Chapter 3
The Howl Court gathered with obscene speed—the three Elders in threadbare robes, the Beta with his scars like rivers down his face, our father standing behind Serena with politics in his posture. The chapel smelled of beeswax and old incense, of winter fur hung to dry. Stained-glass moons watched us with indifferent, colored eyes.
Elder Maeve’s gaze took in my wound, then the clean, gleaming bite mark peeking above Serena’s collar. “Fated entanglements,” she murmured, mostly to the past. “It has been a long time.”
“Too long,” Father said, heavy with warning. “We have guests, Elders. Four allied Alphas arrive tonight. We cannot put blood in the snow.”
“Then perhaps your daughters should have kept their blood in their throats,” Elder Rowan snapped, impatient as ever. He turned to me. “Child, speak your claim.”
I stepped onto the center circle, the place where truth binds. My mouth was copper and heat. “I, Clara Halewood, daughter of Alpha Regent Marcus Halewood, fated mate to Damien Blackwood—” a murmur rolled like thunder at that admission “—demand the Rite of Severance. Before the next moon sets.”
“And on what grounds?” Elder Maeve asked, though we all knew.
I showed my neck. “Illegal secondary mark.”
The room turned to Damien. Even the stained glass seemed to lean in.
He could have lied. He could have laughed and called me delusional, claimed I’d pressed my throat to his mouth to force a mark. But his pride wouldn’t let him cheapen the truth. He held my gaze like a dare. “I marked what is mine.”
“Two Lunas?” the Beta asked, dry.
“One Luna,” Damien said, calm as winter, “and one mate who needs… handling.”
The words landed like a slap. Handling. As if my heart were a tantrum.
The Elders conferred in a hiss of fabric and tradition. When they turned back, the law was a verdict between their teeth.
“By the old ways,” Elder Rowan recited, “a Severance may proceed only if the marked survives three trials at moonrise. If she succeeds, the bond snaps and returns to the Goddess—no love, no claim, no tether. If she fails any trial, the bond devours her. The Alpha keeps the Luna.” His eyes softened, almost pitying. “Few choose it.”
Damien’s voice was ice. “I forbid it.”
“You can’t,” Elder Maeve said, for once pleased to say no. “The right is hers. Power is not your only inheritance, Alpha.”
My pulse steadied in that fragile pocket of justice. “Then set the hour.”
“Tonight,” Rowan said, weary. “Before politics wakes.”
Serena’s hand found mine again, nails biting crescents in my skin. “Clara, please. Don’t do this. We can make a way—Damien can—”
“No,” I said, gentle despite the storm inside. “You can be his Luna with a clean bond or not at all. You don’t want a shadow snapping at your heels for the rest of your reign. And I refuse to spend my life half-claimed, half-loathed, half-alive.”
Damien took a step closer. Heat rolled off him, scent of cedar and snow pressing against my senses, the bond tugging hard enough to bruise. “You think pain will free you?” he asked softly, too softly. “It will only teach you how much you need me.”
I smiled without humor. “Then we’ll both learn what I’m made of.”
His gaze flicked to my mouth, and something like hunger cracked through the calm. For a reckless heartbeat the world narrowed to the line of his throat, the taste of his mark in my blood, the thunder of a future that wanted to swallow me whole. He could have kissed me. He didn’t.
He offered his hand. “Walk with me to the grove. We do this by the book.”
The court exhaled. The spell of the moment broke, and the room moved—Elders shuffling, warriors murmuring, Serena whispering prayers under her breath. We filed out into the cold, down the back steps where legends breathe, toward the birch grove where our ancestors knelt to swear and break and die.
