Chapter 4

Ryan laughed it off and slapped Nathan's shoulder. "Don't worry. What's mine is staying mine."

Nathan's eyes went cold.

Once Ryan turned away, Nathan crushed his cigarette against the railing. His face didn't change, but the veins stood out along his forearm. 

I couldn't look away. Even his anger was more controlled than Ryan's carelessness.

After the party, the front desk handed out room keys.

Paige happily claimed a king room with Ryan. Ryan's expression shifted when he saw the single key card for Nathan and me.

He drew Nathan aside. "You aren't seriously sharing a room with Mia. Go back and get two."

"Why?" Nathan asked.

"Because you'll be sleeping in the same room!"

"For one night. You've told me again and again that I hate her. What are you afraid of?"

Ryan looked guilty. "Sure, but you're both young. You're pretending to date. Things could get out of hand. "

"Paige is more exciting, but Mia is still..." He paused. "She's beautiful."

He'd insisted that we act like a couple in front of everyone. Now that we might be alone together, he suddenly cared where the act could lead.

Nathan's jaw tightened at the way Ryan talked about me. "Pretending?"

I stepped in before Ryan could answer. He closed his mouth at once.

Nathan took my hand, without another glance at his brother, and led me into the elevator.

The hotel door had barely closed behind us when Nathan turned to face me.

For a moment he just looked at me, something unguarded moving through his expression. Then he crossed the room and kissed me — not urgent, not performative.

Just quiet and certain, like a man who had been waiting a long time.

When he pulled back, he searched my face.

"Mia. To me, you've always been the only one worth waiting for. You don't need to measure yourself against anyone."

I stared at him. He'd heard what Ryan had said downstairs.

"When our real anniversary comes," he said, "I'll give you a night that means something."

He wasn't performing for Ryan or the pack. The room was empty and he still said it.

Our anniversary? We didn't have one. I looked away.

"Right." He raised my chin gently. "You don't remember. Our anniversary is your birthday. The day I first saw you, really saw you."

"I watched you for two years before I said a word because I didn't trust myself to say the right one. When I finally did, and you said yes—" He exhaled slowly. "I'd never been that relieved in my life."

He kept talking, filling in a history I couldn't recall.

The details were too specific to be invented on the spot — the trail we'd walked, what I'd ordered, the exact words he'd used.

Either he had an extraordinary imagination, or he'd carried this in silence for a very long time.

I listened without interrupting.

He knew my habits and what made me pull back. Even the parts that must have been fabricated, he spoke as if he could picture them.

And then I understood. Nathan had always kept himself under control.

Why would he agree to Ryan's humiliating request unless it gave him something he couldn't get any other way? How did he know what made me comfortable or unsettled, if he had supposedly never wanted to be near me?

He didn't hate me. What had hurt him was watching me belong to someone else.

"I'm glad you told me," I said.

This time I didn't pull away when he pulled me close.

I held onto his shoulders. There were things I still hadn't told him — things I'd heard in hallways and hadn't let on.

But I wanted him near, and I let myself have that for now.

---

On the other side of the wall, Ryan couldn't settle.

Paige curled against him and traced her fingers along his arm, but he stared at the ceiling.

"The Moon Goddess gets it wrong sometimes."

Nathan's words hadn't landed like a joke. They'd landed like a warning.

Ryan sprang up and made a call. "Get everyone into the lobby. Now. I don't care what time it is."

The pack members arrived in the lobby half-dressed and confused.

Nathan came down with me, his expression darkening the moment he read the room.

He walked straight toward his brother. "What is this?"

The crowd shifted — tired, irritated, nobody wanting to openly push back against the Alpha's heir. But the murmuring was there.

"We've been waiting twenty minutes, Ryan. For what exactly?"

"There." Ryan stepped forward as a woman came through the front doors.

She was older, unhurried, a worn leather satchel over one shoulder. "She's the most respected witch in this region. I need her to confirm something."

He pointed at me.

I kept my face still and pulled my robe a little tighter, aware of what it covered.

The woman set her satchel on a table without acknowledging the room's tension.

She was the kind of person who didn't need it. She withdrew a smooth obsidian stone etched with moon symbols and held it between her palms.

"I can reveal what the Goddess has already written," she said quietly. "Nothing more, nothing less."

The stone began to glow — silver light from the center, deep violet spreading outward from the edges.

"The woman's soul carries silver light," she said. "Her fated mate's mark is violet."

Ryan straightened. The confidence on his face was almost painful to watch.

The woman turned slowly, scanning the gathering.

The violet light in the stone pulsed once, twice — and then pulled, like a compass needle finding north.

Her eyes stopped on Nathan.

The room went silent.

She didn't waver. "Him. The violet mark is his. He is her fated mate, as the Goddess intended."

For a moment no one moved. Then the whispers started — low, electric, spreading through the pack like fire through dry grass.

People looked between Nathan and Ryan, then at me, working out what it meant, what it changed, what it had already changed without their knowing.

Ryan's face had gone white.