The first thing I learned about ceremonies was that no one cares how you feel as long as you look perfect.
By the time twilight fell over Silver Ridge, my hair had been yanked, brushed, braided, and pinned so many times my scalp felt like raw meat. My mother stood behind me, adjusting the silver thread woven through my dark curls one last time.
"Stop frowning," she murmured. "Or the Moon will think you're ungrateful."
I met her gaze in the mirror. "You're the one who taught me not to lie to goddesses."
"Lying and frowning are different things," she said. "You're allowed fear. You're not allowed to look like you're marching to your own execution."
"That's what this feels like."
Her hands stilled. "Aria."
I exhaled slowly, forcing my shoulders to relax. The pale blue silk dress shimmered when I moved, silver leaves embroidered along the hem catching the candlelight. I didn't look like the beta's daughter who burned bread in the kitchen.
I looked like someone who might actually belong at Caden's side.
The thought made my stomach twist.
"Did you ever doubt?" I asked quietly. "Before you met Dad. Did you ever think the Moon might forget you?"
She studied my reflection for a long moment. "Every girl doubts, Aria. Even the ones who pretend they don't. Mates aren't guaranteed. They're… gifts."
"And what happens to the ones who don't get gifted?" I pressed. "The ones the Moon skips over?"
"They live," she said firmly. "They find other things to love. They are not less."
"And the ones She… over-gifts?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Something flickered in her eyes. "What do you mean?"
I hesitated. I hadn't told her everything about the strange flashes I'd had over the years—the triple moons in my dreams, the feeling of being tugged in more than one direction when I stood under a full sky. They'd always passed quickly enough for me to pretend they weren't real.
"Nothing," I said. "Just… nerves."
She didn't look convinced, but she let it go. "Whatever happens, you are mine," she said, tracing a crescent over my brow. "You are your father's. You are this pack's. A bond doesn't make you whole. You're already whole, understand?"
I nodded, though my throat ached.
A horn sounded outside—low and deep, vibrating through the floorboards.
My father appeared in the doorway, dressed in his formal dark green, hair tied back. He looked at me and, for a second, the tough beta vanished, replaced by a man trying not to cry.
"You look…" He cleared his throat. "Like trouble."
A startled laugh escaped me. "Good trouble or bad trouble?"
"Ask Caden," he said. "Come on. They're waiting."
We walked together through the hallways, passing wolves already heading toward the clearing. Their conversations hushed as they noticed me. Some smiled. Some watched with flat, unreadable eyes. Some whispered behind hands.
"Is that the dress the Luna sent?"
"She looks different."
"Do you think the Moon will really—"
I kept my chin up and my gaze fixed forward.
We stepped out into the cold evening. Torches lined the path through the trees, their flames painting everything gold and shadow. Above us, the Moon had already risen, nearly full—a heavy white coin in the darkening sky.
The clearing opened around us, ringed by ancient oaks. Wolves stood in loose circles, leaving the center clear. At the far side, near the carved stone altar, Caden waited.
He was already watching me.
For a heartbeat, the world shrank to the space between his gaze and mine.
He wore the same pack colors as my father—dark green and black—but the way they sat on him was different. Authority settled over his shoulders like an invisible cloak. The silver chain at his throat, marked with the crescent-and-claw of our alpha line, glinted sharply.
He didn't smile, but something in his expression softened. My wolf shoved against my ribs, thrilled and terrified.
Elder Maren raised her staff. The murmurs quieted.
"Silver Ridge," she called, her voice steady and strong. "Tonight we stand beneath the Goddess's eye. We offer our loyalty, our strength, our lives. In return, She offers us guidance… and mates. Should She choose it."
Standard words I'd heard every ceremony since I was old enough to sneak out of bed and spy from the trees. Tonight, they felt like a sentence.
"Aria Thornridge," Maren said. "Caden Thornridge. Step forward."
We did.
Standing beside him, I could feel the heat rolling off his body. The scent of him—pine, cold air, something darker—wrapped around me. His hand was close to mine, but not touching.
"You look… nice," he murmured without turning his head.
I almost choked. "You're about to be magically glued to me and all you can say is 'nice'?"
The corner of his mouth twitched. "We don't know what the Moon will do."
