Lyra
He’s late.
Bastian was ten minutes late to his own binding ceremony.
I twisted the gemstone sewn into the front of my dress, hating the way it dug into my swollen stomach. Asher batted my hands away for the third time.
“Stop that, Luna. You’re going to ruin the dress.” He crouched to smooth the layers of silver fabric back into place, his fingers fussing over every wrinkle like his life depended on it.
I resisted the urge to swat him.
“He knew how little time we had,” I hissed, glancing at the restless crowd gathering beneath the ceremonial arch. “And he’s ten minutes late?”
Asher’s lips pursed. He tilted his head, stroking his chin like he was genuinely deliberating.
“Perhaps he’s nervous?”
The words didn’t make it all the way to my brain. I blinked. “What?”
The blush was strong enough to show on his brown skin and I snorted, the laugh ripping out before I could do anything about it.
“Okay, cut it out—”
“Nervous?” I wheezed. “Bastian?”
His cheeks went darker and I laughed harder. I couldn’t help it. Bastian as a nervous groom was the kind of thing that existed only in fever dreams and bad jokes. The man once walked into a rogue ambush and came out fixing his hair.
“All I’m saying,” Asher muttered, taking my hands and rubbing his thumbs over my knuckles, “is perhaps you should take a seat. You’re heavily pregnant and you’ve been standing a long time.”
“I’m fine.” I waved him off, palm already drifting to my stomach the way it always did lately, feeling the familiar flutter respond to my touch. “Im only five months gone. Heavily pregnant is an exaggeration.”
He gave my ankles a very deliberate look.
I became suddenly fascinated by the ceremonial arch.
“Lyra.”
I straightened instantly. Only two people ever called me by my given name—Bastian and...
I turned.
Elder Constance stood only a few feet away, her dark robes sweeping the grass. The murmuring crowd quieted as she approached.
I smiled. “Hi, Elder Constance.”
She didn’t.
Her permanent frown somehow looked deeper today.
“Where is the Alpha?”
The worry I’d been successfully ignoring came flooding back. I glanced around the grounds. “I haven’t seen him since I started preparing. I even thought he’d already be at the altar…”
“Of course you did.”
Her tone was clipped enough to sting.
She looked at me the way she always had — as though I were a complication Bastian had inflicted upon the pack and she still hadn’t decided whether to tolerate me.
Then she turned sharply.
“Beta.”
Ethan materialized from somewhere in the crowd, already reading the room. “I’ll send someone—”
“Someone has been sent,” she said. “Fifteen minutes ago.”
The silence that followed was its own kind of answer.
I was already moving before anyone told me to.
The crowd parted as I passed.
Pack members dipped their heads, murmuring respectful greetings, but I barely registered them. I glanced back once to catch Elder Constance redirecting her attention to Asher, who had the look of a man meeting his own execution.
I cracked a smile at that. happy not to be the one at the receiving end of that.
****
He probably lost track of time. Everyone knew Bastian was a little vain. He could spend ten minutes adjusting his hair if one strand sat wrong. Or maybe it was pack business. The Shadow Creek mess had been pulling him in every direction for weeks.
Poison stirred.
She’d been quiet all morning — strange for her — and now she came awake so sharply I nearly missed a step. I reached for her but she didn’t reach back. She was looking ahead, every instinct locked forward like a compass snapping to north.
I followed her attention.
Nicholas and Lucas stood outside Bastian’s preparation quarters, heads bent, shoulders stiff, their voices too low to make out but tense enough to raise every alarm in my body.
“Is Bastian still getting ready?”
The stillness that moved through them wasn’t normal. Their heads snapped toward me in perfect synchronization—same speed, same wide eyes, the exact same flash of panic when they recognized my face.
“Luna Lyra!”
“Did you hear my question?”
They nodded. Neither answered.
The growl rumbled low in my chest as I stepped closer.
Lucas forced a smile that looked painful enough to crack his face. “The Alpha will only be another moment.”
That was all I needed to hear.
I took in their rigid shoulders, the way Nicholas subtly shifted to block the door, and the sweat beading along Lucas’s temple. It was enough to send cold dread sliding down my spine. I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but I knew something was.
“Of course,” I said, softening my voice as I rested a hand over my stomach and offered them my sweetest smile. “Tell him not to keep his Luna waiting.”
I watched their shoulders loosen, just enough for the tension to break.
That was all I needed.
I turned and walked away, taking three measured steps before calling on Poison. I shifted just enough for speed to surge through my limbs, then spun back and shot between them before either could react.
They shouted behind me, scrambling too late.
Try matching a red wolf. Truly. I’d love to see it.
The door flew open beneath my hand.
The smell reached me before anything else did.
Bastian’s cedarwood — three years of it, I knew that scent the way I knew my own name. But underneath it was something else. A sweet peachy smell belonging to another omega. A scent that had no business being in this room on this day.
I stopped.
My brain did something strange then — it just refused. I stood in the doorway and I saw the overturned goblet first. The scattered clothes. The ceremonial shirt I’d watched him lay out this morning, crumpled on the floor like it meant nothing.
My eyes moved slowly.
I didn’t want them to move at all.
His back was bare. His pants were low. The rhythm of his hips was something I recognized.
One second. Maybe two. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.
Then she turned her head.
It was Isolde, one of the pack healers, a face I had greeted a hundred times. She turned and found my eyes before Bastian even knew I was in the room, Her expression cracked open. It went pale with shock fir a millisecond before changing into something cold, almost cocky.
The rage didn’t rise. It had been there the whole time, waiting. It came off the leash all at once. already half-shifted from the sprint, I surged forward before I could think a single coherent thought.
Bastian turned too late. His eyes found mine and for one fraction of a second I saw it — the recognition, the horror, the beginning of my name on his lips.
My claws were already falling.