Chapter 159: What We Become

(Kieran)

We get kicked out. Aleisha points to the doorway like a damn guard dog, narrows her eyes, and me and my brothers. “Out.”

Felix leans against the frame like he’s got all the time in the world. “We’re not in the way.”

“You’re breathing in the wrong direction,” she shoots back. “Get out.” Dorian doesn’t even argue. He glances once over Aleisha’s shoulder, trying to catch one more look at Scarlett before we’re shut out. “She’ll be fine,” Aleisha adds, softer this time, but her eyes don’t move from me. “You’ll see her when she’s ready.” Felix snorts. “We’ve already seen her—” Aleisha slams the door in his face, and he stares wide-eyed at it for a second before he turns. “Rude.”

“Accurate,” Dorian mutters. I drag a hand over the back of my neck and turn away from the room. “Come on.”

We head back outside, where Red Moon’s clearing is already half transformed. Lanterns hang from low branches, catching the light and throwing it across the ground in soft gold pools. Benches are set, tables dragged into place, food already laid out like someone knew exactly what this would need to look like before we even got here. “Mum’s already done everything, hasn’t she?” Felix mutters. We try to find something we can help with anyway. We split up without really talking about it. Dorian heads toward the far side of the clearing, where a few of the younger wolves are still adjusting lanterns. Felix veers toward the tables, grabbing plates, shifting things around like he can make himself useful by force. I make it about three steps before someone stops me. “Alpha—” he starts. I cut him off. “Don’t.” He freezes. “Right. Sorry. Kieran.”

“What needs doing?” I ask. He looks over my shoulder. Then back at me. “Nothing, really. Luna Envy already decided everything.” Of course she did. I nod and move on, but I get the same answer at the next place and the next. “Don’t worry, Luna Envy organised it.”

“Already sorted, Luna Envy handled it.”

“Yeah, she’s all over it.” I let out a breath through my nose and glance across the clearing, and Felix drops into step beside me. “We’re useless.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“You’ve been rejected three times in five minutes.”

“That’s not rejection,” I say. “That’s efficiency.”

“Right. Efficiently useless.” Dorian appears on my other side, quiet as ever. “They’ve got it covered.” I look out over the clearing again. He’s right. We’re not needed here. Not for this part anyway.

Felix points toward a group near the back. “Flowers.” I follow his gaze. A cluster of women and a couple of younger wolves are trying to tie arrangements together, most of them looking like they’ve got no idea what they’re doing. Felix grins. “That we can ruin.”

“Perfect,” I mutter. Five minutes later, I’ve got a handful of stems in one hand and no idea what I’m doing with them. Felix is worse, somehow turning what should be simple into something that looks like it lost a fight. Dorian doesn’t say anything, just fixes what we mess up without comment. I step back after a while, letting them keep at it.

My eyes drift across the clearing where Lyra stands near the edge of the lake, just outside the lantern light. The moon catches on the water behind her, silver rippling out across the surface, and for a second, she looks like she belongs more to that than to anything standing on land. The noise of the clearing dulls as I move away from it. I stop beside her and follow her gaze out across the lake. Then I let out a breath and rub a hand over my jaw. “How the hell do you do it?” She tilts her head slightly. “Do what?”

“This,” I say, gesturing vaguely behind us, at the clearing, the pack, the night, everything that’s about to happen, whether we’re ready or not. “Step into something that big… and not fuck it up.” She looks out over the lake again, the silver of it catching in her eyes, shifting with the slow movement of the water. For a second, I think she’s going to give me something that sounds like it belongs to the Moon Goddess instead of the sister who grew up in this pack with the rest of us. “I didn’t,” she says. I frown. “Didn’t what?”

“Get it right.” She shrugs one shoulder, small, almost careless, as she smiles at me. “I just… stepped into it anyway.”

“That’s not reassuring.” A quiet huff of laughter leaves her. “It’s not meant to be.” I drag a hand over the back of my neck again, staring out at the water. “So what, we just fake it until we don’t screw it up too badly?”

“Something like that.” I glance at her. “That’s your official guidance as Moon Goddess?”

“Absolutely,” she says dryly. Then she shifts slightly beside me. Her gaze moves away from the lake, lifting instead toward the clearing behind us. I follow it to where Umbros is. He’s halfway across the clearing, sleeves pushed up, moving a row of chairs into place. Someone says something to him, and he answers easily, adjusting the spacing, checking the line, making it right without making a thing of it. Lyra watches him for a second, then she speaks. “I had someone to lean on.” Her eyes tear from him back to mine. “There’s always going to be something. Something to do. Something to fix. Something to work out. Things that feel too big, too much, like you’re going to drop them and shatter everything. But if you have someone to lean on… someone to love… it doesn’t all feel so big anymore.”

I glance back toward the clearing. Felix is arguing with someone over flowers. Dorian is fixing whatever Felix just ruined. Scarlett is still inside, probably being turned into something that’s about to walk out and change everything, whether she’s ready or not. My gaze drifts further, to Mum. She’s moving through the clearing, adjusting something here, speaking to someone there, her crown catching the light every time she turns her head. My fathers are never far from her, always just within reach. She’s not doing it alone. She never has. I let out a slow breath. “Right,” I mutter. Lyra’s mouth curves slightly at the edge. “Right,” she agrees. I push away from the edge of the lake, the quiet settling back into something I can actually handle. “Come on,” I say, glancing back toward the clearing. “Apparently, we’re on flower duty.” Lyra rolls her eyes and fakes a gag. “That sounds about right.” We walk back together, my sister, the Moon Goddess, and me, future Alpha of the Red Moon pack.