Chapter 1: Rejection at the Ceremony

A collective gasp swept through the hall like the ebbing tide.

Halfway through the priest’s oath, Damon Thorne’s hand, reaching toward Sela, stopped in midair before slowly, inch by inch, retreating. Sela’s hand still hung suspended, her fingertips trembling so badly she could scarcely hold anything. With her other hand, she tightened her grip around the potion vial fastened to the leather band on her wrist. The cold glass pressed against her palm, and that chill gradually steadied her shaking fingers. The vial held a calming potion she had prepared herself, originally meant to ease palpitations. At this moment, it steadied her hand first.

“Damon?” the priest reminded him softly. “The oath isn’t finished.”

Damon did not look at the priest. He turned around and took the hand of Vivian Cross, who stood on the other side.

Vivian seemed to have been waiting for this moment. Her fingers slipped naturally into his palm, and her pale-gold bun swayed in the candlelight. The smile at the corners of her lips was impossible to suppress.

The hall fell so silent that only the faint crackle of the candles could be heard. Then whispers rose in layers, like a hive that had just been struck open.

“He’s holding Vivian’s hand?”

“What about Sela? She already came all the way to the altar…”

Sela slowly lowered her suspended hand. She did not cry or ask why. She only looked at Damon—the man she had believed would enter into a mate bond with her tonight.

“Explain yourself.” Her voice was not loud, yet it was astonishingly steady. “Before the Moon Goddess and the entire pack, you withdrew your hand. You owe me a reason.”

Damon’s jaw tightened. He seemed to want to avoid her gaze, but there was nowhere to hide before the altar. All he could do was meet her eyes and say, word by word, “Sela, no one can find fault with your medical skills. But a mate ceremony isn’t an infirmary. This is the Silvermoon Pack’s bonding ceremony. My mate must stand at my side as Luna and win the confidence of the entire pack.”

“So?”

“So it can’t be someone who doesn’t even have a wolf form.” He said, “A healer without a wolf form isn’t fit to be Luna. It’s harsh, but I have to take responsibility for the pack.”

Another wave of gasps rose through the hall. Some people covered their mouths, some lowered their heads, while others stared straight at Sela, eager to see whether she would break down on the spot.

Sela’s fingers tightened once around the potion vial, and the chill of the glass crept upward through her palm. Suddenly, she smiled. It was a very faint smile, so faint that it made people’s hearts tighten.

“No wolf form.” She repeated the four words. “Damon, over the past three years, who stayed up through the night watching over the feverish, convulsing pups in the pack? When the patrol team in Graypine Forest was poisoned by herbs, who knelt in the snow and poured antidote into each person’s mouth? Why didn’t you ask whether I had a wolf form then?”

“That was a healer’s duty,” Damon said. “It has nothing to do with being Luna.”

“What a distinction.” Sela nodded. “So, in your eyes, a person can be taken apart and used in pieces. When I’m useful, I’m a healer. When I’m not, I’m simply unfit.”

Vivian stepped half a pace forward and tightened her hold on Damon’s arm. She made her voice soft and sweet, yet everyone in the front rows could hear her clearly. “Healer Sela, don’t blame Damon. A daughter of the Cross family has known since childhood that bloodline and status are the roots of a wolf pack. Saving people is a good thing, but the person who saves them may not necessarily be able to take the seat of Luna. Besides—”

She paused, her gaze sweeping over Sela from head to toe before settling on the potion band around her wrist. Her smile gained a hint of contempt. “In all these years, who has ever seen your wolf form? Not once. People may not say it aloud, but everyone knows it in their hearts. That old scar around your wrist—isn’t it the best proof?”

“Vivian.” Damon frowned, but he did not pull his hand from hers.

Sela looked at their joined hands for a long time. Then she raised her head and turned toward Jonah Thorne, seated in the center of the elders’ bench.

“Elder Jonah,” she asked, “do you feel the same way? From beginning to end, was I the only one who took today’s ceremony seriously?”

Jonah Thorne rested both hands on his ebony cane, his bushy gray brows casting his eyes into shadow. There was not the slightest trace of surprise on his face. He said unhurriedly, “Child, matters of the pack have never been decided simply because one person takes them seriously. Damon is the Alpha, and his choice is the pack’s choice. You’re a good healer. Go back and continue being a healer. The pack won’t mistreat you.”

“The pack won’t mistreat me.” Sela let out a low laugh. “Inviting me onto the altar, only to replace me in front of the entire pack—that’s what you call not mistreating me?”

No one answered her. The priest stood awkwardly to one side, holding the book of oaths as the pages fluttered gently in the wind.

Someone on the elders’ bench cleared his throat and muttered, “The Cross family has been nobility for three generations. The matter of a marriage alliance was originally…” He did not finish. The person beside him jabbed him with an elbow, forcing the rest of his words back down his throat.

