AURORA
“We’re going dress shopping! I have been waiting for this day forever!” Charolette squealed, curling her arm around mine as we walked through town. Sun rays beamed down upon us, a nice break from the thick fog Sanguine Wilds had been experiencing. “I have always dreamed of being Ares’s mate’s best friend and helping her pick out her dress, and—oh, I didn’t tell you, but I invited a few people along!”
It was Tuesday morning, ten a.m. sharp. While I wanted to be excited to pick out my dress, all I could think about was my conversation with Dad the other night and the terror in his eyes, warning me to stay away from Syncome Mountains.
She pulled me into Lucy’s Boutique, the only dress shop in town. Elijah, Adrian, Ruffles, and Pringle sat on the royal-blue couch near the entrance, talking and meowing to each other. I smiled at them, knowing that Jeremy would’ve loved to be here.
I leaned closer to Charolette. “I’m surprised you didn’t invite Marcel.”
Charolette shoved my shoulder. “Do you think I spend every waking moment gushing over him? Because I don’t.” She glanced away, chewing on the inside of her lip, and pulled me toward our friends. “I don’t even think about him.”
“You don’t think about him ever?”
“Nope.”
“You’re a liar. You’re probably thinking about him now.”
Though she tried, she couldn’t hide her smile. Goddess, she was head over heels for Marcel, and it was the cutest fucking thing I’d had the chance to witness—aside from Ruffles and her man, Pringle. Now that Ruffles had her own boy to flirt with, we were back on good terms.
No more stealing my man.
“Definitely not,” she said as we approached the guys.
“Aurora! Tunnels are underway,” Adrian said, throwing one arm around my shoulders. “They started this morning. We’re re-cementing the hideouts from the War of the Lycans. There are four located near the pack house, which we’re working on first, and then a handful of others around the property lines. It should be done within a couple weeks.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said honestly. It wasn’t what I’d wanted to finish before a war, but it was something. Hopefully, the project—at least, cementing the hideouts—would be complete before we left for Syncome Mountains.
My gaze shifted to Elijah, who stood pretty damn close to Adrian, and I wiggled my brows. Dimples forming on his cheeks, Elijah looked at the ground and grinned. My heart warmed, and I vowed to bother Elijah about all the details later.
Dressed in a brown sweater dress and an orange blazer, Lucy, the store owner, walked out from a back room and grinned at us. “Luna!” she said, tucking some white-blonde hair behind her ear. “It’s nice to finally meet you! I’m so excited you chose to shop for your Luna Ceremony gown here. I already have some gowns laid out for you to try on that I think would go wonderfully with your figure!”
Charolette pushed me toward her. “Make her even more beautiful. She deserves it.”
Lucy took my hand and ushered me to the dressing room, presenting me with three silver-colored dresses—a silk column dress, a velvet mermaid dress, and a lace ballgown. And while butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I tried on all of them, none of them felt right.
After forcing Charolette to come into the fitting room with me and after trying on six more unsuccessful dresses, I grabbed a simple, strapless silver dress with lace near the edges from the hanger.
“When are you going to let Marcel finally bite you?” I asked Charolette, desperately trying to pull the dress over my hips.
I must’ve gained a few extra pounds from all the training that Ares made me do. I had to be putting muscle on in all the right places … or maybe this weight was from all those late-night pretzel sessions with Mars.
“Marcel? Let him bite me?” she asked, fumbling with the zipper. “You mean, mark?”
I smirked into the mirror. “Or bite you in other places.”
She wrinkled her nose, pulled the zipper up, and gave me a hard stare. “Gross.” She glanced down at my dress to hide the sadness washing over her face. “I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again, he’s not my type.”
“Is that what you really think?” I asked, turning around to face her. Strands of her blonde hair fell into her face, and I pushed them away. “Or do you think you’re not his type because he has a new girl every week?”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, she shook her head. “We’re totally different people. He’s a warrior. I hate training. He’s a player. I just want one guy who loves me. He deserves someone to be happy with forever. And I can’t give him forever … I don’t even know if I could give him one more year,” she whispered the last part.
My heart ached at her words. I grasped her face, forcing her to look at me through her teary eyes. And at that moment, I finally really understood what was holding her back and why she set herself on arguing with Marcel all the time instead of loving him.
“Stop it,” I whispered, pushing fallen tears off her face with my thumbs. “You’re good enough for him. It doesn’t matter how long you have left. Make your life worth it. Do something crazy. Fall in love with Marcel and make this next year the best of your entire life.”
More tears streamed down her face. “But … I-I just … I don’t want him to hurt. I don’t want him to care about me. I don’t want to fall in love with him.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because it’ll make it harder for me to leave him. He makes me want to fight, want to get stronger. But I … I miss my mom. I want to see her again. I don’t want to be miserable forever. Nothing can heal my pain. Marcel can dull it, but it’s always there, nipping at me, piece by piece until all I want to do is give in to it.”
While I still pondered over Jeremy and his death, I had never once thought about life like Charolette did. I never thought about suicide or letting a disease take away my life, just to see him again. I didn’t think I’d ever understand the pain and heartbreak both she and Ares went through every day.
I hugged her and assured her that she meant the world to her pack. Nothing could bring her mother back to life—except those damn hounds—but she cared about so many other people. What her mother had done wasn’t her fault. And before I pulled away, I made sure she knew that Marcel would walk through hell for her. He had even seen her without her wig and not run away.
