Edit book cover The Blood Soaked Luna: Crown of Ashes

Selene POV

The silk felt like water against Selene's skin.

She twirled again, watching the midnight blue fabric flare around her ankles. Her mother had commissioned the gown specially for tonight. For the Moonlight Feast. The most important gathering the Eltharion manor had hosted in years, or so the servants kept whispering when they thought no one was listening.

Selene was always listening.

"Catch me if you can!"

Isolde's giggle exploded through the great hall like a firecracker. Selene spun just in time to see her little sister dart between two maids carrying a platter of honeyed bread, yellow dress flying behind her like a flag.

"You'll wrinkle your gown before a single guest arrives!" Selene called after her.

She was already running.

Their game wove between servants and silverware, past footmen polishing candlesticks until they could see their own faces in them. The whole manor buzzed and hummed like a hive getting ready to swarm. Selene caught Isolde near the hearth, both of them crashing together in a breathless heap of silk and laughter.

"Got you."

"You cheated. You took the shortcut by the bread table."

"That's called strategy."

"Girls."

Their mother's voice cut across the hall like a blade wrapped in velvet. Gentle. Final.

Lady Elara Eltharion stood near the main doors with her dark hair already pinned and her expression already composed. Even in a simple day dress she looked like she'd been born to stand in doorways and make everyone else feel underdressed. She smiled at her daughters, but her eyes were doing that thing. That measuring thing.

"Come here. Both of you."

Selene took Isolde's hand and they walked over together. Their mother knelt to their level, which she only ever did when something was important.

"Tonight matters," Lady Elara said quietly. "Neighboring packs are coming to celebrate kinship under the full moon. You will meet other noble children. Some of them may become allies one day. Friends."

"Or mates," Isolde whispered, then slapped both hands over her mouth.

Selene felt heat flood her cheeks. "I am ten years old."

"And I was ten once too." Their mother laughed, soft and short. "There is time for all of that later. What I need from you both tonight is your best behavior. Greet guests politely. Do not speak during the formal toasts unless you are spoken to first. Can you do that?"

"Yes, Mama," they said together.

Lady Elara stood and smoothed Selene's hair back from her face. Her touch was warm. Careful. Like she was memorizing something.

"You look beautiful, darling. Both of you do." She glanced toward the corridor. "Your father will be so proud."

"Where are my girls?"

The boom of Lord Matthias's voice filled the hall before he did. He swept in from the corridor in his full formal coat, black fabric embroidered with silver thread, the Eltharion crest sitting proud over his heart. He was a Beta wolf, but no one who had ever stood in the same room as Matthias Eltharion would have guessed it. He carried authority the way other men carried weapons.

"Papa!" Isolde launched herself at him without a single second of hesitation.

He caught her easily, one arm sweeping her up and spinning her once. "My little flower. Look at you. When did you get so tall?"

"I'm seven now. Practically grown."

"Practically," he agreed, setting her down. His eyes moved to Selene. "And you. Come here."

Selene walked to him. She was trying not to let it show, that flutter in her chest. Her father had been so distant lately. Always behind closed doors. Always in meetings with pack leaders who left with tight mouths and no small talk.

He cupped her face in both hands. His palms were warm and rough and familiar.

"You look exactly like your mother." His voice dropped low. "Beautiful and strong. The Eltharion blood runs true in you, Selene."

Her wolf stirred. She couldn't shift yet, wouldn't be able to until her first moon, probably a year away still. But she could feel her wolf there. A second heartbeat. A presence curled up behind her ribs.

Right now that presence felt uneasy.

"Papa." She searched his face. "Is everything alright?"

His smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Of course it is. Tonight we celebrate. Politics can wait until tomorrow."

But Selene had heard the whispers. Servants forgot children had ears. Words like rebellion and southern packs and the Alpha King's patience running thin had been drifting through the halls for weeks.

A servant appeared in the doorway and bowed. "My lord. The first guests are arriving."

Lady Elara touched her hair. "Already? I need to finish getting ready."

"Go." Lord Matthias kissed her cheek. Then he looked at his daughters. "Upstairs. Both of you. Get your hair done properly. I want you looking like the noble ladies you are."

They curtsied and hurried for the stairs.

Selene glanced back once from the bottom step.

Her father stood alone in the middle of the great hall, surrounded by all that careful preparation and blazing candlelight, staring at nothing. His shoulders were a wall. His jaw was stone.

Something was wrong.

"Come on!" Isolde yanked her hand. "I want flowers braided in my hair!"

Selene let herself be pulled up the stairs.

Whatever it was, it was adult business.

At least that's what she told herself.

-----

Two hours later the great hall had become something out of a dream.

Every sconce blazed. The long tables were buried under roasted venison and glazed vegetables and bread so fresh the smell of it made Selene's stomach ache. Wine moved freely between hands. The musicians in the corner had found their rhythm, drums and flutes weaving together under the noise of a hundred conversations happening at once.

And wolves. Everywhere, wolves.

Not in beast form. This was a formal gathering and civilized wolves kept their other selves tucked away at dinner tables. But Selene could feel them. Every single one. Power rolled off the guests in waves she could sense even if she couldn't name it yet. Alphas sat at the high tables with their broad shoulders and their careful eyes. Betas clustered in groups, talking with their hands. A few Omegas moved through the room like rare jewels, treated gently, watched closely.

