Chapter 7: Opal

Opal Ardrey lived in a narrow brick house in Squirrel Hill, with a lamp lit in every window.

The brass key opened the front door before I touched it.

"Come in, dear," she called. "Leave your shoes on. The floor is cold."

She sat in a deep armchair in the kitchen with a blanket over her knees and a teapot at her elbow.

A second cup was already poured.

I sat down opposite her.

"You were very good in that circle," she said. "I haven't seen anyone stand like that since my own."

"Yours?"

"I was a bookkeeper from Altoona when I married his grandfather," Opal said. "The pack put me in a circle, too."

"I'm human, Bryn. Human women have been Luna before, and some of the best."

My shoulders dropped a full inch.

"Then why does Alden say I can't be?"

"Because he needs you to believe it," she said. "Listen carefully."

"A vow spoken to an Alpha under the open sky binds him to it. That binding is already done. You felt it burn, I expect."

I touched my left shoulder blade without meaning to.

It had been warm since the bridge.

"The vow makes you his wife," Opal said. "It does not make you his Luna."

"For that, he must bite you."

"Bite me?" I said.

"Here." She tapped her own shoulder. "At the full moon, on the hill behind the lodge, before the whole pack."

"The bite seals what you said. Then you are his mate in every law the wolves keep."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then Alden calls the Council before the moon."

"The Council rules the vow an unsealed folly, and he is free to take another woman."

"That's what Alden wants," I said slowly. "The marriage void."

"Alden wants a great many things."

"Why the full moon?" I said. "Why can't he bite me tonight?"

Opal looked at her tea for a long moment.

"That is for my grandson to tell you," she said. "I promised him I would not."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Fated to My Homeless Billionaire Alpha from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.