Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 114

POV: Adeline

Dawn came soft and silver.

I opened my eyes to pale light filtering through Elara's windows, having slipped from wakefulness to something that wasn't quite sleep and back again so many times I'd lost count. The fire had burned low. The hut was quiet.

Today.

The word settled into my chest like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through everything.

Today I would walk to the sacred clearing. Today I would speak the words. Today I would stand before my pack and pledge myself to Aiden in a bond that would last until one of us stopped breathing.

Today, everything changed.

Freya arrived before I'd fully sat up.

She slipped through the door in a dress I'd never seen—deep green, simple lines, her hair already arranged in an elaborate braid that must have taken an hour. Her eyes found mine across the room, bright with emotion, and her face crumpled immediately.

"Don't start," I warned, my voice rough from the sleepless night. "Or you'll make me—"

Too late.

The tears came for both of us, sudden and uncontrollable. Freya crossed the room in three steps and gathered me into her arms, and we clung to each other like children afraid of the dark, sobbing against each other's shoulders for reasons neither of us could have articulated.

"I told you not to start," I managed between gasps.

"You started first," she shot back, which wasn't true, but I was crying too hard to argue.

Eventually, the tears subsided enough for preparation to begin.

Freya worked on my hair while Elara laid out the dress, the silver jewelry, the small ceremonial details that tradition demanded. The moonflowers went in first—pale white blooms tucked into braids that wound around my head like a crown. Their scent was delicate, sweet, carrying memories of ceremonies I'd witnessed in another life.

The dress came next. White fabric, silver threads, Marta's craftsmanship turning something simple into something sacred. It fit perfectly—of course it did. Marta didn't make mistakes.

The jewelry was last. Borrowed from Elara—a necklace of silver links, earrings that caught the light, a bracelet that had belonged to her grandmother and her grandmother's grandmother before that.

"Something old," Elara said as she fastened the clasp. "For continuity. For the pack that came before and the pack that will come after."

I touched the cool metal against my throat and felt the weight of generations.

Freya took my hands.

We stood in the center of the hut, the preparations complete, the moment of departure approaching. Her eyes were wet again, but she wasn't crying—not quite. She was looking at me the way she'd looked at me in the seamstress's cottage, like she was seeing something I couldn't see myself.

"I'm so proud of you."

The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere tender.

"Everything you survived," she continued, her grip tightening. "Everything you became. The girl who showed up at our border with nothing but grief and ghosts—look at her now. Look at you, Adeline. You're radiant."

I tried to speak. Couldn't.

"Ash Hollow would be proud too," she whispered. "Your parents. Your pack. Caleb." She said his name carefully, gently, like touching a wound to check if it still hurt. "They would be so proud of the woman you've become."

My breath caught. Held. Released in something that was almost a sob.

"Do you think so?" The question came out small, uncertain—the girl I used to be, the one who had survived by convincing herself she didn't deserve to.

"I know so." Freya's certainty was absolute. "I didn't know them, but I know you. And anyone who loved you—anyone who watched you grow, who saw what you could become—they would look at you today and weep with pride."

The tears came again, but different this time. Not grief. Not fear.

Something that felt like healing.

I thought of my mother, who had taught me to braid my own hair. My father, who had called me his little wolf. Daniel, my brother, who had teased me about boys and sworn to vet anyone who tried to court me.

They weren't here. They would never be here.

But maybe—maybe they could still be proud.

Elara appeared in the doorway, her expression soft.

"It's time."

I looked at Freya. Freya looked at me. We shared a breath, a nod, a moment of silent understanding that words would have ruined.

Then I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and turned toward the door.

The path to the sacred clearing waited outside. The pack waited. Aiden waited.

I was ready.

As ready as anyone could be for forever.