his end, and inexplicable veneration on hers.
They trudged up the stairs as faceless pilgrims, whispers too hushed for Fern to discern any real meaning from other than a general air of excitement and promise.
She so wished she could join them.
With the hood over her head and eyes cast downward, she did not take note of the way and merely followed the hems of the women in front of her, apprehension making her steps heavy.
“It’s a clean slate,” a voice beside her said.
Fern turned slowly, a woman whose face she recognized but whose name eluded her.
“Our wolves change our perspectives—slights or arguments that plagued us as humans suddenly don’t seem as important when we’re in our fur, and are forgotten by the time the moon sets.”
She nudged Fern with her elbow. “Things will be okay.”
Something in her cracked, and Fern threw herself at the poor woman, who caught her with a loud “oomph.”
“Thank you,” Fern whispered, nuzzling her nose into the woman’s neck. Her scent was clean and warm, a comfort she’d desperately needed.
The woman patted her softly and laughed. “Come, come, we don’t want to be late.”
She blinked away her tears and released her, hurrying to catch up with the women ahead of them.
When they finally made it outside, Fern felt even further at ease.
It was her first time since Darion had brought her to Sabletail Castle that she’d breathed in fresh air, her lungs hungry as she inhaled.
The scent of the forest beyond the walls beckoned her, and the march continued, the path lit by torches and guarded by cloaked sentries who saw the clan safely beyond the walls before joining the monthly shift themselves.
“Fern!”
She looked up, her hood slipping off as Jules approached her, smiling wide.
“Oh! Good evening, Jules.”
His eyes glowed in the growing darkness. “Are you excited? Nervous?”
“Both?” she replied with a slight chuckle.
Jules nodded. “It’s one thing I envy of the made—you get to remember your first shift. I was but a pup at mine.”
At the mention of “pups,” Fern noticed there were actual children in the clearing where they had started to gather, the first she had seen since coming here. Many had not bothered with cloaks, already comfortable in their natural state, chasing each other and ready for the night.
But there still weren’t as many as one would think with how many adults were present.
“Why don’t the children come to the clan meals?” she asked.
Jules merely shrugged. “Safer for them to stay home with their nursemaids.”
Fern conceded that was likely true. She had yet to see an actual fight breakout among the wolfkin, but there had been moments that seemed ready to turn to violence were it not for a quick intervention by an alpha.
A child could easily be hurt getting underfoot in such a brawl.
There was a beat of tense silence, and Fern cleared her throat. “Well, I suppose you should get back to… to… to whoever you typically spend the night with.”
His head tilted quickly, the act making him appear rather canine already. “What do you mean? I was planning to spend the shift with you.”
“O-oh,” she said, catching herself before she gasped too loudly. “You were? But I thought…”
Confusion knit Jules’s brows, and she bit her lip, trying to think of how she could word her worries without insulting Darion. “Alpha Darion told me that—”
“Ah,” he said, nodding in understanding. “He told us there would be no petitioning you for now, that is true, but he also asked me to be your companion this evening.”
“He did?”
“He did. He was worried you might be overwhelmed, given you’ve suppressed your wolf for so long.
” He reached out to grab her hand, his gaze lingering just for a moment on the sliver of her body he could see before meeting her eyes again.
“I told him I’d be honored to guide you through the experience. ”
Her skin heated, finding the warmth the cloak provided somewhat unnecessary now that she knew of Darion’s forethought and Jules’s offer.
Perhaps things would be better after tonight. Slates wiped clean, and all that.
A hush fell over the clearing as the alphas headed to the front.
The sight of Darion still made her arms ache, and her chest ached to see Kyntha, luminescent as always, by his side, the two staring lovingly in each other’s eyes.
His uncles and brother nodded and smiled towards the crowd, and finally Alastair lifted his hands to the darkened sky, his voice carrying easily over the clearing.
“Tonight we cast aside the frailties of flesh and remember what the moon gifted us. Run true, hunt well, and let no wolf among us stand apart from the clan.”
Silence followed, deep and reverent, and then the clouds drifted apart.
Moonlight spilled into the clearing like liquid silver, washing over wool cloaks and bare skin alike. A collective shudder rippled through the crowd, sharp inhales and low groans rising all at once as the first pull of the shift took hold.
Bodies bowed and trembled, hands bracing against the earth as bones began their terrible reshaping, and the night filled with the wet crack of changing limbs and the guttural cries of wolves surrendering to their truest form.
Beside her, Jules sucked in a sharp breath, fingers tightening painfully around hers.
And then Fern felt it too—something ancient and hungry unfurling beneath her skin, lifting its head at the call of the moon.
But just as she submitted to the call, it stopped, and her wolf failed to appear.
She waited for a moment, trying to coax her out, but it was as though she had disappeared completely.
Fern panicked, watching the wolves around her, larger than she could have ever imagined, howl and bound for the wilds beyond the castle.
Jules whined anxiously at her side, nudging her arms with his snout, teeth tugging on the cloak as though he could pull the wolf out himself.
But she remained.
Stuck.
She closed her eyes tightly, her pleas now audible from her lips.