As if reminded of something by those words, Damon’s tone hardened again. “Sera, I’m not humiliating you. What the Cross family can give the pack, you can’t. Winter supplies, alliances with neighboring packs, repairs to the altar—which of those doesn’t require the support of a prestigious family? If you stand beside me, the entire pack will ask just one question: Why doesn’t the Alpha’s mate even have a wolf form? By then, you’ll suffer ten times more humiliation than you did today.”

“So you’re doing this for my sake?” Sera asked.

“I’m doing this for everyone’s sake.”

“How noble.” She drew in a quiet breath, and the fingers clasped around the potion bottle grew steadier. “Damon, have you ever wondered what Vivienne would do if she were the one standing here today, and you were the one whose hand was withdrawn in front of everyone?”

Damon froze. Vivienne’s expression changed first. Her arm around his tightened unconsciously, her nails almost digging into his sleeve.

“She would never face such a day,” Vivienne cut in. “Because I have a wolf form, and I have Cross blood. Sera, accept your fate. Some positions are destined not to be yours from the moment you’re born.”

“I don’t want a position that isn’t mine.” Sera looked at her, enunciating each word. “But the altars I’ve stood upon, the people I’ve saved, and all those nights I’ve endured are not things your family name can erase with a single sentence. Vivienne, all you’ve stolen is one hand. My skills are still in my own hands.”

When those words fell, a woman in the front row holding a child suddenly reddened around the eyes. She lowered her head and buried her face in the child’s blanket. That child had suffered from a high fever that would not break the previous winter, and Sera had stayed by the bedside in the clinic for three full nights to pull him back from the brink. Many people present remembered similar things. The direction of the whispers quietly shifted, and something difficult to define appeared in the eyes some of them turned toward Damon.

Damon noticed. His Adam’s apple bobbed, yet in the end, he still did not release Vivienne’s hand.

Sera saw everything. The last trace of uncertainty in her heart finally settled. She no longer looked at anyone. Lowering her head, she gazed at the flower crown atop it.

It had been woven according to Luna’s ceremonial design, a circle of silverbell grass with tiny buds that shimmered with a moon-white glow. She had risen before dawn and chosen each flower by hand before weaving them together. While she worked, she had imagined that walking down the red carpet wearing it would probably be the most dignified moment of her life.

She raised both hands, slipped her fingers into her hair, and slowly removed the flower crown piece by piece.

Her movements were so slow that everyone in the hall unconsciously held their breath. When the crown left the ends of her hair, it caught a few loose strands, which fell beside her face. She did not brush them away.

The attendant holding the tray stood frozen to one side, eyes wide. Sera held the crown in both hands and placed it steadily back in the center of the tray, even straightening a silverbell sprig that had tilted out of place.

“If I’m unworthy,” she said, “then I’ll remove this crown myself. That way, it won’t dirty your hands.”

“Sera!” Damon took a step after her, a note of disorder entering his voice for the first time. “Don’t take things this far. The ceremony isn’t over. You can withdraw to the side seats for now and wait until I—”

“Wait for what?” Sera turned around. “Wait for you to finish holding her hand, then come back and reward me with a word of comfort? Damon, I’m a physician. My hands are meant to save people, not to plead my case before an altar. You withdrew your hand, and I removed my flower crown. We’re even.”

With that, she turned and walked step by step toward the hall’s entrance along the red carpet.

She was still wearing the same flat ankle boots she wore every day. They made no heavy sound against the polished floor, yet each step rang out clearly. Her white hem swept over the red carpet. Her back was perfectly straight, her chin slightly raised, and her pace neither quick nor slow, as though this ceremony no longer had anything to do with her.

The crowd on either side moved back of its own accord. Some people opened their mouths as if to say something, only to be tugged back by the sleeves by those beside them. There was pity, astonishment, and undisguised curiosity in those gazes, but Sera acknowledged none of them. She fixed her eyes on the moonlit door ahead and simply kept walking.

When she was almost at the entrance, the hurried, delicate sound of high heels came from behind. Vivienne lifted her skirt and caught up with her, blocking her beside one of the pillars near the door. All traces of her smile had vanished.

“You’re leaving quite decisively.” Vivienne lowered her voice until only the two of them could hear. “Sera, do you think everything will be over once you walk through this door? Let me tell you—”

She stepped closer, her ice-blue eyes fixed on the wrist hanging at Sera’s side. Her voice was as soft as a snake’s tongue brushing against her ear. “That old scar on your wrist will claim your life tonight.”

Sera stopped.

“What did you say?”

Vivienne did not repeat herself. She merely took half a step back, the corners of her lips curving once more, then turned and swayed back toward the altar, as if those words had never existed.

Cold wind poured through the crack beneath the door, stirring the cuff of Sera’s sleeve. She slowly raised her left wrist and looked toward it by the moonlight spilling in beside the door—the old scar on the inside of her wrist, which had accompanied her for so many years, was now gleaming with a layer of silver light it had never shown before, fine and delicate, like moonlight liquefied into water, slowly spreading upward along her veins, inch by inch.