Selene sat at the children's table with Isolde pressed warm against her side and a handful of other noble children she didn't know well enough to like yet.

"That's Lord Varion." The boy across from her nodded toward the far table without looking directly at it. Smart. "He controls three territories east of the Thornridge border."

"My father says he's greedy," the girl beside him said.

"Everyone with power is greedy. That's how they got it."

Selene said nothing. She was watching her father.

Lord Matthias was performing tonight. There was no other word for it. He laughed at the right moments. Raised his glass when the room raised theirs. Clapped men on the back with the easy warmth of someone who had nothing to hide and nowhere else to be.

But his shoulders never relaxed. Not once.

Her mother moved between tables like water, filling silences, refreshing glasses, asking after children and hunts and harvest seasons with a smile so practiced it could have been carved into her face. Lady Elara Eltharion had been a nobleman's wife for long enough that gracious came naturally as breathing.

Selene loved her for it and found it heartbreaking in equal measure.

"You are staring," Isolde said into her cup.

"I'm watching."

"Same thing."

"It really isn't."

Isolde wrinkled her nose and reached for another piece of bread.

Selene's gaze drifted toward the servants' entrance near the far wall.

Alaric was there.

He stood just inside the shadow the doorframe threw across the floor, far enough back that most guests wouldn't notice him at all. He had dressed for the occasion, dark formal clothes, hair combed back. He could have taken a seat at any of the tables. Her father would have welcomed it. Her mother would have pulled out the chair herself.

Instead he stood alone and watched the room with the patience of someone who had nowhere better to be and nothing left to prove.

He was seventeen. Maybe eighteen by now. Selene had never been entirely sure. He'd come to them when she was four, a boy with hollow cheeks and eyes too old for his face, the only survivor when his pack was destroyed in a territorial dispute. Her father had taken him in without hesitation. Given him a name in their household. A room. A place at the table.

Alaric had never quite sat down at it.

She caught his eye across the hall.

He didn't smile. Didn't wave. His gaze settled on her the way it always did, steady and unreadable and a little too long. Like she was something he was keeping track of.

A chill moved down her spine that she couldn't explain and didn't want to examine.

"Selene." Isolde tugged her sleeve. "You're not eating again."

"I'm not hungry."

"It's the Moonlight Feast. You are always hungry at the Moonlight Feast."

Selene picked up her fork and took a bite of venison. It tasted like nothing.

At the high table, a visiting lord climbed to his feet with his wine glass raised high. The hall quieted.

"To Lord Matthias Eltharion!" His voice carried easily. "A true Beta wolf. Loyal to his pack and loyal to his king!"

"To Lord Matthias!"

Glass met glass. Her father stood and bowed.

"You honor me. But tonight we honor something greater than any one man." He lifted his own glass. The candlelight caught it. "We honor the bonds between packs. The kinship that makes all of us strong." A pause. Just a breath. "To Alpha King Damian. May his reign be long and just."

"To the Alpha King!"

Selene watched the room drink.

Most of them did it cleanly. Glasses up, glasses down, conversation resuming. But there were a few, she counted four without trying, who brought their glasses to their lips without quite drinking. Whose eyes moved to each other just a fraction of a second too quickly.

Her wolf pressed against the inside of her chest like a hand against a locked door.

"Papa looks scared," Isolde said quietly.

"He's fine."

"No." Isolde's voice was very small. "He's not. I can feel it. My wolf can feel it."

Selene turned to look at her sister properly. "You can already feel your wolf?"

"A little. Since last month." Isolde looked up at her. "Can't you feel yours?"

"Yes." Selene reached under the table and found her sister's hand. "And right now she's scared too."

Isolde's fingers locked around hers and held on tight.

The musicians shifted tempo. Younger wolves drifted toward the open floor to dance. The children's table was forgotten as the adults fell into the warmer, louder business of a feast finding its stride.

Selene breathed. Let her shoulders drop. Maybe she was borrowing trouble from tomorrow. Maybe this was just politics and wine and things she didn't have the context to understand yet.

She took another bite of bread.

"I need the privy," Isolde announced.

"I'll come with you."

"I'm not a baby."

"Mama said to stay together."

Isolde opened her mouth, closed it, and stood up with the dignified suffering of a seven year old who knew she had already lost. Selene stood with her and they slipped away from the table, moving toward the corridor that led away from the noise and the light.

Behind them, the feast roared on.

Alaric POV

He had been watching her all night.

Not the way the other men in the room watched things, with hunger or calculation or boredom. Alaric watched Selene the way a soldier watches a border. Constant. Quiet. Already knowing what was coming across it.

She was ten years old in a midnight blue dress that her mother had chosen and her father had admired and neither of them had any idea was the last beautiful thing she would ever wear in this house.

Alaric's jaw tightened.

He took a slow breath and made himself look away.

The hall was exactly as he'd known it would be. Full. Loud. Distracted. Lord Matthias had done his job well, gathered half the southern nobility under one roof on the night of the full moon like an offering laid out on a table. The man had no idea he was the one being hunted.

Alaric almost felt something about that.

Almost.

He shifted his weight against the doorframe and let his gaze move throu