Chapter 155 Happily Ever After - Callista's POV

Chapter 155 Happily Ever After - Callista's POV
The ceremony happened at the edge of the Monroe pack's territory, which my father had chosen because it was the land that had always been ours even when everything else had been taken. The full moon rose over it at seven minutes past eight and turned everything it touched silver.

My pack was small. What we had was enough and I was glad that we had all agreed on having the ceremony here. It seemed the cleanest area and had the least horrible memories attached to it.

My mother stood to my left with tears she wasn't trying to hide. My father stood to my right with the expression of a man who had done the work required to be present at this moment and was at peace with the cost of it. Sabine was somewhere behind me and I heard her sniff once, then heard Isla say something quietly. Sabine tell Isla to mind her own business in the tone that meant she was grateful.

Raze stood beside his brother with Isla's hand in his. His eyes were red-gold and clear.

The Nightshades were there to support their sons, as they had decided to adopt Raze as well, even though he was well past the age. A handful of people my parents had called in also came to witness the event.

Riven stood in front of me under the full moon with the mark on his shoulder blazing visible even in the silver light, and the demon was gone from his eyes. The bond between us blazed so warm and so complete that I could feel it in the Moon Marks and in his bite.

The ceremony itself was brief. The words were old and the officiant said them with the weight they deserved and no more.

When it was done the bond didn't change. It was already sealed and complete. It had been since the hallway three weeks ago when I had listened to a goddess and done the truest thing I had ever done. But something settled.

The full moon overhead acknowledged what had already been done in a darker and more desperate place. It said yes, this counts, this is real, and this is what I built you for.

I looked at him and he looked back with so much love in his eyes that I almost melted on the spot.

"Obviously," he said quietly, which was the most Riven possible response to the conclusion of a bonding ceremony and I loved him so much it was almost ridiculous.

"Obviously," I agreed.

Raze and Isla had their turn behind us. We turned to watch while embraced in each other’s arms. Theirs was as short as ours. They were both ready to be done with this and put things behind them.

I felt the same. To me we had finished the story my visions had been telling me since the night I woke up screaming and discovered Moon Marks on my skin. It started the longest road I had ever walked down, but I looked forward to what came next.

Later, in the small hours of the morning when most had gone home. Riven and I roamed the woods, trying to spend time together.

"Alpha King," I said softly.

He looked up.

"Husband," I added, which was technically accurate now and I had been waiting three weeks to say.

Something in his expression did the open unguarded thing. "Callista. Wife.”

"What?” I teased.

"I need you to stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?” I asked innocently. “I’m allowed to.”

"Like—" He stopped. "You know what."

“Like I’m ready for the next step of the journey?”

He laughed. “The academy has been forgiving, but we still have to graduate.”

I rolled my eyes at that. “And we will, eventually.”

"Callista."

"We've been through considerably more than the average fourth year student," I said firmly. "I think they owe us some grace."

He looked at me sideways with the expression that meant he was trying not to smile and was losing. "You sound like you're already planning to leverage that."

"I'm the Alpha King's mate," I admitted. "I'm planning to leverage everything."

He did smile then, just briefly, but it was a real one, the one that still caught me off guard every time because it changed his whole face into something I had no defenses against.

We walked for a while without talking, through the dark of the pack lands with the moon beginning its descent behind the trees. The grass was damp from earlier and the cold felt cleaner than before.

I could feel the bond the way I could feel my own heartbeat now. It wasn’t separate in any way.

"I keep waiting for something to go wrong," Riven said quietly.

I looked at him.

"Not—" He paused. "Not because I think it will. Just because I spent so long expecting it that I don't know what to do with the quiet."

"Get used to it," I murmured.

"Is it always this quiet?"

"I genuinely have no idea," I admitted. "This is new for me too."

He was quiet for a moment, turning that over. "Raze seemed alright.”

"He seemed more than alright," I said softly. "He seemed like himself, maybe for the first time. And he has Isla by his side.”

Something moved through Riven's expression at that. He was getting better at sitting with it rather than pushing it flat. That was the work of the last three weeks, mostly, because he was learning that feeling something didn't mean being controlled by it.

"He's going to be fine.”

"I know," Riven said, and this time he meant it rather than just saying it.

We reached the edge of the tree line where the pack land met the open field beyond it, and stopped without discussing it.

The field beyond was silver in the last of the moonlight. I looked at it for a moment, then I looked at him.

"What comes next?" I asked. "The real answer, not the academy answer."

He thought about it for longer than I expected, which meant he was giving it the consideration it deserved rather than reaching for something easy.

"We do it right," he said finally. "The Alpha King's seat. The packs. Alric and Dorian. And we’ll keep that promise." He paused. "And we’ll do it differently than it's been done before."

"No demons in our heirs," I said flatly.

"Oh fates no," he said, shaking his head. “Absolutely not.”

I looked at the field. "That's a big life.”

"Yes," he agreed.

"Are you ready for it?"

He looked at me in the last of the moonlight, with the bond blazing warm between us and the marks on both of us permanent. The demon was gone and the night was quiet around us, as if it was always meant to be that way. We finally had peace.

"Ask me again in the morning," he said firmly. "I'm still processing tonight and getting used to your being my wife.”

I laughed.

He took my hand, and we stood at the edge of the pack lands together. The moon had finished its descent, the dark before dawn settling over everything, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, there was nothing coming.

Just the wide open ordinary of what came after.