Chapter 3

Chapter 3

They lit two hundred candles for the twins' birthday, and I carried wine through all of them.

The full moon sat in the hall's high windows. My skin had been humming since sundown, a fine buzz under everything, and three days ago a letter had told me why. Tonight I'd find out if it was true.

The Alpha raised his glass. "At moonrise, my sons come of age. At midnight, the ceremony. Luna-designate Isabelle—"

Isabelle stood in white with my mother's pendant at her throat, soaking up the applause.

Then the moon cleared the window ledge.

Xavier was laughing at something when the glass cracked in his grip—just cracked, wine running down his wrist—and his head turned toward me like something else was steering it. Across the dais, Xander came up out of his chair and stood there staring. At me.

The hall went quiet in patches, table by table.

It hit me one heartbeat later. Their scent cut through two hundred candles and found me, and my knees nearly went out from under me. The tray rang against my hip where I caught it.

On both their wrists, silver light—a mark surfacing under the skin. Half a crescent on Xavier, half on Xander. Two halves of one moon.

Someone whispered it first. "Fated. Both of them. To—"

"To the murderer?" Tiffany's voice, high and delighted. Then nothing at all.

Isabelle's glass hit the floor. "The contract." She was already moving, white dress, hands curled. "You signed. Both of you. Say the words."

Xavier looked at me down the whole length of the hall. The grin he wore every day of his life tried to climb up his face and didn't make it.

"Say it!" Isabelle screamed.

The Alpha's voice rolled through the room. "The contract stands. Sons."

Xander closed his eyes. His fists closed at his sides, and blood ran thin and dark from between the fingers of the right one.

"I, Xander, heir of Crescent—" a breath "—reject Regan as my mate."

Something under my ribs, something newborn, howled. I kept my face still and held the tray and let it howl, because seven years of practice is good for exactly this.

Xavier was still looking at me. One corner of his mouth dragged upward, a bad copy of his usual smirk.

"I, Xavier, heir of Crescent, reject—" His voice broke in half on my name, and he forced it through. "—Regan. As my mate."

Isabelle let out a breath, loud and happy.

They thought that was the end of it.

I set the tray down and straightened up. The hum under my skin had risen to a roar, and the moon through the windows sat on the back of my neck like a hand.

"My turn," I said.

Every head in the hall came around.

"I, Regan, daughter of a mother you buried with lies—" the words came up my throat like they'd been waiting there for eighteen years "—accept your rejection. And I sever what the Moon tied. Both threads. Now."

Something tore, twice, clean.

The twins hit their knees at the same instant, hands to their chests. Xavier retched blood onto the stone, and Xander folded over his own knees, shaking, making a sound I'd never heard a man make.

The hall was screaming somewhere far away.

I walked to Isabelle, who backed up a step, and took the pendant off her neck with one pull. The chain snapped easy. I closed it in my fist.

"That was my mother's."

Then I walked out through the doors into the moonlight, and the seal in my blood cracked open like river ice. Silver washed across my vision, and somewhere inside me, a wolf opened her eyes.

Three black cars waited on the drive. A man in dark uniform dropped to one knee on the gravel.

"Your Highness. The court has verified your blood. We're to bring you home."

Behind me, through the open doors, the twins were still on the floor. I looked back once.

"You pick your own, right?" I sent it across the hall, into the silence. "Then hold on to what you picked. For the rest of your lives."

In the car, the officer handed me a document and a seal. Annulment of Chosen-Mate Contract, by royal writ, with Isabelle's name already on it. I pressed the seal down.

"Deliver it tonight," I said. "And the two heirs?"

"Rejecting a royal fated mate is a crime against the Moon, Your Highness. Sentencing waits on your return."

"When do we return?"

"Whenever you wish."

I watched the pack house shrink in the rear window, every candle still burning, and my hands finally started shaking now that nobody who mattered could see them.

"Three months," I said. "I'll deliver the sentence myself."