28. Chapter 28
The dress was a dress Maren had never expected to wear.
Before Maren could say anything or move, Freya thrust a dress bag into Maren’s hands.
“From me and mine.”
“Freya.”
“Come on. I'm doing the laces.”
The dress was moonlight color. Not white. Not silver. The color of snow under moon in the minute before dawn when the snow started to catch the first gray. Long sleeves. A cut at the shoulders that was old. Maren recognized the work the way you recognized the work of a grandmother.
Freya laid it on the bed.
“My mother's dress.”
“Freya.”
“She wore it at her own ceremony forty-one years ago. My grandmother made it for her. My mom made one for me. The women on my mother's side have done this for generations.”
Maren’s throat closed.
“Freya, I can't.”
“You can.”
“I'm not. I don't have any right to.”
“You're the Luna. My mother's dress is a pack-mother dress. You're what we've been waiting for across fifteen years. You're going to wear it. Tomorrow one of the pups who runs around Elena's kitchen now is going to grow up and wear it after you. That's how this works.”
Maren didn't argue.
She let Freya dress her.
Freya laced the back. Her fingers were the fingers of a woman who had laced a lot of corset backs for a lot of pack rituals and had learned to do them without the wearer having to move. When Freya was done she took the velvet box from the bedside.
Inside was a small pendant. Silver chain. An amber drop on it, set in silver with old wire-work around the setting.
Maren knew what it was before Freya said.
“My mother's,” Freya said. “Yours now. She would have wanted it to go to a Luna whose amber matched her alpha's eyes. You qualify.”
Maren's eyes filled.
She didn't wipe them.
Freya fastened the pendant at her collarbone.
The amber sat in the hollow of Maren's throat one quarter inch above the mate-mark.
Dusk.
The ceremonial clearing was behind the lodge up a small rise Maren hadn't walked to before.
Torches were lit on staffs forming a circle.
A stone fire-ring in the middle with a bonfire already crackling.
The whole pack gathered in a loose ring around it.
Every wolf Maren had met in these months and many she hadn't, who came back to the compound for the mating.
Jace was at the center in a dark coat she hadn't seen on him before.
Declan was beside him. Officiant.
Maren came up the rise on Elena's arm. Elena wasn't crying. Elena was holding Maren's elbow the way pack-mothers did when they walked a mate to a mating. The pack saw Maren come up and went quiet the way a pack went quiet for a bonded-pair acknowledgment.
She got to the ring of torches.
Elena released her elbow.
Maren crossed the last ten feet alone.
Jace's eyes went to her throat. The pendant. The mark. Back to her eyes.
His mouth did the thing his mouth did when he wasn't going to be able to get a word out for a breath.
He held out his hand.
She took it.
Declan's voice was the voice of a ranked wolf who had been asked to officiate and had said yes because a brother-wolf had asked him to.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. The pack was listening.
“We gather to witness a mating. The bond between Jace Holbrook and Maren Palmer is complete. The claim has been made. Tonight we welcome our Luna into the pack and our alpha into his vow.”
The fire cracked.
Jace's voice was quiet.
“I claim Maren Palmer as my mate. My partner. My equal in all things.”
“Maren. I chose you before the bond did. I would have chosen you without the bond. I have been choosing you every day since booth four. I'm going to keep choosing you for the rest of my life. I vow that to you. I vow it to the pack.”
His hand tightened on hers.
She had thought her throat would be the thing that stopped her. Her throat didn't. The words were there.
“I accept Jace Holbrook as my mate. My partner. My equal.”
“Jace. I was a woman who ran for three years.
I walked through your diner doorway and didn't know any of what was going to happen next.
You gave me a tire iron on my pillow and a muffin in the morning and the choice every time.
You killed for me. You didn't try to fix me.
You saw me before the bond did, and when the bond came you didn't stop choosing me for it. I vow to stand at your side. I vow it to you. I vow it to the pack.”
She leaned up.
He leaned down.
The kiss was hard. Hot. Hers. Public. She hadn't planned for it to be hers but it was. Her hand at the back of his neck, pulling him in. His hand at the small of her back, pulling her in.
The pack broke into a howl.
It wasn't a performance howl. It was the sound a pack made when a mated pair had sealed a ceremony and the whole pack's chests made the same sound at the same time without any wolf having decided to start it.
The howl rose up off the clearing and went through the pines and echoed off the ridge across the valley.
Maren felt it in her own chest.
Not the sound. The shape.
She was pack.
Her lashes lowered against Jace's shoulder.
The howl went.
The party was at the lodge.
Music low. Bonfire in the outdoor hearth. Food Elena had been cooking for two days. Long tables set end to end down the dining hall. Pack only. No Jenny, no Wade. This wasn't a human thing. This was a pack thing.
Tyler was standing. On his own two feet, under his own power.
He had eaten a full plate without Elena having to put it in front of him.
His wrists were no longer wrapped. Cade was next to him laughing at something.
Tyler was laughing at it too, which was the laugh of a young wolf whose grief started to share room with other things.
Kira was across the fire in a flannel shirt that wasn't a training shirt. She had a beer in her hand. She caught Maren's eye across the flames and gave a small smile that Maren had never seen on Kira's face before. Maren filed it.
Cade was moving benches around without being asked. Rhys was on the porch watching the perimeter even though the perimeter was fine, because Rhys watched perimeters at weddings the way some men watched clocks at weddings.
Declan had his hand on Jace's elbow and was saying something dry at Jace's ear that made Jace make the sound in his chest that was his version of laughing out loud.
Freya came up to Maren three separate times through the evening. Once to put a hand on Maren's back. Once to bring her a plate. Once to adjust a pin in the back of Maren's hair that had started to slip. She didn't say anything any of the three times. Maren understood each time.
Brennan was at Freya's elbow at the third time. He didn't say anything either. But his hand was at the small of Freya's back the way it was when two people had gotten to the stage where it didn't need commentary.
Maren filed that too.
At eleven the fire got low.
Jace came to her at the edge of the bonfire.
His eyes had warmed. They had been warm all night. He didn't reach for her because the pack was still in the hall behind her and the alpha didn't reach for his Luna in ways the pack didn't need to see in public.
He stood a foot off.
“Tomorrow's the trial date.”
“Yeah.”
“Tonight's ours.”
“It is.”
“Come home.”
“Already there.”
They left together.
The pack saw them go. Declan raised his glass one quarter inch. Theo didn't look up from the conversation he was having with Freya. Elena at the kitchen door watched them cross the path to their cabin the way a pack-mother watched her alpha walk his Luna home on her mating night.
Jace didn't pick Maren up this time.
He walked with her.
At the cabin door he let her go in first. Closed it behind them.
Then he kissed her again, slow this time, and the kiss was a kiss a husband gave a wife on their wedding night when the ceremony was over and the crowd was behind them and the rest of their life started.
The lamp was on.
The mark on her throat was warm.
The amber pendant at her collarbone caught the light.
They didn't talk. They didn't need to.
Tomorrow was the trial.
Tonight was theirs.