“Get your heavy tail up!
Now!”
Lily’s voice rattled through the cold air of the glasshouse, sharp enough to snap steel.
A cold splash of runoff water hit my forehead, dripping down the bridge of my nose and jerking me backward against the humid bricks of the plant bed.
“Leave me alone, Lil…” I grumbled, pulling my ragged wool cardigan tighter around my shoulders.
I pressed my forehead back into the damp moss under the bench, my body heavy, aching to sink back into the oblivion of sleep.
“Are you insane?” Lily ducked under the hanging vines, grabbing my wrist with an iron grip and hauling me upright.
“The Triplets are taking the dais in thirty minutes for the Oath-Taking.
Do you really want to miss your only chance to get a front-row look at your dream men?”
The words triplets hit me like an electric shock.
Panic surged through my blood.
In a blur of motion, I lunged forward, throwing my palm over Lily’s mouth and pinning her against the glass pane behind us.
My lungs hitched as my eyes frantically scanned the towering tropical fronds around us, searching for any shadow, any lingering breath that wasn’t ours.
“Are you trying to get me killed?” I hissed, my breath ragged, my voice reduced to a desperate, panicked rasp.
My fingers dug tight into her jaw.
“Keep your mouth shut!”
Nobody should know.
No one.
If a single whisper of my silent, ache-filled devotion to the Alpha triplets slipped into the open air, it wouldn’t just ruin me, it would destroy me.
Because Selene would tear me apart.
My twin sister’s face flashed behind my eyelids, terrifyingly clear.
Selene, with her flawless skin, her golden laugh, and her sickening, possessive chokehold on the triplets.
I remembered the last girl who had merely looked at the eldest Alpha too long at the autumn bonfire; Selene had made sure the girl was cast out to the perimeter guard duties by nightfall, weeping and disgraced.
Selene claimed the world as her personal property, and the Alpha triplets were her crown jewels.
They always gravitated toward her.
They laughed at her jests, stood near her like handsome statues at every feast, and treated her like royalty.
Every time I had to watch them from the shadow edges of the hall, my throat would tighten until I couldn’t swallow.
My chest throbbed with a hollow, aching envy.
And yet, God help me, my pulse still hammered wildly whenever they walked into a room.
I prayed secretly, desperately, into the cold night air, begging the Moon Goddess to look past my faded clothes and quiet demeanor, to pick me as their true mate.
Lily gently pried my trembling hand off her mouth, her eyes softening with a sudden wave of pity.
“Lyra…
pull it together,” she whispered.
“Today is the Mate Call.
They have to claim their true bond before the pack elders today.
It’s the law.”
The air left my lungs in a sharp gasp.
Today!.
My hands began to shake uncontrollably.
It wasn’t just a ceremony.
Today was the end of everything or the beginning of a miracle.
Please, Goddess, I bargained silently, closing my eyes so tight tears threatened to spill.
Please see me.
Choose me.
Don’t leave me in the dark.
“Lyra…
Lyra…
move it!”
Lily’s voice yanked me back to reality as she dragged me by the sleeve, her shoes slapping against the stone paving of the central courtyard.
I didn’t think; I just ran.
I tripped over the hem of my skirt, shoved my arms through my jacket sleeves mid-stride, and tore through the arched doorway into the Great Court.
My lungs burned with ice and panic as we pushed through the gathering crowds.
Then, across the wide stone courtyard, my eyes landed on him.
Our father was standing on the upper tier of the marble steps, dressed in his heavy ceremonial furs.
His stance was rigid, his expression stoic and cold, projecting the terrifying authority he always wielded over our family.
The mere sight of him hit the brakes on my feet.
My knees felt like lead.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my fingers clenching into bloodless fists at my sides.
I stood there, frozen, trying to catch my breath in the suffocating silence of my own dread, waiting for the horn to sound the start of the proceedings.
Thud.
A brutal shoulder slammed into mine from behind with cruel, calculated weight.
The force caught me off guard, throwing my weight sideways.
My ankles twisted on the uneven cobbles, and I crashed hard onto the cold stone floor, the rough slate scraping skin from my palms.
“Lyra, do you take pleasure in being an absolute nuisance?”
Selene’s voice cut through the air, icy, polished, and dripping with immediate accusation.
I slowly turned my head up toward her, taking in her immaculate velvet cloak, the sharp curve of her sneering lips, and the cold calculation burning in her eyes.
Defensive rage flared in my chest; a dozen bitter curses clawed at my throat, begging to be screamed.
But I swallowed every single one of them down until my throat burned.
I pushed myself up slightly and stared at her in cold, deliberate silence.
I refused to play her game.
I knew how this script went.
If I shouted back, she would turn on the tears, twist my words, and spin the entire square into believing I was the jealous, unstable twin.
We were in full view of the pack elders and the townspeople.
Giving her a scene would give her total victory.
The shoulder hit hadn’t been an accident—she had deliberately veered off her path to knock me into the dirt.
I knew it.
She knew it.
So I said nothing.
My silence was a match dropped onto dry grass.
I saw the muscle in Selene’s jaw twitch.
The polite mask slipped, replaced by a dark, dangerous fury at being ignored.
Her fists balled into the velvet of her dress, her chest heaving as she searched for a way to break me.
Then she screamed it at the top of her lungs.
“You miserable THIEF!”
The screech echoed off the high stone arches, shattering the ambient hum of the courtyard.
The crowd instantly went dead silent.
Dozens of heads snapped in our direction.
Whispers erupted like a swarm of disturbed wasps.
The weight of a hundred judgment-filled eyes pinned me to the cobblestones.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father move.
The moment the word thief left Selene’s mouth, his head snapped around, and he began descending the marble steps with quick, furious strides.
A heavy, cold dread settled deep in the pit of my stomach as he closed the distance.
“You stole my mother’s signet ring right off my vanity!” Selene cried out, her voice trembling with manufactured tears as her finger jabbed viciously down at my face.
The utter folly of it left me paralyzed.
A ring?
My brain stalled, the sheer shock of the lie overriding my anger.
“What…
what ring?” I stammered out, my voice weak, genuine confusion written across my face.
Before the last word could fully leave my mouth, a shadow fell over me.
My father was standing directly above us, his towering frame blocking out the morning sun, his eyes burning with absolute, terrifying disappointment.
“Father!” Selene sobbed dramatically, clutching his arm and pointing at me like I was a wild animal.
“Look at her!
Lyra stole the signet ring!”
The courtyard held its breath.
My father’s jaw set into stone.
He didn’t ask for proof.
He didn’t ask me to speak.
He just raised his heavy hand.
Crack.