And then Isolde turns to me. “Do you, Lumi, wish to join the Moonlight pack?”
I raise an eyebrow as if I’d go through all of that if I didn’t wish to join.
“Yes.”
Isolde holds out her hands. And just like earlier, I can see and feel the magic she is spinning. I don’t know whether I want to hide behind Ambrose or attack her and rip her throat out.
“It’s okay. She’s just making you part of the Moonlight pack. She won’t hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Ambrose says through our bond.
I nod and take a step away from Ambrose, knowing that even though we aren’t touching, he’s with me.
Isolde smirks at me in her vicious way a second before the blast hits me. I’m not sure what to expect, but it’s nothing like the last time. This time, I feel the intensity, but it’s like a warm, gentle river flowing through me, slowly finding every vein, nerve, and muscle in my body. The energy is moonlight. It’s bright and welcoming.
I smile at the feeling. When I open my eyes and see the entire Moonlight pack smiling at me, my own smile gets brighter.
Rowena and Emeric are the first to run up and congratulate me.
“I’m sorry,” Rowena whispers to me with tears in her eyes.
I shake my head. She prepared me as best as she could. I don’t know where she appeared from, but I’m glad she’s here.
Emeric lifts me up on his shoulders before I protest. I barely grip his hair as he starts running, and before I realize what’shappening, he’s shifted into his wolf form, and I’m riding on his back next to the entire Moonlight pack.
I’ve never felt this free or this sense of belonging, even within my own family. A tear rolls down my cheek, though, thinking of my family, of my pack—or former pack.
They are truly all gone. If they weren’t, then this initiation might not have worked. My father is dead.
Another tear falls as I think about all I’ve lost tonight. My father, my family, my pack, and I almost lost…
I shake my head, refusing to think of myself as a victim. I refuse to think of what could have happened and just exist in the hope of my new pack.
Ambrose’s large wolf form, practically glowing as bright as the moonlight, jogs up next to us. He tilts his head, motioning for me to jump from Emeric’s back to his.
I should be embarrassed that I have to ride on their backs, that I can’t shift like everyone else here can. But tonight, I’m not. Tonight, I proved myself. I’ll worry about the lack of shifting tomorrow.
So when I climb onto Ambrose’s back, I do it proudly. A tiny thrill shoots through me when Ambrose starts running in the opposite direction of the pack.
“I want you to myself tonight.”
Chapter 36
Lumi
Ambrose slows to a stop, and I slowly climb down from his back. In a second, his golden smile is staring at me, and his fur is replaced with flesh and blood and skin that I long to sink my teeth into. To tear apart and devour in equal measures. To claim and ruin.
He has the audacity to just stand there looking like every fantasy man I’ve ever imagined with a smug smile.
“My queen, I knew you were the one. I knew it.” His eyes light up as he speaks, like everything inside him believes the words he speaks.
I shake my head. “I barely broke free of that spell, and at the very last second. I’m not the one at all.” I sigh, letting my head fall while trying not to think about how I would have traumatized us all if I had waited even a few seconds longer to break free of the spell.
He tilts my chin up to look at him. “You’re the one.”
“The one? What does that mean?”
“It means you will be the one to break the curse.”
“I can’t.”
