Aiden immediately began to shift.
This was it.
~Your turn, Sienna.~
But I stood in place, not moving.
It was like my feet were frozen to the platform.
A gasp rippled through the crowd like a tidal wave, and Aiden’s massive wolf now stood beside me, gazing up expectantly at me.
~It’s not too late,~ I told myself. ~You can still shift. Do it for your mate.~
But I just shook my head and moved one of my feet toward the podium. ~Nope. You’re doing THIS instead, Sienna.~
I forced myself to walk the rest of the way, ignoring the dumbfounded faces in the crowd, the questioning eyes, the sibilant whispers. My hand shook as I pulled down the microphone so it was pointed at my lips.
I tried to speak, but the words refused to budge. My adrenaline was spiking, constricting my throat and every muscle in my body.
~You’re an alpha too, Sienna. Start acting like it.~
I closed my eyes, blocking out the sea of people, and my throat relaxed, allowing the words to come pouring out before I had a chance to think.
“I will stand with my mate but only as his equal, not as his prize. I still ask for your blessing, but I will not shift.”
There was a moment of silence as my declaration sank in, but angry howls soon pierced the growing tumult. I stepped back from the podium, unsure what to do next.
The shouting intensified, many of the spectators’ faces contorting with malice, and I started to feel frightened, threatened.
Did I just make a huge mistake?
I felt a nudge in my back and turned to see my mate, still in wolf form.
“I’m so sorry, Aiden. I just can’t.” I placed my hand on his muzzle. “This is one tradition I refuse to uphold.”
Even in his wolf form, my mate’s eyes held such disappointment and betrayal it stabbed in the heart like a sharp knife. I had to get away before I completely broke down.
I turned and walked off the stage as quickly as I could without running.
When I made it to the ground, Jocelyn was there waiting to intercept me.
“Sienna, wait!”
“Jocelyn, I can’t. I need to get out of here.”
She looked me over, then nodded. “Okay. Come with me.”
Taking my hand, Jocelyn pulled me past the news vans. Already reporters and camera operators had started to swarm around me, lunging with lenses and microphones.
By the time my security team caught up with us, we’d already made it to the pack cars. One of the bodyguards opened the door to a limousine and ushered us inside.
He slammed the door closed, instantly muting the sounds outside. But as we sped away, I looked out the tinted windows at the mob of angry wolves shouting at our car. I’d never felt so hated in my life.
Thankfully, I still had Jocelyn.
She and I had become like sisters over the past year, and her previous relationship with Aiden meant that she knew him as well as I did, if not better.
That said, I’d kept her in the dark about my apprehensions. She’d been brought up in the same pack-centered world as my mate, and if she sided with him, well…
I’d decided I would rather go it alone than risk tainting our friendship.
I took Sienna’s hand, and she turned away from the window to look at me.
“Si,” I said gently. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
As the pack healer, I not only mended physical wounds but emotional ones as well. And Sienna and I had grown close this past year.
I saw so much of myself in her. And when she’d mated with Aiden, my healer senses told me she needed someone to help her navigate pack life.
I grew up in this world and could aid her in ways her mother and sister couldn’t.
So why hadn’t she trusted me with her feelings? Did she harbor resentment about Aiden’s and my history?
Sienna sighed. “I didn’t think you would understand. I thought you’d tell me the same things Aiden did.”
“Which was?”
“That it wasn’t a big deal. That it’s important for the pack. That I’m overreacting. But now I see how stupid it was to keep it all bottled up. And now you both hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, Sienna, and neither does Aiden.”
She shook her head emphatically. “You didn’t see the look in his eyes.”
I could tell she was fighting back tears.
“I’m sure he felt embarrassed, Si. And it certainly didn’t help that the Alpha of the Millennium was there…”
“Thanks for reminding me!” she cried, burying her face in her hands.
I put my arm around my friend and began to stroke her hair. ~Of course~ my heart went out to Aiden—I could only imagine what my former lover was dealing with—but right now I needed to focus on helping Sienna.
“I’m such a horrible mate, Jocelyn! I just abandoned him there. With the crowd, with Raphael!”
I pulled her in closer. “I can tell that this is about more than just the ritual,” I said in my soothing healer voice.
Sienna was silent for a moment.
“You can trust me, Si. No judgments here.”
She lifted her head and met my eyes. “Aiden wants to start trying for a family, like now, and I’m not ready at all.”
“What makes you feel not ready?”
“I don’t know. It’s this feeling that’s hanging over me. I can’t explain it.”
“Does it have to do with Aiden?”
“That’s definitely part of it. It’s like he only wants pups because tradition says we should start now. That’s crazy, right? You should have kids because you want to have kids, not because some outdated rules say you should.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Sort of. But I don’t want him to think that I’m ungrateful or that I don’t want to have his pups. What I really want to say, though, is that I think a big part of the world he was raised in is folksy bullshit.”
I burst out laughing. Sienna could be refreshingly blunt. “Maybe don’t use ~those~ words, but every healthy relationship is based on open communication.”
Sienna began to pick at the seat. “Yeah,” I heard her mutter under her breath. “But that only works when your mate is willing to listen.”
“And the other part?”
“What?” She stopped picking and lifted her head.
“What’s the other part of the feeling that’s hanging over you?”
“I’m not sure I even know, really. It’s like this fear lurking in the back of my mind that looms ominously above me whenever the conversation of having children comes up.”
“Fear of what?”
“I don’t know. The unknown, I guess.”
“It’s normal to be apprehensive about the future, Si. Especially when it comes to starting a family.”
“No, it’s not about the future as much as it is the past, like where I come from.”
“You mean your family?”
“Yes, but not my adoptive family, my biological one. I don’t know anything about them.”
“What about that frightens you?”
“I mean, I was left outside a hospital in a baby carriage—they could be ~anyone~. Before you pass along your genes, don’t you think you should know what they’re carrying?”
“Family is more than genetics, Sienna. Look at your adoptive parents. Do you think they cared who your bio parents were when they brought you home?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it, though?” I asked gently.
“Of course it is! I was literally pushed into their lives. Were they supposed to wait for a background check on my parents before bringing me home?”
“Si, I think you’re obsessing over this too much. Any children you have with Aiden will be fine. You’re a perfectly healthy, loving she-wolf, and he’s an alpha. They get half his genes too, you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You’re not even mated!”
I could tell she instantly regretted letting the words out of her mouth.
And, believe me, the irony of a twenty-five-year-old unmated female—practically a spinster in werewolf years—advising a twenty-year-old girl on how to plan a family and handle her mate wasn’t lost on me.
“Jocelyn, I didn’t mean to say that! I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, I swear—”
“It’s fine, Sienna. I know your head is in a million places.” And it’s not like I’d shared with her how much being mateless had been weighing on me.
I gave her a reassuring smile. “You need to talk to Aiden, though…about both parts.”
As usual, Jocelyn was right.
But how was I supposed to approach Aiden after what I’d just done?
“Thank you for your advice on how to patch up my relationship, Doc,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “But what would you prescribe for repairing my image with the rest of the pack?”
Jocelyn raised an elegant brow, then said wryly, “I’m a healer, not a miracle worker.”
I chuckled and glanced down at my phone.
I’d silenced it when we got in the car, expecting a torrent of notifications, but I saw now that I had new messages from my mom and Selene.
Besides Jocelyn, they were the only other people in my life who I felt comfortable talking to at the moment. I knew they wouldn’t judge me for what I’d done.
“Answer them,” said Jocelyn. “I think I’ve given you all the advice I have anyway.”