Cressida POV
"You'll marry Luka in one lunar cycle."
It's not a secret that the pack leader hates me. After all, I'm eighteen and haven't awakened my wolf. A werewolf without a wolf is just a human with better senses.
It's not unheard of for werewolves with stronger wolves to take longer to awaken, but at this point, I'm beyond the latest known age for awakening. Now, all I can do is work a normal human job and help the pack with my income to avoid being exiled. Those are the only options for failures like me.
I thought it would be enough, but the pack leader is now going to use me to make a fool out of Luka, a candidate to be pack leader of a nearby pack that shares the same distant ancestors that we do. For werewolves, ancestry and blood ties are as important as the instinct of having a fated mate.
Pack Leader Aaron dismisses me from his office. And I have no choice but to accept his command and leave. Unless I want to die for disobeying the leader as a failed werewolf, all I can do is keep my mouth shut, turn on my heel, and march out the door.
Leader Aaron's office is just a simple room in his house that he repurposed for the sake of handling pack business. I always feel like an intruder here since I have to go past his living spaces to reach the front door and leave. There's no sense in having a separate building for offices. After all, the outdoors is where we love to be the most, so why would we want to design locations like offices and use up our precious territory that could be filled with trees and the lush gifts of Mother Nature instead?
Outside, the comforting scent of burning wood fills my nose. Our pack is small, so the bonfire that's almost always burning at the center of our compound makes the entire area smell like home.
A home that I'll be leaving against my will in one lunar cycle.
If Luka was my fated mate, then it would be difficult to wait for an entire cycle to pass before marrying him. But a fated mate requires awakening my wolf. Unlike Luka, I can't have a fated mate.
I thought that being a failure would come with the benefit of being kept out of werewolf politics. Instead, the pack leader is throwing me right into the center of them.
My family isn't powerful. My dad and brothers aren't alphas. We're normal. Or, in my case, a failure. Still, our townhouse is part of a row of connected townhouses, and it's quaint. It is and always has been home to me. To be honest, I'm lucky. If my family was stronger, then they might've kicked me out when it became clear that I wouldn't be able to awaken my wolf.
Instead, they try to take care of me. I think that my parents still hold onto hope that I'm just a very, very late bloomer. I gave up that hope a long time ago, and now I simply help my family contribute to the pack by working a boring human job and giving them my money. It goes to repairs, probably. Other expenses, maybe. I never asked. Pack leader Aaron and his alpha council wouldn't tell me even if I did.
I just pay my monthly dues and leave. I can't contribute any other way, and it helps my family stay in good standing if every member contributes through service or money.
At the front door, I pause and take a breath. I almost hope that nobody's home right now, just so that I can have a moment to process my impending marriage.
It hasn't sunk in yet.
While I know that I won't find a fated mate as a failed werewolf, I at least thought that I could find a normal love in time. Yet even that has been taken from me. I'm only eighteen, and I'm being turned into a weapon to humiliate Luka.
Aaron must've made a deal with one of the other pack leader candidates, arranging this marriage in an attempt to remove Luka's chances at being the next leader of the Harvest Moon Pack, a pack that descended from the same ancestors hundreds of years ago.
I hate this.
Pushing the door open, I'm naturally not lucky enough to find an empty house. My mom is home, and I hear sounds from the hall that mean at least one other person is home, too.
"What did the pack leader want?" my mom asks, wringing her hands as she tries to appear unshaken by the fact that I was called to a private meeting with a man who hates me.
There's not really a way to make the truth less shocking, so I just say, "I'm being sent to marry Luka from the Harvest Moon Pack in one lunar cycle."
My mom freezes. She blinks slowly once. Then twice. "Luka is a nice boy," she says, having met him at events where our packs have mingled together over the years. "He's strong. He can look out for you."
She comes closer and puts her hands on my shoulders. The pressure provides a grounding weight, but I feel the same uncertainty radiating from her that has settled into a cold pit in my stomach.
Just because Luka is decent enough and strong, is he decent enough to use that strength to protect someone like me? Someone who is being tied to him through marriage simply to ruin his future.
Why would he want to protect the person who's hindering his goals? It would be more beneficial to him if I died, even if that meant killing me himself. It's not like I'd be in danger from the rest of the pack, not when there's apparently some kind of deal going on to remove Luka from consideration to be the next pack leader.
Which means Luka himself is the greatest threat to me in the Harvest Moon Pack.
Seeing the way that unshed tears shimmer in my mom's eyes, I know she must be thinking the same thing.
"Yeah," I say. "He was always nice at festivals."
But is he nice enough to let me live past our wedding night?