Moon Marked

8| Mark of Escape

Aurelia

Much to my dismay, the Alpha's compassionate words had filled me with bitter hope.

The pain of my reality leaving a searing ache in my chest, singeing me from the inside out like a bird whose wings had been clipped for yearning for something more than what was fated to her—and the more distance I happened to put between the two of us, the harsher the feeling became.

He was much too kind to me considering the shame that filled me whole, his generosity eating me up with guilt when I knew for certain I wasn't the one who was meant to be on the receiving end of it. Yet, he looked at me like no one else ever had, a secret lurking behind his warmth and begging me to set it free.

I hadn't missed the longing look he had spared me when I had turned my back to him, but surely I must have imagined it. A look like that should have been reserved for wolves that were fated for each other, it should not have been shared between the likes of me and him, and with the claiming ceremony so close it didn't make any sense.

Unless—

My frantic heart slowed down to a mournful beat.

Maybe the look he had given me hadn't even been aimed at me at all.

Maybe he was imagining the woman who would stand in my place instead, thinking of how he would have her for the rest of his life, and how she would be in his arms by the end of this day.

I had been foolish to think anything else, but the anger of the revelation blistered inside of me. I didn't want to imagine which of my sanctuary sisters he shared his mark with, neither did I want to think of which of them he would take home with him, or on who he would use his mouth to utter more than just the sweet words he had given to me—nonetheless, my mind was a torturous place.

I trudged back to the sanctuary, the comfort of his presence fading away. Every corner I turned, and every step I took only built up my bitter mood and when I walked back into the dining hall where everything reminded me of my unworthiness, I could no longer tame the resentfulness I felt.

I had been far too good for far too long, but it hadn't gotten me anywhere and maybe that was the problem to begin with.

The room was empty of the hostility I had found in it not so long ago, the mess they had left strewn across the tables getting swept up by the matrons in preparation for what was going to happen next.

Everyone else had been sent to their rooms like I should have been, using the remaining hour before the ceremony to dress in their ritual gowns and make themselves look their prettiest in the hopes that their Alphas would come to take them away—to claim them, and fuck them before they took them to their new homes.

It had taken me three years to finally lose the novelty of it all, and now I couldn't stand the thought of being paraded around when I knew there was no longer any purpose for me here.

No Alpha was going to come for me, I could feel the promise of it building in the deepest parts of my soul—and by whatever circumstance or by whatever means necessary, I knew that today would be the final claiming ceremony I was ever going to attend.

I moved to the centre console as I had done earlier, settling down my unfinished ceremonial plate with a heavy thud. They would soon be moved to the heart of the sanctuary, blessed by the power that strummed through every inch of this place before we offered them to the men who had come to claim us.

My plate carelessly clattered against the stone platform, my abrasive movements calling on the attention of every matron in the room, including the one who presided over them all.