Chapter 184: One Dress, One Broken Alpha

Nova untied the ribbon on the first box with careful hands, and inside sat a gold gown shot through with diamonds that caught the firelight and scattered it across the ceiling. It was entirely, impossibly too nice.

Maria was already tearing into a second box. "Shoes. Oh, these are gorgeous." She held them up, then narrowed her eyes at the gown. "There is zero chance that man picked this out himself. None. I refuse to believe it. Someone with taste and a vendetta and really good connections did this." She considered it. "But I respect it deeply."

Nova opened the largest box last. Inside was a full Thunderfang cloak, floor-length, the emblem worked in gold thread at the shoulder. She assumed, somewhere under the swell of it in her chest, that Derek would have worn a matching one tonight, if he were here.

The final box held diamond dangle earrings.

Nova sat back, genuinely floored. "Did Alpha Thunderfang get all of this for me?"

Sierra and Maria looked at each other and broke out into laughter.

"Nova." Maria wiped her eye. "I’m fairly certain, as in positive, as in I would bet this bracelet on it, that the man would do anything for you."

Nova’s face went hot. "I don’t think it’s like that."

"He sure does like carrying you."

Nova turned that over and arrived, as she always did, at the only sensible conclusion. "That’s because I’m slow in comparison to him and he has a tight schedule."

Both of them lost it all over again.

Her shoulder had healed enough over the week that she wasn’t going to wrap it under the dress, which she was grateful for, because the gold gown was not built to hide a bandage.

She hadn’t thought twice about the color until she was in it, standing in front of the mirror, and clocked the rest of the room. Sierra was in sapphire, the color of Gamma. Maria was in silver, the color of Beta. And Nova was in gold, which was the color of Alpha.

She filed the pattern away and said nothing.

Full makeup. Hair done. A gown worth more than she wanted to calculate, with a floor-length cloak cut to match.

"All she’s missing is the crown," Maria stated, stepping back to admire her own work.

A knock landed on the door.

"Enter," Maria called.

Tavian came through first, Sebastian and Alpha Thunderfang behind him. Sebastian took one slow look around the room, at the dresses and the boxes and the three women turned out like royalty, and groaned.

"Tavian. You have genuinely ruined this for the rest of us." He gestured at the whole glittering scene. "My mate has seen this room and now there’s no going back. I’m going to have to build her one. You’ve set a bar no reasonable Gamma can clear."

Alpha Thunderfang had gone still in the doorway.

Nova turned towards him and spoke quickly, before the stillness could become anything she’d have to interpret. "Thank you for the gifts, Alpha. I love it. All of it. So much."

"She does. She cried when she opened it. I can confirm under oath," Maria chimed in.

Alpha Thunderfang’s throat bobbed. But he said nothing.

"And there it is." Tavian clapped a hand to his own chest. "Nova broke the Alpha. One dress. Didn’t even have to try. Someone get a healer."

"You’re welcome," he managed after a second.

???

THUNDERFANG KEEP - RITE HALL

Alpha Thunderfang was going to stand in for Derek. Nova knew that going in. She was less sure what it meant she was walking into.

Tavian, Sebastian, and Alpha Thunderfang had gone ahead before the three women entered the waiting hall.

Then the newly mated couples processed in, and when it was Nova’s turn, it was the three of them. Her, Maria, Sierra.

The ritual hall was vast, far larger than any initiation grounds Nova had seen. This one was underground, no windows anywhere, the seating carved directly into the stone in tiers that climbed into shadow.

Whispers started the moment Nova stepped through the arch. Word of Celeste had gotten out, and Nova had been bracing for it.

Hundreds were present. Dignitaries. Elders. Nobles. Generals. Every one of them on their feet.

At the front, a crystal basin sat, burning the sacred flame. Behind it, the Alpha stood with the High Luna, Beta, and Gamma.

The new pack members were all standing with their mates in their own sections. There were many from the Moonfire but Nova realized the majority were not. They had been cut or drew a blank flame and were in arranged marriages instead.

The ones who were from the Moonfire nodded and smiled as she passed. To them, she was the reason they’d been paired. To them, she was the one who controlled the fire.

When Nova, Maria, and Sierra took their place at the front the priestess lifted her hands, and her voice filled the stone chamber.

"Blood remembers, and blood binds. Do you, before King and altar, swear to uphold this pack, to guard its lives, to keep its secrets, and to renounce all will against your own, binding yourself in blood and bone until death or the Alpha’s command?"

"I do," the women answered together.

"Then let the ancestors render judgment, for if you are worthy, you shall not burn."

The first to the basin were the leadership. The High Luna, the Alpha, the Beta, the Gamma each had a drop of blood pricked into the flame. When the High Luna’s fell, the fire roared gold. Alpha Thunderfang’s roared gold as well. The Beta’s burned silver. The Gamma’s turned sapphire, and Nova couldn’t help staring at the light show, each color climbing and curling in its own rhythm.

Nova was also vaguely aware that every Moonfire draftee was watching her the way you watch a performer before the trick, waiting for her to make magic happen. Maria was the single guiltiest offender in that category.

The first couple stepped forward, an arranged match. The man drew a ceremonial dagger with his family crest engraved on it.

"Every family’s got one," a man murmured to his mate in the row behind Nova.

The man drew the blade across her palm first. Then his own. Gently, he took her hand and guided it into the flame.

It didn’t burn them.

WHOOMP

The flame roared green and doubled in height.

To Nova’s surprise and, if she was being honest, delight, a green wolf of light peeled out of the fire.

It ran a full lap around the chamber. Then again because why the hell not. The chamber erupted into applause on its second lap.

The priestess looked at the wolf, then down at her own hands, as though she might have done something wrong, then back at the wolf, arriving nowhere.

The head elder muttered something to the elder beside him. Whatever it was, the second elder nodded grimly, the way you nod at a storm you were warned about. The High Luna tilted her head at the spectacle, visibly unsure whether this development helped her plans or ruined them.