AMARIS
The first thing I did when I woke up was stare at the ceiling.
The second thing I did was rember what day it was.
I sat up slowly and looked around the room, at the silk sheets and the carved mahogany furniture and the fresh flowers soone had placed on the dresser last night like decoration could disguise what this place actually was.
A gilded cage was still a cage.
I dragged myself to the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go, stepping in before it ward up properly and standing there while the cold hit my skin and then burned into sothing scalding. I scrubbed my arms, my neck, my hair, every inch of myself, like I was trying to wash off sothing that hadn’t happened yet.
It didn’t work.
I ca out, wrapped myself in a towel and stood in front of the mirror for a long mont.
"You look terrible," I told my reflection.
My reflection had nothing useful to offer in return.
I was still getting dressed when the knock ca and a young female pack mber pushed the door open with a breakfast tray, silver dishes stacked neatly with a single white flower in a small glass vase in the center of it all.
"Good morning." She set the tray on the table by the window with a practiced smile. "The Alpha wanted to make sure you had a proper al this morning."
Of course he did. Can’t mate a malnourished white wolf. The heir might co out small.
"Thank you," I said, because she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She moved to leave and I stopped her. "Have you seen Nia this morning?"
She turned back. "Nia?"
"My friend. She’s been gone since yesterday and I can’t find her anywhere."
She gazed at for a mont probably contemplating what to tell . "Nia does that sotis. She takes off for a day or two without telling anyone. She has people in the outer territory."
I picked up a fork and set it back down. "She didn’t say anything to about leaving."
"She probably didn’t want to worry you." The pack mber shifted her weight slightly. "Especially with today being—"
"The ceremony." I finished for her.
"Yes." She clasped her hands together in front of her. "But if she’s not back by this evening, Alpha Corvin has already said he’ll send a troop out to look for her properly."
"That’s very reassuring," I said.
She smiled like I ant it and left.
I looked down at the food and picked up a piece of bread and ate it without tasting it, chewing chanically, staring out the window at the pack grounds below while I did.
Three sentinels were running drills near the tree line, moving in tight formation, barking commands at each other. A group of females crossed the courtyard with baskets of white ribbon and flowers, moving quickly and with purpose, already decorating the grounds for tonight.
I watched them work and wondered if any of them knew what was actually happening here, or if they simply didn’t care because an Alpha’s decisions were an Alpha’s decisions and a Stormshadow female with the right blood was a resource, not a person whose opinion mattered.
I pushed back from the table and pressed my palm flat against the glass of the window.
Perfect blue sky outside, sharp and clean the way mornings got when the evening was going to be clear.
Perfect mating ceremony weather.
I turned away and crossed back to the mirror, not for any particular reason, just because standing still in one place for too long made the room feel like it was shrinking. I had been trying to think my way out of this since two in the morning. Since Corvin stood in his study with that flat look in his eyes and told I would be his Luna whether I wanted it or not, I had been searching for the move I was missing.
There wasn’t one.
No running. He would find before I reached the pack border.
No fighting. I had nothing to fight with and no one willing to fight beside .
Just tonight, sitting at the end of the day like a wall I had no way around.
I went and sat on the edge of the bed with my hands folded in my lap and looked at the white flower in the vase on the tray.
Soone had thought to put a flower on the tray of the woman being handed over tonight. The detail was almost funny in a way that made my chest hurt rather than made laugh.
The room was so quiet I could hear the sentinels outside, their count faint through the glass.
I don’t know how long I sat there before it reached .
Drifting in from under the door, quiet and gradual, the way scents moved when soone had been standing sowhere long enough to leave a real trace. Warm fur and sothing darker underneath it, specific and familiar in a way that bypassed thinking entirely and went straight sowhere lower.
My head lifted.
He had been out there for a while before he knocked. The scent was already full and settled, not fresh, which ant he had stood on the other side of that door long enough to have a whole argunt with himself about whether to do this.
The knock ca once.
Just once.
I sat there on the edge of the bed and I thought about tonight, about Corvin, about every single sensible reason that door should stay exactly where it was.
I crossed the room and opened it.
Ryker stood in the doorway looking like he hadn’t slept, his jaw tight, his eyes moving over my face like he was checking for sothing.
"Amaris," he muttered, his piercing gaze locked with mine, penetrating deep into my soul and I knew then.
We were at a crossroad.
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