The hidden moonlight

y's

nce. The shadows it created felt alive, spreading over the ceremonial area our pack had assembled. The kind of expectation that

eath stopping in my throat. This was the evening of the Lunar Festival, when relationships were created and destinies were unveiled. My h

, looked around the audience. Unquestionably, his presence captured the attention of everyone around him. For so long,

buried piece of my life that I prayed never would surface. Still, I couldn't get

ords of the old ceremony permeated the air, each one weightier than the next, I shivered down my spin

ard, his face incomprehensible, my breath froze in my throat. This was

ross the clearing, sharp and unambiguo

st collapsed under me. After all this time, he had chosen me-hardly believable. Ho

nto Marcus's eye

ffection I had been yearning for. As he went on, his voice i

tone sharp and uncompromising. "Your secret compromise

he find out? I had buried it, walled off somewhere nobody could find it.

h shock and pain silenced me when I most needed to be fighting. The p

're being exiled." He turned away, discounting

whispers in my ears like a thousand knives slicing into me. Tears fogging my view, I staggered away from the altar. N

idea how long I traveled across the woodland. Replaying Marcus's words over and over again, each

red through the trees. When I needed to be alone, to relax, to ponder, I had always gone there. B

ike a cloak. My head still whirl as I ascended the spiral staircase, my feet res

not is

there, softly glowing in the moonlight coming through the window. But he was not alone.

l pack members. She was everything I lacked-strong, gorgeous, forceful. She was in Marcus's a

art broke once more. He had termed me weak and turned away f

b swelled in my throat. But it was already too late. Marcus's

lace, the weight of the truth hanging thick in the air. Elena th

oice full of contempt, she asked. Ha

ncomprehensible. The man I knew seemed to have

hispering, my voice shook with a mixture of hurt and rage. "How would you turn

and detached. Gone was the man I had loved-the man I believed loved me. And in his p

rigid as the nighttime air. "Leave Lily,

nting for air. Nothing left for me here-no lo

in my ears as I hurried. Desperate to flee the suffering threatening to split me apart, the f

ng. My body quivering with sadness and tiredness, I dropped to the ground. T

I had ever known, all I had ever loved had been snatched from me. And

uld he treat me? How could Marcus, the man I had loved with all my heart, turn on me so

pt it. I would stop him f

istaken if he felt he could discard me as I was nothing. I would find means of survival

h one thing was clear: I would rise from this-where I would go or what I would ac

the time was perfect. Marcus ought to pay for what

from the shadows. My heart jumped into my throat when the huge figure o