SERAPHINA’S POV
I stayed with Jack long enough to feel the weight of his words settle in the air between us.
His presence, usually steady—an anchor when everything else was uncertain—now felt too close. Too bright. Like a fla held near skin already burned too many tis.
I could still hear the echo of my mother’s voice from earlier, still feel the hollow space where my family’s rejection had landed and stayed, and now Jack’s certainty—his promise, his claim—pressed against that sa wound in a way I did not know how to bear.
“I think I need to rest,” I said quietly.
Jack studied for a mont, his expression shifting as though he wanted to argue, as though he wanted to close the distance between us with sothing firr than patience.
But in the end, he only nodded.
“Of course,” he said softly. “I’ll be nearby if you need .”
I managed a faint smile—awkward, uncertain, barely mine—and turned away quickly, needing distance before doubt could take hold.
The corridors of the estate were quieter now, the preparations in the distance softened into a distant pulse of life.
Every step felt like moving through layers of sothing I could not quite na, and that feeling had built all day, growing stronger with every hour.
I closed the door to my room behind and leaned against it for a mont, pressing my palm flat against the wood as though I could steady myself through it.
The room was beautiful in that way Catherine always excelled at creating—soft golden lighting, open balcony doors letting in the sound of the ocean, fabrics that felt as if they had been chosen to soothe.
It should have felt like peace.
...why didn’t it?
I moved slowly toward the bed and sat down. My hands rested in my lap, and I tried to breathe through the uneasy tension in my chest, unsure if it was sorrow, fear, or sothing else entirely.
I closed my eyes, and instantly, fragnts of images bombarded my mind.
A flash of a dark hallway.
The blur of trees under moonlight.
A voice calling my na.
A warm hand on mine.
A face that vanished before I could make sense of its features.
The sensation of falling, or maybe rising, or both at once.
And beneath it all, a pain so raw it felt like my insides were being sandpapered.
“Get it together, Sera,” I whispered to myself, pressing my fingers to my temple.
But the words did nothing to quiet it.
Instead, exhaustion pulled at in slow waves, like the tide outside the balcony doors drawing the world in and out without permission.
Eventually, my thoughts beca too heavy to hold, and I sank into sleep not because I chose to, but because I could not remain upright under the weight pressing inward.
It was not a peaceful sleep.
It was fractured, filled with half-ford images that dissolved the mont I reached for them.
And even when I woke, the pain persisted, like my heart was being shredded piece by piece.
***
The night of my birthday ca in the blink of an eye.
Catherine had not simply prepared a celebration for my birthday. She had created an atmosphere that felt like stepping into a dream.
The estate had transford. Soft lantern light floated through the gardens like captured stars, and the entire coastline of the Maldives shimred beneath a sky so clear it looked almost unreal.
Music drifted through the air—live instrunts, gentle and lodic, layered with the sound of waves eting stone terraces.
Everywhere I looked, there were flowers arranged in cascading displays, white and gold blossoms woven into arches and pathways, petals scattered like offerings across marble floors.
I stood at the center of it all, awash in admiration and beauty, and felt my emotions swing between gratitude and a dizzying sense of exposure.
It was the way the lights softened when I moved, the way conversations hushed just slightly when I passed, the way people smiled at as though I were sothing precious rather than simply present.
Catherine wore a gown that caught the light in subtle waves, silver threading through ivory fabric, her presence as composed and captivating as ever.
When her eyes t mine, her smile was like a thousand glowing stars.
“Happy birthday, sunshine,” she said.
I swallowed, emotion tightening in my throat before I could even respond. “It’s...beautiful.”
Her gaze softened in a way that made feel as though she had been waiting a long ti to hear say sothing like that.
“You deserve beauty,” she replied simply.
And then she guided forward into the celebration.
There was laughter, music rising and falling in perfect rhythm, the warmth of the people around , who had never once raised their voices in anger, never once made feel unwanted or misplaced.
Jack lingered around for most of the evening, watching rather than interrupting, his expression unreadable but steady.
What overwheld , more than anything, was the way the night slowly began to change as midnight approached.
It was subtle at first—a quiet shift in the atmosphere.
Conversations slowed. Laughter softened. Even the music seed to hesitate between notes, as if sothing larger than the celebration was drawing attention inward.
Soone whispered it near , though not loudly enough to feel intentional.
“Midnight...”
Another voice responded, lower, “If it doesn’t co tonight, it never will.”
My breath caught, a rush of anxiety and anticipation sweeping through before I even fully understood what they ant.
It was tradition, sothing spoken of in hushed reverence across packs, across generations.
If it had not co before, then at midnight on the eighteenth birthday, the bond between human and wolf awakened—or it never would.
I had always known I was different, but knowing and facing it were not the sa thing.
The countdown was not spoken aloud, but I felt it in everything anyway.
In the way eyes turned toward with expectation that had no cruelty in it, only quiet observation.
In the way even Catherine stood a little further back, watching with that sa attention she always gave when sothing important was unfolding.
And then, midnight arrived.
The final second seed to stretch.
And stretch.
And stretch.
Silence swept across the entire estate like a held breath finally released.
I felt the hollowness viscerally. The absence of sothing within that was supposed to answer.
I waited.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Nothing.
No surge beneath my skin. No rising force in my chest. No presence pressing against the edges of my consciousness, trying to erge.
The silence that followed was not cruel. No one laughed. No one spoke in disappointnt. No one looked at with pity.
Instead, sothing else happened.
Understanding. Acceptance.
A few people lowered their heads slightly, not in judgnt, but in acknowledgnt of sothing that simply was.
Catherine’s expression did not change in any way that suggested surprise. If anything, her gaze softened further, as though she had anticipated this outco long before the mont arrived.
“It’s alright,” soone near murmured gently.
“No pressure,” another voice added.
And then Jack stepped forward.
The air shifted again, but this ti it was not the tense anticipation of midnight. It was sothing else entirely.
He moved through the crowd with a calm certainty that made space for him without resistance, until he stood directly before , his eyes holding mine with no hesitation.
“Sera,” he said softly.
My breath caught at the sound of my na in his voice like that.
He reached into his pocket as he went down on one knee.
The entire estate seed to pause again, but this ti it was different.
Jack held out a ring.
“I don’t care what didn’t happen tonight,” he said, his voice carrying through the silence with steady conviction. “I don’t care what anyone expects or what traditions say. I care about you.”
My heart began to beat faster, and I could barely process what I was seeing.
There was sothing almost reverent in his smile.
“Seraphina,” he continued, “I am asking you to be my Luna. Not because fate demands it. Because I do.”
A murmur swept through the crowd—soft, astonished, approving.
My throat went dry.
“I—Jack...” My voice felt distant even to . “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything yet,” he replied gently, still kneeling. “Just know that I will choose you. Every day. In every way that matters.”
My vision blurred, not from tears, but from the overwhelming weight of being seen so directly. Of being accepted so wholeheartedly.
Jack began to rise, still holding the ring, his expression brightening as though he had already accepted an answer he believed was inevitable.
He leaned in, closing the distance between us.
And for a mont, the music, the ocean, the crowd, even my own thoughts, disappeared into the space between us.
I barely had ti to understand what was happening before I felt it.
A shift in the air. A pressure so intense it felt like the world itself had cracked open.
And then—
A voice.
Not Jack’s.
Not anyone I knew from this place.
Raw. Ferocious. Possessive in a way that shook sothing deep inside my chest.
“MINE!”
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