Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 105

POV: Adeline

The night had settled over Willow Ridge in that soft, deep way it sometimes did, stars sharp against a clear sky, the air just cold enough to make breath cloud faintly when you exhaled. Most of the pack had gone to sleep or curled up near hearths inside. The noise of the day had quieted to the occasional murmur, a door closing, the distant call of an owl.

I hadn’t intended to go outside again. The bed was warm, and Aiden’s steady breathing beside me was a lullaby all on its own. But something tugged at me—a restless thread that wouldn’t settle—and after a while I slipped carefully from under the blanket, pressing a kiss to his temple before pulling on my boots and stepping out into the night.

I found Freya where I’d half-expected she might be: sitting on the low fence near the outer yard, shoulders hunched slightly, face turned up to the sky. Her braid hung loose down her back, and the usual quickness in her posture was gone, replaced by a stillness that didn’t suit her.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, crossing the grass toward her.

She didn’t startle, which told me she’d heard me coming long before I spoke. “Nothing,” she said. Then, after a heartbeat, “Everything. I don’t know.”

I settled onto the fence beside her, the wood cool beneath me. From here, the stars seemed close enough to touch, scattered across the sky like someone had thrown handfuls of light into the dark and let them land where they pleased.

Freya’s hands were wrapped around her knees, fingers linked loosely. She was rarely this quiet; even in grief, she tended to wield humor like armor. Tonight, the edges of it seemed blunted.

“You can lie to everyone else,” I said gently. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

She huffed, not quite a laugh. “I’m not lying,” she said. “I’m… editing.”

“Freya.”

She sighed, long and slow, watching the stars for another stretch of silence before words started to spill out, halting at first, then with more momentum, like water pushing past a rock.

“It’s stupid,” she said. “And selfish. And I shouldn’t be thinking about it now, when we’ve just—when we’re lucky to be breathing. But I can’t stop, and it’s keeping me up, and I hate it.”

“Try me,” I said. “I might surprise you.”

She rubbed her thumb over a knot in the wood between us, eyes still up. “Everyone’s going to pair off,” she said finally. “You know that, right? It’s already started. You and Aiden. Some of the others. War makes people cling to what they almost lost. And that’s good. That’s… beautiful. I’m happy for you. For all of you.”

The words were sincere, but there was a tremor underneath them.

“But?” I prompted softly.

“But.” She let out a breath that shivered on the way out. “But there’s this little voice in the back of my skull that keeps whispering that when everything settles, when there are pups running through the yard and couples taking night walks and everyone is wrapped up in their little units, I’ll be the one standing off to the side, making jokes to fill the quiet, pretending I don’t notice there’s no one who’s promised to come home to just me.”

The rawness in her voice made my chest ache.

“I know I’m not unlovable,” she went on quickly, as if headed off any argument. “I know I’m useful, I know I matter, I know. But sometimes I feel like I’m the pack’s older sister who makes sure everyone eats and laughs and gets the right advice, and then when the lights go out, I just… sit there. With my clever little jokes and no one to hear them.”

My throat tightened. “Freya…”

She shook her head. “And I’m afraid,” she said, voice dropping, “that the only reason anyone wants me close is because I’m funny. Because I make the horrible things less sharp for a while. Not because—” She broke off, shoulders lifting in a small, defensive shrug. “Not because of me. Just me.”

For a few seconds, I could only sit with that, feeling the weight of her words settle between us like another presence.

“You have me,” I said quietly. “Forever. No matter who else comes into either of our lives. You’re my sister. That doesn’t change.”

She turned her head then, eyes bright in the starlight, expression unguarded in a way I’d seen only a handful of times. “You say that now,” she said, trying for lightness and not quite making it. “Wait until Aiden starts snoring and there are pups chewing on your hair and you forget what it’s like to come outside and freeze your toes off for no good reason.”

“I won’t forget,” I said. “Because you’ll be banging on my window at some ungodly hour demanding I come look at some stupidly bright constellation, or because you had a nightmare and refused to admit it, or because you made too much tea and decided it was my problem. I’m not leaving you, Freya. Not for Aiden. Not for anyone. You’re woven into this for me.”

Her mouth trembled.

“I was so scared you’d die,” she said sudden and soft, the words tumbling out like she’d been holding them back for too long. “In the war. When you went down on the ridge, I—” She stopped, swallowed. “I thought, that’s it. That’s the one thing I can’t joke my way through. Losing you. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” I said, the promise coming from somewhere deep and fierce. I reached for her hand and wrapped my fingers around it, squeezing. “I’m not going anywhere. Not if I have any say in it. You’re stuck with me.”

She laughed then, a wet, shaky sound that fractured into a sob halfway through. Tears spilled over, glinting in the starlight as they slid down her cheeks. Freya almost never cried. Not where anyone could see.

I squeezed her hand again and leaned my shoulder into hers.

“It’s not stupid,” I added. “Wanting someone who is yours. Wanting to be seen beyond what you give everyone else. And you are. Seen, I mean. By me. By Aiden. By Luca, even if he pretends otherwise. You are more than your jokes. They’re just the way you wrap the rest so people don’t get overwhelmed by how much you care.”

She let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a sob. “You’re getting annoyingly good at this, you know,” she said, voice thick.

“Blame Elara,” I said. “She’s been training me.”

Freya sniffed, swiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand, then gave up and just let the tears fall for a while. I stayed there, holding onto her, letting her grief and fear move through the same space that had held mine so many times before.

We sat under the stars until the sky began to lighten at the edges, the first hints of dawn brushing the horizon in pale gray. Our hands stayed linked. Our shoulders touched.

Whatever else changed—mates, pups, politics, scars—this would not.

When we finally rose, bones stiff from the cold, Freya blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. “If you tell anyone I cried,” she said, trying to muster her usual bite and almost succeeding, “I’ll deny it and start rumors about you talking to trees.”

“You already started those,” I said.

“Then I’ll make them more creative.”

I smiled, feeling something inside me settle, warm and sure. “You have my silence,” I said. “And my forever.”

She bumped her shoulder against mine. “Good,” she said. “Because you have mine too.”

We walked back toward the packhouse as the first birds began to stir, sisterhood not newly forged, but newly named.

The stars faded. The sky brightened.

We were still here. Together.