"The Alpha heir's voice rang out across the festival."
The final note of the haunting melody faded into the night air, leaving a silence so complete it felt like the entire world was holding its breath. I expected the crowd to resume their festival celebrations—the laughter, the animated conversations, the gentle mockery that always followed traditional dances. Instead, the hush deepened with an intensity that made my enhanced senses prickle with awareness.
Every eye in the courtyard remained fixed on us in the ethereal moonlight, hundreds of supernatural beings waiting for something they couldn't name but instinctively recognized as significant.
And then Darius spoke, his words carrying across the festival grounds with the kind of resonance that belonged to formal declarations rather than casual conversation.
"Elara Bennett," he said, his voice pitched low but somehow reaching every corner of the assembled crowd. The words resonated with the unmistakable force of Alpha power, the kind of authority that demanded attention from every wolf within hearing range. "Is my true mate."
The declaration crashed into the festival atmosphere like a thunderclap splitting clear sky.
Gasps erupted at once from every direction—some sharp with disbelief, others breathless with awe at witnessing something that would be retold for generations. The ripple of sound swelled across the courtyard like wildfire, students turning to each other with wide eyes, instructors stiffening where they stood as they processed the implications of what they'd just heard.
The whispers began immediately, carried on enhanced hearing that made privacy impossible in gatherings like this.
"He can't possibly mean it—"
"But he rejected her so brutally just weeks ago—"
"The goddess has bound them, you can see it in their eyes—"
"This changes everything at the Academy—"
"His family will never accept this—"
My chest tightened until I thought I couldn't breathe, the air feeling too thin despite the evening breeze that rustled the paper lanterns overhead. The mate bond surged violently inside me, my wolf throwing herself against my consciousness with desperate vindication. She howled with longing and joy so pure it made my bones ache, finally hearing the words she'd been waiting for since that first moment our eyes had met.
But my human pride recoiled with equal force, still raw and wounded from the memory of his brutal rejection. He had thrown me away in front of half the Academy, called me weak and unworthy, and now—now he dared to claim me in the exact same spotlight where he'd destroyed me.
My lips parted as I struggled to find words, to form some response to the declaration that was reshaping my entire world. But nothing came. My voice had abandoned me completely, leaving me mute in the face of a moment that demanded answers I didn't have.
Darius's burning gaze never wavered from mine, golden eyes holding me captive with an intensity that seemed to see straight through to my soul. The supernatural fire burning in those depths left no room for denial, no space for retreat or careful consideration. He looked like a man who had finally stopped fighting his own nature, who had embraced the truth of what the goddess had written in our very beings.
The force of his certainty shook me to my core.
The tense silence that had fallen over the courtyard broke suddenly with the sound of laughter—but not the kind that belonged at celebrations.
This laughter was cold, sharp, mocking enough to cut through the romantic atmosphere like a blade through silk.
Gideon stepped forward from the shadows where he'd been lurking, his amber eyes glittering with cruel amusement that transformed his handsome features into something genuinely unsettling. The bruises from his earlier confrontation with Darius were already beginning to fade thanks to supernatural healing, but they added a dangerous edge to his appearance that made several students take unconscious steps backward.
"Well," he drawled, beginning a slow, theatrical clapping that echoed mockingly across the stone courtyard. "Isn't this absolutely rich? The great Alpha heir changes his mind on a whim, and suddenly we're all supposed to forget his savage rejection? To believe this transparent... spectacle?"
Students shifted uneasily around us, glancing between the two rivals with the kind of nervous energy that preceded violence. Even those with the weakest supernatural senses could feel the air sharpening into something dangerous, charged with the promise of conflict that would make the evening's romantic atmosphere seem like a distant memory.
Darius's response was immediate and primal—a growl that rolled low in his chest before spreading outward like thunder. His dominance flooded the space around us, pressing against every wolf present with enough force to make the weaker students stumble backward. When he spoke, his voice carried the kind of absolute authority that had been bred into his bloodline for generations.
"This is no spectacle, Wicke. It is truth, witnessed under the goddess's own light."
But Gideon's cruel laughter cut through his declaration like acid, dark and unyielding in its mockery. "Truth? No, Fenrir. What we're witnessing is desperation." His calculating gaze slid to me, amber eyes glittering with something that made my skin crawl despite the distance between us. "The mighty Alpha heir, so terrified of being alone that he'll claim damaged goods rather than face the shame of having no mate at all."
The insult hit me like a physical blow, but before I could react, Gideon continued with surgical precision.
"You don't deserve her, and you never did. She's too good for someone who treats fated mates like disposable toys to be discarded when inconvenient."
My pulse thundered against my eardrums as every gaze in the courtyard turned sharper, more focused, hungrier for the drama unfolding before them. I wanted to sink into the ground, to escape the suffocating weight of their collective attention. The paper lanterns swaying overhead seemed to dim as if even the festival decorations were holding their breath.
But something deep inside me—my wolf, my pride, some combination of both—refused to let me shrink or cower. Despite everything, despite the chaos and confusion and pain of the past weeks, I found myself standing straighter rather than wilting under their scrutiny.
Darius took a deliberate step forward, his powerful frame coiling with barely contained violence. The scent of his barely leashed fury began to permeate the evening air, making students in the nearest rows shift nervously as their survival instincts recognized the signs of an Alpha on the edge of losing control.
But before he could close the distance between them, Gideon raised his voice again, pitching his words to carry across the entire festival ground with crystal clarity.
"If you truly believe she belongs to you, Fenrir..." His smile was all teeth and malicious satisfaction, the expression of someone who'd been maneuvering toward this exact moment for longer than anyone realized. "Then you'll have to fight me for her."
The formal challenge landed like a gauntlet thrown at the feet of destiny itself.
The crowd's reaction was immediate and explosive—gasps splitting the air again, louder this time, followed by excited whispers that turned frantic as the implications sank in. This wasn't just Academy drama anymore; this was the invocation of ancient laws that superseded even institutional authority.
Anticipation grew thick as the very air itself began to tremble with the promise of violence that would settle this conflict once and for all.
My heart lurched painfully in my chest, the mate bond pulling me toward Darius with desperate urgency even as dread curled through my stomach like poison. The Festival of Moons, meant to celebrate unity and goddess-blessed love, had transformed into something far darker.
It had become a battlefield, and I was its prize.