"You swore," I whispered. "Earlier. You accepted the risk."
His jaw tightened. "I accepted Her will," he said. "Whatever it is."
That tiny, careful distance between us dug like a thorn.
"Raise your faces," Maren intoned. "Open your hearts. Let the Moon speak."
We lifted our heads.
Light hit the clearing like a slow-moving wave. The Moon's glow pressed down on my skin, thick and humming. Around us, wolves shifted their weight, some already gasping softly as bonds struck—threads tying souls together in sudden, blinding certainty.
Nothing happened.
For three long heartbeats, nothing at all.
Then everything happened at once.
Heat punched through my chest, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. A thread of light shot out from my center, slamming into something solid and familiar.
Caden.
His head snapped toward me. Our eyes locked, and I felt it—the bond—click into place like a slammed door.
Mate, my wolf howled. Ours.
Relief and terror flooded me. I gasped, reaching for him—
—and the world shattered.
Something else grabbed hold of that new thread. Not to break it, but to weave more in.
Two more lines of power shot through me from opposite directions, wild and cold. My vision went white. Sound vanished.
I was no longer in Silver Ridge.
I stood in a forest I'd never seen. Dark trunks rose up like pillars around me. Snow fell in slow, black flakes. Above, three Moons hung in the sky—one pale white, one blood red, one dark silver—overlapping in a pattern that made my brain ache.
Under them, three figures watched me from the shadows.
One stood closest, the most defined. Broad shoulders. Familiar tilt of the head. Eyes blazing golden.
Caden. My Caden. My bond to him burned bright and hot.
To his left, another man—a stranger—lean and dangerous, aura crackling like a storm on the verge of breaking. I couldn't see his face, but his presence slammed into me—harsh, wild, electric. The second thread thrummed between us, raw and icy.
To the right, a third shadow, stiller than the others. Taller. Colder. His eyes—what little I could see of them—glowed like molten silver from a face half-wrapped in shadow. His presence pressed like the weight of deep water.
Three men. Three threads. All tied to me.
A voice slid along my spine like cold fingers.
Forsaken by one. Desired by many. Marked by the Triple Moon. Choose well, little wolf… or all burn.
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn't move. My heart felt like it was being pulled in three different directions.
Then the vision exploded in a flash of white so bright it swallowed everything.
The next thing I knew, I was on my knees in the Silver Ridge clearing, howls and shouts crashing over me like waves.
Hands grabbed my shoulders. "Aria!"
I blinked hard. Caden's face swam into view. His eyes burned, wolf-bright.
"Do you feel it?" I croaked. "Do you—"
His grip on me was bruising. He looked half-wild, half-terrified. "What did you see?"
"Three," I gasped. "There were three of you. Three bonds. It hurt. Caden, it—"
Something in his expression snapped.
He lurched back from me like I'd burned him. The warmth I'd always associated with him vanished, replaced by arctic cold.
"No," he said hoarsely. "No. That's wrong."
The pack was murmuring now, restless, the hair on their arms and necks lifting. Elders leaned forward, eyes glittering.
"Caden," Elder Maren warned. "Control—"
"I felt the bond," he said, voice cutting through the noise. "I did. For a moment. But then—someone else was there. Something else." His hands curled into fists. "I won't let the Moon bind me into… that."
The word "that" stung more than it should have.
My heart stumbled. "What are you saying?"
He looked at me—my childhood friend, the boy who'd promised to always choose my side—and I saw not warmth, not love, but fear.
Not of me.
Of what I had become.
"I, Caden of Silver Ridge," he said, voice steady despite the tremor in his aura, "reject you, Aria Thornridge, as my mate."
Time stopped.
The bond roared in my chest, then ripped.
Pain detonated through me like someone had shoved a blade between my ribs and twisted. I folded over, a scream ripping out of me before I could swallow it.
Around us, wolves gasped. Someone shouted. My mother's voice cut through, high and raw: "No!"
I hit the ground hard, the sky spinning.
Somewhere above, the Moon shone down, cold and bright and utterly indifferent as the first of my threads tore apart.
As I slipped into blackness, one thought echoed behind my eyes, louder than the pain:
There were still two more.
And they were coming.