Luna Everleigh's POV
***
The wind carried the scent of night-blooming flowers through the courtyard, where lanterns flickered like scattered stars.
Tonight, there was no war. No blood. No darkness lurking at the edges of our world.
Tonight, there was only us.
Rhydian stood before me, his golden eyes reflecting the moonlight, his expression a mixture of awe and something deeper, something only we understood.
The ceremony was simple, as all wolf-bonding rituals were. No crowns. No elaborate robes. Just the two of us, standing beneath the open sky, witnessed by our pack.
Kael and Nalia stood close, silent but watchful.
The elders had already given their approval. The kingdom had already accepted me.
And now, all that was left was this moment.
Rhydian took my hands, his warmth grounding me. "From the moment I found you in the woods, I knew." His voice was low, meant only for me. "No matter how much fate tried to take you from me—I knew."
My breath hitched.
This wasn't just a vow.
It was a promise.
A choice we made, again and again.
I squeezed his hands. "We fight for this. For each other."
His lips quirked into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Always."
The ceremony didn't require words beyond that. Only the binding of souls, the final acceptance of what had always been inevitable.
And when his lips met mine, when the cheers of our people echoed through the night, I knew—this was the ending I had never dared to hope for.
But as the night deepened, and the celebration faded into quiet moments between just the two of us, a shiver ran down my spine.
Something inside me stirred.
Not the power I had fought. Not the weight of the past.
Something else.
A whisper, just beneath my skin.
A feeling that this was not the end.
But the beginning of something much, much bigger.
***
To be continued...