Chapter 3
The day of the Moon Rite, Kane came.
Right on the line. The last possible moment.
I watched him cross the crowd, every inch the Alpha, moonlight sitting on his shoulders.
For the first time in seven years, something in my chest lurched.
I thought —
maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe he's only busy.
Maybe he'll open his mouth today and Theo will throw himself into his arms, and these six months can go back to never having happened.
Before a woman gives up for good, she always does this. Finds him one last excuse.
The Moon Rite is what the pack holds after a pup survives the blood fever.
In front of everyone, a father leads his child out into the moonlight.
The pack claims the new wolf as its own.
From that night, the child belongs to the pack, fully and properly.
It's the one thing a father can give his child only once in a lifetime.
Once.
Kane took his place in the center.
The pack watched.
And then he did what every father does.
He followed the blood and put out that thread to Theo.
On a night like this, in front of all these people, when a father calls his child —
the child's door flies open and the whole of him pours into that warmth.
The pack was waiting to see it.
Kane was waiting too.
He already had the fond-father smile hung on his face.
Theo stood beside me.
He lifted his head and looked at his father.
The door —
didn't open.
Not a crack.
Kane's thread went out straight, struck a cold wall, and came back.
Every wolf there felt it.
An Alpha.
At the Moon Rite.
Shut out by his own six-year-old son.
The silence was terrible.
The smile froze on Kane's face, an inch at a time.
He stared at Theo, then at me, and his throat worked.
"Theo..."
And right then —
his phone rang.
I didn't have to look to know who it was.
I looked at him and almost laughed.
Not even today.
Kane's face went red.
He dropped his voice and said a few quick words to the Elder beside him. Something urgent at Sable's. He had to go, now.
Then he turned to me.
"The rite... finish it for me."
"I'll make it up later."
I didn't say anything.
I just looked at him.
Seven years.
And for the first time I saw one thing perfectly clearly.
To him, Theo and I were the kind of thing you make up later.
She was now.
He turned and left that patch of moonlight. He all but fled it.
Leaving Theo alone in the middle of the ring.
Such a small child.
Such a wide, empty space.
The Elder walked over and stood beside my son.
And in that departed father's place, he walked the last of the Moon Rite through to the end.
The old man lifted his eyes to me. His voice was heavy.
"That's two."
As the crowd broke up, I touched the back of my neck.
The mate mark had faded from silver-gold to gray.
Cold.
One shade of color left.
One more time.