Wystan was still standing in the doorway, and neither Hazel nor Aldrien had moved an inch.
Nobody spoke for what felt like an uncomfortably long time.
“I’m waiting,” Wystan finally said.
Hazel gestured toward Aldrien.
“He can explain.”
Aldrien turned to her immediately.
“Why me?”
“You’re the Alpha.”
Wystan’s eyebrow lifted.
“That is usually my first clue.”
Despite everything, Hazel nearly laughed.
Aldrien sighed, and something in his posture shifted into something more serious.
“Wystan,” he said.
“What I’m about to tell you cannot leave this room.”
Wystan reached behind him and pushed the door shut.
“Go on, Alpha.”
Aldrien explained it as plainly as he could, the wedding ritual, the blood, the moonstone cracking apart the moment their palms touched, the wind and the light and waking up on the floor of the ritual chamber in bodies that weren’t their own.
Wystan listened without interrupting, his expression giving away almost nothing until Aldrien finished.
He looked at Hazel.
Then at Aldrien.
Then back at Hazel again.
“So you’re telling me,” he said, pointing at Hazel, “that’s the Alpha.”
He pointed at Aldrien.
“And that’s Hazel.”
“Unfortunately,” Hazel said.
Wystan closed his eyes for a moment, like he was hoping the room might rearrange itself into something more sensible while he wasn’t looking.
“I need a drink.”
He didn’t reach for one, though.
He simply stood there processing it, and Hazel found herself oddly grateful he wasn’t the type to turn this into a joke.
He was clearly trying, genuinely trying, to fit what he’d just heard into some version of reality that made sense to him.
He tested them next, not because he doubted them exactly, but because the whole thing was too insane to accept without something concrete to hold onto.
He asked Aldrien something personal, something only Hazel would know, and Aldrien answered correctly without hesitation.
Then he turned to Hazel and asked something only the real Aldrien would have any business knowing, and she answered that one too, without stumbling over a single detail.
Wystan exhaled slowly. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“All right.”
A pause.
“I believe you.”
Hazel felt the breath she’d been holding finally leave her chest.
Aldrien looked equally relieved.
“I wish I didn’t,” Wystan added.
He turned toward Aldrien then, and even though Aldrien was standing there in Hazel’s body, Wystan addressed him exactly the way he always had, without a trace of hesitation in his voice.
“What does the Alpha intend to do?”
Hazel glanced at Aldrien, something steadying in her at the sound of that title still attached to him, even now, even wearing a body that wasn’t his.
Whatever had happened to his physical form, his position clearly hadn’t gone anywhere in Wystan’s mind, and that small consistency mattered more than she expected it to.
“We’re going to reverse it,” Aldrien said.
“How?”
Aldrien looked at Hazel briefly before answering.
“We’re looking for the Great Priestess.”
Wystan’s expression shifted at that name, recognition settling in even if it wasn’t much.
“The Great Priestess?”
“The woman who oversees the old moonstone rituals,” Aldrien said.
Wystan asked where they intended to find her, and Aldrien had to admit they didn’t know yet, only that the wedding ritual had clearly been tied to those old traditions somehow, threads reaching back further than either of them had ever bothered to study.
Wystan’s expression turned practical almost instantly.
“Then I’ll find out,” he said.
Hazel looked at him, surprised.
“You’re helping us?”
He gave her a look that suggested the question hadn’t needed asking.
“You’re both walking around in the wrong bodies. If anyone discovers this, it isn’t just embarrassing.” His expression sobered further.
“It could destabilize both packs.”
That landed heavier than Hazel expected, a reminder that this wasn’t just their private disaster to sort through quietly, tucked away behind closed doors.
There were entire pack structures depending on neither of them slipping up in front of the wrong person.
Wystan laid out three rules almost immediately, the kind of quick, decisive planning Hazel had come to expect from him over the past several days.
Nobody else could know.
Until they found the Great Priestess, Hazel would continue as Alpha and Aldrien would continue as Luna.
And Wystan himself would become their cover, quietly stepping in wherever either of them got stuck, smoothing over anything that risked exposing them to anyone watching too closely.
“I’m your Beta,” he said, then turned to Aldrien.
“And you’re my Alpha.”
Aldrien gave him a small nod.
“Thank you.”
Wystan made his way toward the door, and then stopped just short of it, turning back to look at both of them.
“There’s one more problem,” he said.
Hazel frowned.
“What?”
“If you’re going to find the Great Priestess, you’ll need to travel.”
Hazel glanced at Aldrien.
Aldrien glanced back at her.
“Which means,” Wystan continued, “you’ll have to leave the pack together.”
A beat of silence followed.
Hazel groaned.
Aldrien didn’t look much happier about it.
Wystan opened the door, clearly satisfied with the chaos he’d just handed them.
“I’ll start looking into her location.”
He paused with one hand on the frame.
“And try not to kill each other before I get back.”
The door shut behind him, and Hazel turned to look at Aldrien.
“He’s enjoying this,” she said.
“He’s definitely enjoying this,” Aldrien agreed.
Neither of them was particularly upset about it, though, not really.
Something had shifted the moment Wystan walked back through that door already halfway convinced of a plan.
The secret wasn’t just theirs to carry alone anymore, and that alone made the whole situation feel a little more survivable than it had an hour ago.
We have an ally, her wolf murmured, quieter than usual, almost thoughtful about it.
Hazel looked at Aldrien again, and for the first time since the wedding, the whole impossible situation felt a little less like something they had to survive on their own.
Then she remembered what Wystan had said.
They would have to travel together, just the two of them, away from packs and duties and everyone watching for cracks in the story they’d built.
And somehow, that thought didn’t bother her nearly as much as it probably should have.