Chapter 151 The moon demands witnesses
Chapter 151
RAVENNA
"Are you ready for tonight?"
Samantha was standing at the wardrobe, holding up two different tops like she was genuinely trying to decide between them. I sat on the edge of my bed and did not answer immediately.
Ready felt like the wrong word.
"I don't want to go," I said finally.
She turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. "Ravenna, attendance is compulsory. The announcement made that very clear. If you don't show up, you get expelled. Immediately."
I pressed my lips together. "How convenient."
She did not argue with that. She just folded both tops over her arm and sat down beside me, close enough that our knees touched.
"What are you worried about?"
Everything, I wanted to say. But I settled on something more specific instead.
"The Moon Ceremony traditionally starts with a hunt, doesn't it?" I looked at her directly. "Wolves hunting animals. Or human prey."
Her face shifted slightly. She hesitated before answering.
"Yes. Traditionally. But because humans were mandated to attend this time, they will most likely hunt animals instead."
I repeated the words slowly. "Most likely."
"Ravenna—"
"Most likely is not a promise, Sam." My voice came out sharper than I intended. "Most likely leaves room for interpretation. And interpretation leaves room for orders."
She opened her mouth to respond, then stopped. I could see her trying to find the right words, the reassuring ones that would settle me down.
"Darius and Dorian will be there," she said gently. "They would never let anything happen to us."
I almost laughed. "Darius once acted under his father's influence and treated me like I was disposable. You remember that, don't you? You were there when he openly tried to kill me."
Her face went quiet.
"So, what exactly is stopping him from doing it again if his father orders him to?" I continued. "What is stopping Richard from pointing me out specifically and telling his son to prove his loyalty to the pack by hunting the human who caused so much trouble?"
Samantha did not answer. She could not, because we both knew there was no good answer to that question.
I stood and crossed to the small cabinet near my bed. I pulled open the bottom drawer and reached beneath the folded clothes until my fingers found what I was looking for.
Two knives. Small, sharp, concealed in leather sheaths.
I turned and held one out to her.
"Take this."
She stared at it like I had just handed her a live grenade. "Ravenna, what—"
"Slide it into the inner seam of your jeans," I said calmly. "Right along the waistband where it won't be visible. If anyone searches us, they will check pockets and bags. They won't check the seam unless they are very thorough."
She took it slowly, her fingers trembling slightly as they closed around the handle.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because my father doesn't trust this gathering." I slid my own knife into place, adjusting it until it sat flat against my hip. "He thinks something is being orchestrated behind the scenes. He told me to stay in the center of the crowd. Not the edges. Not the back. The center."
Samantha blinked. "Why the center?"
"Strategic protection." I met her eyes. "If anything happens, his men will be positioned around the middle. They will be able to shield us quickly if it comes to that."
She nodded slowly, her face pale now but determined. "Alright. center. I can do that."
"Good."
We moved to the wardrobe together and began choosing our outfits carefully. Nothing too loose that would snag or slow us down. Nothing too tight that would restrict movement. I settled on dark jeans, a fitted long-sleeve shirt, and boots with decent grip. Samantha chose something similar.
We dressed in silence.
When we were ready, I looked at her one more time.
"If I tell you to run," I said quietly, "you run. You don't wait for me. You don't look back. You just go. Do you understand?"
She nodded, but I could see the protest sitting behind her eyes.
"I mean it, Sam."
"I know."
I did not believe her, but there was no time left to argue.
The school hall had been transformed.
That was the first thing I noticed when we stepped inside. The space was enormous, far larger than it should have been given the building's exterior dimensions. The walls were lined with torches that burned with an unnatural steadiness, their flames casting long shadows across the stone floor.
But it was the ceiling that stopped me in my tracks.
It was gone.
Or rather, it had been opened somehow, enchanted or removed entirely, so that the night sky stretched directly overhead. The full moon sat at the center of it all, massive and impossibly bright, flooding the entire hall with pale silver light.
