As I lay on my back in bed, on top of the comforter with my hands folded across my stomach and my eyes on the ceiling above me, I thought over that entire conversation. It repeated, in a cycle, through one ear and out the other.

But it just seemed to bring more doubts. More fears. More dread.

Whether my mate was a random pack member, elevated to alpha through me, or he was alpha and I had to join his pack, the result was the same: I would be luna. Not alpha.

The Information Volumes we read as pups claimed the alpha and luna of any pack were equals. One did not outrank the other, for they were partners who lead the pack together.

That was a lie.

I grew up watching my parents, studying them in preparation for how I would lead my pack. And it taught me things that contradicted what the royals wrote.

Mom and Dad did not act as equals. Dad ran the pack. Mom stayed behind the scenes. To me, it didn't seem like the luna did much. I was sure, given the chance, that Mom would have a voice if she wanted to. And often I had seen Dad offer Mom to speak her opinion on a matter, but she usually refused and stayed silent.

To me, that was how a luna was supposed to be. A supporter while the strong alpha ran the pack at the front.

I didn't want to just be luna. I was raised to be alpha, so that was where I was going to stay.

*__*__*__*

The weekend was a whirlwind of more tears and heavy goodbyes. Sunday afternoon, I helped Skylar carry boxes of her things down to Eva's car.

"I can't believe you're not finishing your senior year out. You only have two months left!"

She didn't seem to be listening very closely. "I can't believe he didn't come with Eva to help out and bring me home." She looks me in the eye, "When I tell you he's gonna feel my wrath. . ."

I chuckled and shook my head at her, placing the box into the trunk and trying to ignore the hurt I felt when she referred to her new pack as "home" so casually. As if she had lived there all her life already.

She added her box on top of mine. Then we went back for the suitcases, passing Eva on the stairs carrying a crate of Sky's childhood trinkets.

"Have you been secretly packing your room up for a year?" I joked when we reached the last step. "You have way too much stuff for it to have only taken you three days."

She laughed, stepping into her room and grabbing a bag. I did the same. "Sort of, actually. When I discovered him, I came home and started putting things away I wouldn't need for a while. I tried to prepare a little, even though at the time I had no idea how long it would take to actually move."

I nodded with my lips pressed together. I couldn't bring myself to respond to that, and I let the weight of the suitcase and the number of steps out to the car justify my silence. To be fair, I was out of breath by the time I hoisted the luggage onto the backseat of the vehicle.

Besides, I didn't want to bring her mood down with more of my doubt about mates. She was so excited to be with him, I couldn't be a bad friend about it.

Too soon—even though it took several more trips to fill the car—we had to say goodbye. Most of the pack was gathered around in the front yard, but they stayed separate from our families. Sky said a generalized goodbye to the pack, hugging a few particular people that she was close with, before she shuffled her way to us.

She embraced her siblings first, and I watched their little group huddle. Logan was taller now, taller than I had realized, and he wrapped his arms around his sister's head, temporarily taming her coiled, voluminous hair. Aiden hugged her from the side, his left arm squished between his siblings' torsos and resting on Maylie's head. Maylie only giggled from between Logan and Sky.

When Skylar finally ducked away from Logan's arms and pried Aiden's from her waist, she made her way to me. Before even speaking to me, she quickly hugged my parents, who each congratulated her and wished her well in her new pack.

Then it was my turn.

Sky grabbed my hands in hers, and I stared at them while she spoke. "Watch out for Maylie, okay?" She whispered, "You're the only sister-figure she has now."

I just nodded my response, terrified that if I spoke, I'd break.

"I'll visit of course." She promised. "This isn't the last you'll be seeing me, okay?" When I still didn't answer, she lifted my chin with her hand and repeated it. "Okay?"

"Okay." I whispered hoarsely. She pulled me in for a hug, and I wrapped my arms around her neck, both of us squeezing so hard I was positive neither of us breathed the entire time.

"I love you." She told me. "You'll always be my best friend. Promise."

Then she was letting go of me, drifting over to her parents to say goodbye. I folded my arms around myself, trying my best to breathe normally. I managed to hold it together while she got in the car, while Eva did. Even while they made the circle around the tree in the center of the driveway, and finally when the car disappeared through the trees and down the road.

