It was time.
We walked in slowly, the room already humming with restrained magic and dominance. Luna Alice sat at the far end of the long obsidian table, her mate at her right, and two warriors flanking the door behind them. Her gaze locked onto mine instantly.
“You’re not alone, Lyra,” she said softly.
I nodded and took the seat offered beside her. Hunter remained standing just behind my chair, a sentinel in Beta skin.
Then the doors opened again, and in came the people who had shaped my childhood like sculptors working on soft clay—my mother, my father, and three robed elders from our coven.
My mother’s eyes flicked to Hunter, and then to my neck, and I saw her breath stutter. My father’s lips tightened, his expression unreadable.
“You are summoned,” Luna Alice began, “to answer fo
