Chapter 50: Three Gold Wolves Walk Into Moonfire

What happened next would be debated, dissected, and denied by the elder council for the next century. Nova just stood there and let it happen because she’d stopped trying to control anything about twelve miracles ago.

The white flame surged again like a geyser and a single white wolf of light emerged from the base and ran down the hill towards Nova, stopping at her side and pressing its muzzle into her hand, looking up at her affectionately like a golden retriever made of moonlight. It felt real against her palm, warm fur that did not make sense with physics.

The clearing detonated into a hive of conversation, every paired couple discussing amongst themselves what it meant like no one else was there.

"White. That’s her color."

"There is no white in the story. The priestess said five colors."

"What does it mean?"

"I hope she gets a mate too. The slave."

"Look at her face. She doesn’t even know what’s happening."

No other wolf came out of the flame.

The fire dropped back to its ten-foot idle, white and steady, and Nova was standing next to a wolf made of light that looked like a ghost who had wandered out of the wrong ceremony and decided to stay. She could feel it against her leg, solid and warm and very much present for something that was made of nothing she could name.

Then the head elder cleared his throat with the authority of a man who had been waiting for the supernatural portion of the evening to conclude so he could resume ignoring it.

"Every pairing made outside of the elder panel’s designation tonight is considered illegitimate and will be subject to a full council review. All draftees are to return to their assigned mates effective immediately—"

"GRRRRRR."

The growling started before he finished the sentence and rolled across the clearing like thunder. Every newly mated wolf in the crowd was growling under their human’s ribs, not shifted, just an impromptu choir with a song called "fuck no" in four-part harmony.

The elder who had been speaking looked at the crowd. Looked at the elder next to him. Looked at the flask elder, who was already drinking.

"Are they ALL growling?"

"Yes."

"Every single one?"

"Every mated one, yes. That’s roughly five hundred wolves telling you to shut up, and I would like to be excluded from whatever happens next." The flask elder took another sip with the composure of a man who had chosen his side and his side was the flask.

"I am NOT going to be intimidated by sound effects."

He was, in fact, about to be very intimidated by sound effects.

A Thunderfang warrior’s growl cracked an octave deeper than the rest and the elder flinched so hard his tablet fell off the podium.

He straightened his robes, pretended that didn’t happen, and pressed forward with determination, continuing with the ceremony like there wasn’t a white wolf made of light standing next to Nova.

The wolf was looking at the fire, like it was waiting for something. The crowd was looking at the wolf. The elder was talking to himself. The hierarchy of attention in this clearing had been restructured and he was at the bottom.

"Celeste Starborne, Princess of the Starborne pack, is matched—"

Nobody heard the rest because the flame erupted gold into a column. The color of kings. Tall and bright and unmistakable, burning with a color that had been mentioned exactly once in the priestess’s sermon and had been treated like mythology.

Nova smiled internally because the group had grown a lot in the last two hours. They had started the night hyperventilating when the torches flared white.

Now? Gold fire was great. The draftees started clapping, the sound erupting with the enthusiasm of women who were having fun watching the light show.

Nova clapped internally along with them. She agreed. This was a pretty light show.

Three gold wolves emerged from the flame, running down the column.

The first of the gold wolves crossed the clearing and circled Seraphina Solarbeam and the Lumencrest Alpha in a slow, deliberate orbit. Both of their eyes surged wolf-gold at the same time, followed by a flash of bright green light identical to what happened when Seraphina shifted, except no shift occurred. The light wrapped around both of them like a cocoon, pulsed once, and dissolved.

Across the fire, another gold wolf did the same to Estelle and the Nightbloom Alpha. Instead of light, it looked like a sand tornado, golden sand spiraling around both of them in a column that was fitting for the Dunestorm pack and its desert bloodline.

A girl, who had been rejected by one prince and claimed by another, was getting wrapped in a storm named after her own house while a gold wolf of light circled them. The Goddess had a sense of humor and the humor had teeth.

The third gold wolf circled Maria Emberclaw and the Thunderfang Beta. Everyone in the Thunderfang section was already backing away, reading the tea leaves with the survival instincts of wolves who had seen what Emberclaw fire did at close range and were choosing life. Red flame swirled around them both, wolves surging in tandem.

All three princesses had a small symbol glowing on their necks, but they were too far away for Nova to see what it was. She squinted. The glow pulsed once and faded to something barely visible, present but hidden unless you knew where to look.

Celeste Starborne looked up at the fire for the first time with anticipation, waiting for a gold wolf with the certainty of a woman who had never once in her life been told the word no.

Nova couldn’t fault the logic. Celeste’s guess was as good as hers as to what came next.

No new gold wolves came. The three on the ground were already weaving through the crowd, each with a new target. Two went to Thunderfang section for the Alpha and his brother. One went to the Emberclaw Alpha.

Nova saw their eyes surge at the same time, three sets of irises flooding molten gold in the same heartbeat like a signal had been sent and received across a frequency only their wolves understood.

Then all three men were moving.