She rested her head on my shoulder and hiccuped. “Sometimes, I … I think about what life would be like if my mom didn’t kill herself. I wonder what a happy and whole family would be like with me, her, and … and Fenris.”
My eyes widened. “Fenris?” I asked, patting her back. “Why Fenris?”
“He’s my dad, my real dad …” She blew out a breath. “I wonder what he’s like, if he knows who I am to him, and if he cares about me.” She paused and looked up from my shoulder. “You’re not saying anything. Do you think that’s weird?”
Remembering the nightmare that Mars had had the other night, I swallowed hard. Why did Charolette want to know about the man who had raped her mother? If my mother had been raped by a hound, I’d have hated that man for my entire life, not wondered about him.
“Aurora?”
“Uh, no, I guess not.”
What else could I have said to a broken woman who just wanted to live the rest of her life in peace? Should I have made her feel bad about it? Scolded her for even thinking that Fenris was a good guy?
Even after Dad had made it clear he didn’t want me, I tried to find solace with him. If Charolette was just thinking about it, it couldn’t hurt her, right?
I shook my head and pulled away, glancing back in the grand full-length mirror. I smoothed out my dress and frowned. “Why don’t we go out for milkshakes at Pink Moon Tavern tomorrow night?”
“I’d like that.”
What she didn’t know about this milkshake date was that Marcel might coincidentally show up and it might accidentally become a double date. I was definitely not secretly planning every detail in my head at this very moment.
After grabbing my hand, she pulled me out of the room toward the guys and the cats. I stood on the stand and twirled around to see how terrible I looked in the mirror. Dressed in silver with white lace accents, I looked like a flop. The silver against my pale skin made me look even whiter somehow. Every dress I had tried on so far didn’t complement me at all.
“Do you have any other colors? Maybe something pink, blue, something softer?”
“But the traditional luna dress is silver,” Lucy said.
“I just … don’t think it’s for me.”
I wanted to make a statement with this dress. I wasn’t just a luna. I was an alpha too.
Lucy smiled. “I finished stitching up a beautiful gown yesterday. Go get changed. I think it could be everything you are looking for.”
She disappeared into one of the back rooms, and I waddled to the dressing room in this too-tight-to-walk dress.
A few moments later, Lucy handed me a blush-pink, baby-blue, and soft-yellow gown. Colorful wasn’t normally my style, but something drew me to this dress, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It reminded me of dawn mornings when Jeremy and I would go to the cave and watch the sunrise over the trees, the pinks and blues and tans mixing together in a breathtaking sight.
And yet, somehow, it reminded me of more than mornings with Jeremy. It reminded me of dawns with Ares that I was sure hadn’t happened yet, in places far more tranquil than Sanguine Wilds. It was hope in a world of uncertainty.
As soon as I slipped the dress on, I grinned. It was exactly what I wanted and what I needed for my Luna Ceremony. This dress made me feel like a goddess, awakening the wolves every morning with soft pastels to start new days.
Elijah beamed when he saw me. “You look so damn beautiful, Aurora. Ares will love it.”
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I brushed my fingers across the silk and grinned at my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t care about my looks too often, but damn, did I look good in this dress.
It was me.
The alpha. The luna. The warrior. Me, Aurora.
After I settled on the dress and Lucy reserved it for the Luna Ceremony, I collapsed onto the couch next to Elijah. “When is the soonest you can put the stone in my back?” I asked when Adrian and Charolette started chatting.
Though I desperately wanted to give the Malavite Stone to Charolette, I didn’t want to see Mars as defeated as he had been the morning after his nightmare. Screaming, trembling, crying in his sleep, Mars had broken me down to tears that night.
Elijah readjusted his glasses. “I think you should wait until after the Luna Ceremony. It’s only a few days away, and you’re going to need time to recover from surgery. We don’t know how your body will respond to the other half of the stone, especially after it was inside someone else. You might react poorly to it. The Luna Ceremony is supposed to be a joyous event.”
I stared at my feet and swallowed. The Luna Ceremony was a sacred tradition held under a full moon, where people not only celebrated a new luna, but could also fight to take the place of an alpha or luna position without consequences. I didn’t think anyone would, but I couldn’t ignore the whispering around town about how I could barely shift.
While the warriors didn’t mind, that didn’t mean everyone accepted a weakling as a leader. Ares’s pack was filled with jealous women taken from wars and people who wanted to feel important. No shame to them at all, but nobody was going to mess with what was mine.
I’d fought damn hard to make it here.
“Let me think about it.”
Ares wanted me to bind with the stone as soon as possible, but what if I was too weak to even defend myself from an attack? Last time I’d had stone surgery, I could barely move for an entire week. I had been completely wiped out.
After a few moments of silence, Elijah grabbed my hand and led me to the opposite side of the room. “I wanted to talk to you about this sooner, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of Adrian or Charolette.” He paused and looked over his shoulder, as if to reassure himself that nobody was listening. “We ran tests on the hound’s blood and found an unusual substance in it, like I’d mentioned before. We still haven’t figured out exactly what it is, but my doctor looked back through some old files, and … and your blood matches theirs.”
“What?” I asked, brow furrowed.
“Whatever kind of blood runs through those hounds’ veins, it runs through yours too.”