Chapter 7
A year had passed since my first shift. At seventeen, I was no longer a child, a fact I repeated to myself like a mantra.
The tentative girl was gone, replaced by someone who had her own wolf, her own strength.
Sapphire’s presence was a constant, warm hum beneath my skin, a secret well of courage I could draw from.
She made the waiting easier, made the casual slights from the other she-wolves feel smaller.
I had thrown myself into my Luna training with a new ferocity. If I couldn't have Marshall’s heart yet, I could at least earn his respect. I would be the most knowledgeable, prepared Luna this pack had ever seen.
That afternoon, I was in the pack library, a quiet, dusty sanctuary filled with the scent of old paper and leather.
Sunlight streamed through the tall arched windows, illuminating the history of our people bound in ancient tomes.
I was deep in a book on inter-pack treaties, my fingers tracing the faded lineage of the mountain packs, when the heavy oak door creaked open.
The scent of expensive, cloying perfume preceded them.
Scarlett and Veronica entered, moving with a predatory languor that immediately set Sapphire on edge. They didn’t bother to pretend they were there to read. Their eyes, sharp and assessing, were fixed only on me.
“Look at her,” Veronica said, her voice a low purr. “Working so hard. You’d almost think she really believes she’s going to be Luna.”
I placed a leather bookmark to mark my page and closed the heavy book, refusing to let them see my hands tremble. “I am going to be Luna,” I stated, my voice even. I met Scarlett’s gaze directly. “The Moon Goddess chose me for Marshall. That’s not a matter of belief; it’s a matter of fact.”
Scarlett let out a soft, pitying laugh. It was a sound more cutting than any insult.
She glided over to the table and leaned against it, her hip brushing against my neat stack of notes.
The cloying scent of her perfume, a mix of expensive florals and something sharp like jealousy, seemed to soak into the air, choking the familiar, comforting smell of old books.
“Oh, you sweet, naive child,” she said, her voice dripping with false sympathy. “You still think this is about the Goddess? This is about an Alpha. A man. And men have needs the Goddess doesn't always account for.”
They are liars, Sapphire snarled in my mind. Do not listen to them, sister. Our mate wants us. Just waiting for human to be eighteen.
“Marshall and I are mates,” I said, clinging to Sapphire’s certainty. “Nothing you say can change that.”
“Of course you are,” Scarlett agreed with a saccharine smile. “That’s the whole point. You’re his fated mate, his destiny, the one he’s stuck with.” She let the word hang in the air, a poisonous dart.
I felt my shoulders twitch, a small, betraying movement I hoped they didn't see. Stuck. The word echoed in my head, stripping away all the romance of being fated and leaving only the cold weight of an obligation.
“Have you ever stopped to wonder, Annalise? Have you ever truly asked yourself why, after all these years, he’s never stopped seeing me? Or Veronica? Or a dozen others? If you were truly the one he wanted, wouldn’t he be preparing himself? Making himself worthy of his pure, untouched little mate?”
The question was a cruel one because it was a question I had asked myself in the dark of night a thousand times. I had always answered it with faith, with the belief that he was just waiting for me to be older. But hearing it from her lips gave it a terrifying new weight.
“He is the Alpha,” I said, my voice faltering slightly. “He has… pressures.”
Veronica laughed, a sharp, ugly sound in the quiet library. “Oh, he has pressures, alright. The pressure of pretending to care about a child he was saddled with, all to keep the pack elders happy. The pressure of having to wait until you’re legal so he can finally be free.”
“Free?” The word escaped me as a whisper.
Scarlett leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, venomous murmur.
“You poor thing. You don’t get it, do you?
He can’t reject you now. You’re the pack’s darling, the little orphan Luna-in-waiting.
Rejecting you before the bond is finalized would cause a scandal.
It would make him look weak, cruel. An Alpha can’t afford that. ”
She is twisting the truth, Sapphire insisted, but a frantic edge had crept into her voice. She lies!
“But what happens,” Scarlett continued, her eyes glittering with triumph, “after your eighteenth birthday? An Alpha has the right to reject his fated mate. It’s an ancient law, rarely used, but it’s his absolute right.
And once he does it, no one can question him.
It’s clean. Final. He upholds his duty to the Goddess by waiting for you to come of age, and then he exercises his right as Alpha to choose a more suitable Luna. ” Her gaze was pointed. “Me.”
The air left my lungs. The entire room seemed to tilt, the shafts of sunlight becoming dizzying, accusatory beams. I looked down at my hands, at the book of treaties, at the life I was so carefully preparing for, and it all felt like a sham.
My mind raced, replaying every interaction I’d ever had with Marshall through this new, horrifying lens.
That warm smile at the feast—was it for me, or for the pack members who were watching?
His praise after my first shift—was it pride, or a perfunctory duty he had to perform?
His constant distance, the way he always had an excuse, a meeting, another woman—was it because he was busy and trying to be respectful of my age, like I thought, or was he simply biding his time, waiting for the clock to run out?
“He’s kind to me,” I whispered, the words a desperate plea.
“Of course he is,” Scarlett scoffed. “He’s a good Alpha.
He’s kind to everyone. He’s kind to the omegas who clean his boots.
Does that mean he wants to mate them?” She reached out and patted my hand, a gesture of mock comfort that made my skin crawl.
“The fact that you can’t tell the difference between an Alpha’s political kindness and a man’s genuine desire is exactly why you’re not fit to be his Luna. ”
That was it. That was the blow that shattered my composure. The carefully constructed walls I had built around my heart crumbled into dust. They had taken every scrap of hope I’d hoarded, every kind look, every warm word, and twisted it into a weapon to be used against me.
It cannot be true, Sapphire whimpered, her confusion and pain mirroring my own. Our mate… he would not be so cruel. Ranger would not be so cruel.
But he was with them, wasn’t he? Night after night. Year after year. That was a fact. That was the truth I couldn't deny, the truth they were now using to build their monstrous lie. And if it was a lie, why did it suddenly feel more real than anything I had ever believed?
“Poor thing,” Veronica murmured, watching the blood drain from my face. “She actually believed the fairy tale.”
Scarlett stood up, her victory absolute. “Enjoy your books, Annalise. Learn all you can. It’s a shame you’ll never get to use any of it.”
They swept out of the library, their triumphant laughter echoing off the leather-bound spines of books that told the stories of great Lunas of the past. I was left alone in the sudden, deafening silence.
My hand, of its own accord, reached out and rested on the cool, worn leather of the book I had been studying.
Its weight felt real, solid—a stark contrast to the flimsy, terrifying story they had just spun.
I looked at the words on the page—treaties, alliances, succession, loyalty—and they were meaningless.
I was a placeholder. A duty to be fulfilled and then discarded. A naive child playing dress-up in a life that was never meant to be mine. My eighteenth birthday, the day I had looked forward to with such breathless anticipation, was no longer a promise.
It was a deadline. The end of my life as I knew it. And it was coming for me.