Page 86 of Blood Marked

Only the wind.

The stars.

And the twin moons, hanging full and low like silver eyes carved into the dark—bearing witness to something older than tradition and truer than fate.

And Kael.

Kael, who stood beside her like a storm forged into shape. He was every inch the wolf-king his people would one day name him—broad-shouldered, tall and hard-edged, the raw muscle of his body wrapped in ritual armor that looked more like war than wedding. His ash-blond hair had been trimmed—purposefully—but that one damn rogue curl still refused to fall in line. Just like him.

His sharp features were shadowed by the stubble lining his jaw, and though his eyes were the color of frostbite and fury—icy, calculating blue—tonight, they held nothing but reverence.

Selene could feel the tremor in his hands as he took hers.

And she wasn’t afraid.

She stood barefoot in the sacred circle, the night air cool against her skin, a gown of Veil-threaded silk flowing around her like moonlight spun into fabric—stitched by Nyra’s own hands, woven with strands of silver and symbols old as the blood in their veins. No corsets. No crowns.

Her obsidian hair hung wild down her back, long and unbound, catching the moonlight with every movement. There was power in it—herpower. In the sharp slant of her dark brows, the determined line of her jaw, the warmth and steel woven into her dusk-gray eyes.

Her father had once called her porcelain.

He’d been wrong.

She was obsidian. Shaped by pressure. Tempered in fire.

Tonight, she looked it.

Kael’s cloak was lined in both their house colors—his: the deep, glacial black of Fenrir’s northern stronghold; hers: the red-tinged dusk of the Morwen line. A new sigil had been stitched beneath the clasp where his chest met hers.

Not the fang.

Not the flame.

Something entirely new: a crescent moon entwined with a wolf’s eye.

Their bond.

Not of dominion.

Of unity.

“You sure about this?” he asked her softly as he took her hands in his.

His fingers were rough, calloused, still healing from battle. But his touch was gentle. Steady.

Selene smiled. “You asked me that once before,” she said. “Back when I stood in this same circle and you wouldn’t even look at me.”

He looked at her now.

Gods, did helookat her. Like she wasn’t just the woman he’d bonded to. But the woman he’d chosen. And who’d chosen him back.

“No prophecy?” he asked.

“No prophecy,” she confirmed.

“No court expectation?”

“Burned with the last of the blood rites.”

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