My Fated Mate Chose My Sister, So I Claimed the Vampire Heir novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Moon Supper

At the Alpha's long table Evander steadies Seren's hands and shows a fang to Camryn, and Ronan sets the deadline: a true mate mark by the March full moon, or his men carry her to the border.

Evander did not wait for me to introduce him.

"Alpha Calderwood," he said, and he inclined his head exactly one inch.

"Evander Mourne. I hear you've been asking after my mate."

The word came out of him smooth and easy, and my heart slammed against my ribs.

Ronan Calderwood looked from his face to mine, and his smile never moved.

"Mourne," he said warmly. "Lord Aurelian's boy. I had no idea."

"Neither did most people," Evander said. "We were keeping it quiet."

"Of course you were." Ronan clapped him on the shoulder, and Evander let him. "Seven o'clock at my lodge. The whole pack will be glad to meet you."

He kissed the top of my head before he walked back to his truck.

I stood there with my pulse in my throat.

"He believes it," I whispered.

"He believes something," Evander said, and he watched the truck pull away.

The Moon Supper was held in the Alpha's lodge, in a long hall with a log fire at either end.

One table ran down the middle, and every mated pair in the pack sat along it, two by two.

I had sat at the far end of that table every year since I was a child.

Tonight I walked in on a vampire's arm, and the noise in the hall died one table at a time.

Wolves stared. Mothers pulled their children close.

Evander walked me past all of them to the seats beside the Alpha's chair, and he pulled mine out for me.

My foster mother sat three places down.

She looked at me once, and she looked away.

Camryn sat across the table with Gavin, her hand tight on his sleeve.

His ears were already red.

"Seren," she said sweetly. "I'm so happy for you. I really am. We all thought your wolf was just shy."

A few people laughed into their glasses.

"I think she'll show herself soon," Camryn went on. "Don't you, Evander? Wolves usually come out for their mates."

My hands had started to shake under the tablecloth.

I pressed them flat against my knees and could not make them stop.

Then Evander's hand closed over mine.

It was cool and heavy, and it slid my fingers off my knee and held them there against his own thigh beneath the cloth.

His thumb moved once over my knuckles.

The shaking stopped.

I kept my face still, and I did not look at him.

"Her wolf will come when she's ready," he said to Camryn, in a pleasant voice. "Eat your dinner."

Camryn opened her mouth.

He looked at her, and his upper lip lifted just enough.

A fang showed, long and white against the firelight.

Camryn shut her mouth.

All down the table, the forks stopped.

"Now, now," Ronan said, laughing, and he lifted his glass. "We have a guest. Let's not scare him off."

Everyone laughed with him, too loudly.

Ronan rose and held out his glass over the table.

"To Seren Fenner," he said. "Who we raised in this pack as our own, and who has found her mate. Even if he's not what we expected."

People drank.

My foster mother drank without looking up.

Ronan sat down and folded his hands.

"There's a small matter of pack law, my dear. I'm sure you know it."

My throat closed.

"A forming bond is protected," he said gently, "but it can't stay forming forever. The Goddess leaves her mark on a true bond, and I must see it."

"When?" Evander asked.

"The March full moon. Twenty-eight days from tonight."

"That's very specific."

"It's the law, Mourne. Our oldest law." Ronan's smile was generous. "If there's no mark by that night, the bond is false, and a false bond means a girl with no wolf. My men will take her to the border themselves."

He said it as gently as he had said everything else.

I looked down the table at the people I had known all my life.

Not one of them looked up.

Gavin stared at his plate, and his hands had gone white around his fork.

A mark.

I had no wolf and no mate and no idea what a mark would look like.

"She'll have it," Evander said.

I turned to stare at him.

His face did not change, and his hand stayed warm around mine.

"A mark, by the full moon," he said. "Done."

"Wonderful." Ronan lifted his glass again. "Then we'll all celebrate at the March moon. I'll tell your father to expect an invitation."

"That won't be necessary."

"Oh, but it is. Lord Aurelian will want to hear it." Ronan's eyes crinkled. "Your father will be so glad to hear it."

Evander went still.

His hand did not move, but I felt his whole arm go rigid.

For the first time since the classroom, I saw him afraid.

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