Security personnel were stationed everywhere. At every entrance, along the walls, even on raised platforms that overlooked the field. They were armed and alert, their eyes scanning the crowd constantly.
The wolves were gathering on the field below, a massive open space that had been cleared for the ceremony. The humans, meanwhile, were being directed toward raised seating that surrounded the field like a stadium. We were spectators. Witnesses.
I grabbed Samantha's hand and pulled her toward the center section.
"Here," I said, pointing to a row halfway up the seating. "This is where we sit."
She followed without question.
We settled into our seats just as the last of the students filed in. The noise in the hall was deafening at first, hundreds of voices talking over one another, nervous energy crackling through the air. But as the wolves below began to form ranks, the noise slowly died.
Silence settled over the hall like a heavy blanket.
Then the chanting began.
It started low, a rhythmic hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The alphas stood at the front of the wolf pack, their heads bowed, their voices rising and falling in unison. The words were unfamiliar, ancient, a language I did not recognize but that somehow felt older than anything I had ever heard.
The first ritual began.
The wolves shifted.
I had seen wolves before. I had lived among them for months now. But seeing them shift en masse, all at once under the full moon, was something else entirely.
Bones cracked. Bodies contorted. Fur rippled across skin. The sound was wet and visceral, and it echoed through the hall in a way that made my stomach turn. Within moments, the field was filled with wolves. Hundreds of them, their eyes glowing in the moonlight, their bodies tense and ready.
And then they were released.
The forest surrounding the academy was vast, and the wolves poured into it like a flood. The humans were left sitting in the stands, waiting in tense silence.
Distant howls pierced the night.
The sound was primal and raw, and it vibrated in my bones in a way that made my chest tighten. I gripped the edge of my seat and tried to steady my breathing.
For a brief moment, something in me reacted to the sound.
It was strange. Almost like recognition. Like the howls were calling to me, pulling at something buried deep inside, making me feel like I belonged to that sound somehow.
I dismissed it immediately.
I was human. I was sitting in the human section. That sound had nothing to do with me.
The wolves returned about two hours later.
They came back in groups, some carrying deer, others dragging smaller game. Blood scented the air, thick and metallic, and I saw several humans near the front row gag and turn away.
I did not.
That was the strange part. The scent did not sicken me the way I expected it to. It was heavy, yes, but not unbearable. Not disgusting.
Just... present.
The wolves formed a massive circle under the full moon. They knelt or bowed their heads, their kills laid out before them in offering. The alphas stepped forward and began chanting again, their voices louder now, more urgent.
The moonlight intensified.
It was subtle at first. Just a slight brightening, like someone had turned up the dimmer switch on a lamp. But then it grew stronger, pouring down from the open ceiling in thick beams that seemed almost solid.
And that was when I felt it.
Heat.
It started beneath my skin, spreading slowly from my chest outward, like someone had lit a match inside me and the flame was growing. I pressed my hand to my sternum, trying to will it away, but it only got worse.
My hearing sharpened.
Suddenly I could hear everything. The rustle of fabric as the person three rows behind me shifted in their seat. The quiet inhale of the girl two seats to my left. The steady thump of Samantha's heartbeat beside me, faster than it should be.
No. Not just Samantha's heartbeat.
I could hear all of them.
Every heartbeat in the stadium. Hundreds of them, beating at different rhythms, overlapping and layering until they became a cacophony that threatened to drown me.
I gripped Samantha's hand tightly.
She turned to look at me, concern flickering across her face. "Are you alright?"
I nodded, but I was not sure if it was true.
The chanting below grew louder. The alphas raised their arms toward the moon, their voices reaching a crescendo that seemed to shake the very air around us.
And then something inside me shifted.
My pulse, which had been racing wildly just moments before, began to slow. But it was not calming. It was matching. Aligning itself with something deeper, something outside of me.
I looked up at the moon.
It was so bright now that it hurt to look at directly, but I could not look away. The light was not just touching my skin anymore.
It was reaching inside me.