Serena
I was not supposed to be at the Mirewood event hall.
My father had left for the negotiations on Thursday morning, and I had watched his car leave the Ironveil gates from my bedroom window, and I felt something loosen in my chest
That was the thing that crossed my mind as I walked through the doors, instantly feeling the Blood Moon like a second heartbeat.
It was loud and insistent, pressing against my chest as it had always been there. For one night, nobody in the room would know who anybody else was.
I stood at the entrance, taking in the sight of the masquerade ball
And I thought to myself, "Just for one night, I wasn't the daughter of Alpha Conrad Ashveil." I was not the Ironveil heir
I was not the woman whose engagement had been announced four days ago to a man who had shaken my hand as if I were a contract.
But Tonight? Tonight I was nobody.
Through the open ceiling panel, the moon was large and red, casting a red hue into the building, and I could feel my wolf pressing against my ribs.
It was a little stir, but it was enough to make me notice it was there.
I moved into the crowd. Let myself disappear.
I danced, not with the careful movement I did at pack functions. I let myself feel the moment as though the drums were in my blood.
The Blood Moon was doing something to the room that made every wolf loosen up. I danced like nobody was watching, and it felt wonderful to loosen up this once
Then I stood at the edge of the room, breathless with wine I didn't remember taking from the bartenders, watching the crowd, and felt my wolf settle into a hum.
That was when I saw him, my eyes finding his piercing silver eyes, and I couldn't look away
I noticed him the way you notice the change in the weather.
He was tall. His skin was russet where his mask ended, at his jaw, with two holes: one for breathing and the other to see his lips. The mask itself was carved from wood with silver running along the edges. Below it, his jaw could have been cut from something. Above it, his eyes were silver like the moon
The crowd moved around him like a river. He had the stillness of someone who had nowhere to be
My wolf stopped humming
I looked away shyly and moved to a different part of the room, already tipsy
And he was already there, not close, but there, there as though he were following and watching my every step.
I told myself it was the Blood Moon making me oversensitive. I almost believed it.
Somehow, I ended up at the railing on the upper balcony,
"Just a little fresh breath of air and I'll go down to the party," I muttered to myself tirelessly
I stayed for a little while, watching the stars
He appeared behind me almost immediately, and He spoke jokingly, "You have been moving a lot for someone who looks like she would rather be still." I turned, and up close, his mask was more intricate than I had realized. His silver eyes were patient and searching, not waiting for a reaction, just looking.
I said, "Is that an observation or a criticism?"
He said, "An observation. I do not know you enough to criticize you yet." The "yet" sat in the air between us. I chose not to address it.
I said, "I am fine." He chuckled, a deep, beautiful sound, "I didn't say you weren't, just meant you look like someone who came here to escape for a few minutes, hours maybe." I looked at him for a moment. He was right, and that was irritating
I said dejectedly, "Old habit."
He said, "What are you in the habit of escaping from?" The question landed differently than it should have, too accurate, too direct.
He had asked it straight and without decoration. Now it was sitting between us, waiting for an answer.
I said, "Everything, mostly." He nodded once, slowly, not with sympathy but with recognition. He said, "Me too."
We spoke about small things, the common things.
What we liked, what we thought, what we would do if nobody was watching, which tonight they were not.
He asked, "What do you actually want? If wanting was allowed," Nobody had ever asked me that, not once in my twenty-four years.
"I love the book, the forest to the manor, I've read the book more times than I can count because it was the only place I truly felt at rest," I said, still looking at the stars, and this time he wasn't behind me but beside me, looking at me.
He listened to the Small things, things that felt embarrassing to say out loud, and somehow were not with him.
He listened, not like someone waiting for their turn to speak, but the real kind, where you could feel the other person actually receiving what you said, treating it as if it mattered.
My wolf was doing something this time, not the pointed straining thing it had done when I first saw him, but something quieter, something that felt like settling.
The Blood Moon climbed higher, and the hall grew warmer. At some point, I had stopped being aware of the room and only paid attention to him, the beauty and mystery of him a few feet away, the way the light caught the silver edge of his mask, and the patience in his eyes that never wavered for one second.
I said, "You have been asking me about myself for two hours."
The corner of his mouth lifted.
He said, "This one is different." I looked at him. The Blood Moon poured a red light through the ceiling panel above us, and in that light, his silver eyes were bright and serious, and the question he had not asked yet was already sitting between us, almost visible.
My wolf was not sitting down anymore.
He said, "One night?" Two words, no decoration, no performance, just a plain and direct question, in the voice of someone who did not make requests lightly but was making this one anyway. I should have said no, I knew what no felt like cause I had been saying it for twenty-four years.
Instead, I saw my body move against my better judgment and locked lips with him. He kissed me back with the same intensity, and our wolves were becoming hot every second that went by,
He stopped abruptly and extended his hand
"Shall we?" He rasped, his emotions still deep in his throat.