I didn't remember walking inside. Or climbing the stairs. Or even getting to my room. I did remember stumbling onto my bed and folding in on myself, creating a little ball of tangled arms and legs.

And then I broke. The tears were salty as they ran down my cheek and to my lips, the sobs painful as they shook my body and made it hard to breathe. My eyeballs stung with running mascara. I was sure there would be a black smudge on my blanket when I sat up.

If it was this painful just to let your best friend move a few hours away, how in the world did anyone survive a loss of their mate?

Later—maybe minutes, maybe hours, I couldn't be sure—Maylie's tiny knock came at my door. My back was turned from the hall, but I could hear her feet cross the carpeted floor. She climbed her way onto my bed without saying anything, choosing to kneel where I could see her from my crooked, curled up position.

"It's okay." She said innocently. "She's not gone forever."

I knew that. Somewhere inside of me I knew that.

"Are you going to come down for dinner? Luna Eirenae is asking."

I blinked at her. She gave me a toothy smile. "I'm going to tell her no. That you were asleep when I came up here."

"Thanks." I croaked, surprised Mom didn't come up here herself to get me.

"You're welcome." She crawled across the blankets to me, resting her head against my shoulder and giving me a hug from a slightly awkward angle. The gesture was able to crack a small smile but I still couldn't bring myself to unfurl from the fetal position I was lying in.

She left, and the soft click told me she closed my door behind her. I drew in a shaky breath and the exhale only brought another rib-crushing sob.

So I let myself cry. And I cried until my body couldn't handle it anymore and my breaths evened out and my eyelids fluttered closed.

***

Due to yesterday's events, I had forgotten to set an alarm. So, I woke with a jolt, springing up with my eyes wide. Then I winced. I had slept all night in that curled ball position and it left my limbs and joints sore.

Grabbing my phone, I saw that I had missed my first two and a half periods already and if I didn't hurry, I'd be late for my fourth. Mom must have felt I needed all the rest I could get. I was thankful, even though being late stressed me out a bit.

Rushing around my room, I threw on a clean pair of jeans and a loose sweater, jumping on each foot as I slipped my sneakers on. In the bathroom, I ignored my makeup bag and just threw my tangled blonde hair into a big knot. I snatched my backpack on my way out the door, slinging the straps over my shoulders as I ran down the stairs.

At first, I headed to Dad's office to ask him for a ride to school. Then I remembered our initial conversation yesterday about how I still took the bus. Now, I walked toward his office with a new purpose.

"Dad?" I called after a quick tap against the wood with my knuckle.

"Come in."

I opened the door and poked my head through. He was alone in there, typing away at his computer. "I'm late for school. Can you show me that path in the woods?"

His green eyes met mine and his fingers stopped. His mouth formed a small smirk. "You should ask your mother."

"I'm asking you." I didn't want another mate lecture on our walk through the yard.

"Okay," he said and stood up. I let go of the door and stepped back against the wall across from it. Dad waved his hand to beckon me and I followed him down the corridor and into the kitchen. We exited the house through the glass French doors and then crossed the vast stone porch to make our way down one of the curved staircases that were placed on either side of the porch. He led me through the opening in the hedge wall and under the trellis before making a sharp right into the forest. After a couple hundred feet, sure enough, a dirt path, old but well-trodden, was visible.

"It doesn't branch or fork or anything. It cuts straight through the woods and will spit you out at the field." He told me.

"Thanks." I replied, looking through the trees.

"You know," he said. "You could have just asked me for a ride to school. It would have been faster than walking the path."

Slowly my head turned to look at him. "You could have led with that. Yesterday, you made this sound way quicker."

He laughed. "Quicker than the bus, definitely! But not faster than just driving. You should put more effort into getting that license."

"Thanks," I said dryly. "Either way, I wanted to know where the path was so we can come home this way. And so I can run it sometimes."

"Alright, whatever you say." He stepped forward and kissed the side of my head. "Have a good day."

I thanked him, but it came out choked. I wasn't sure how I was going to survive the day without Skylar. Or tomorrow. Or any day at school ever again. But his sentiment was nice.

"Bye." Then I took off running, knowing that it was going to take me so much longer than I had planned for. I wished I could shift into my wolf, but that would mean stopping to take off my clothes and put them in my bag and then putting them back on when I got there. . . I wasn't sure which would actually take more time.

I got maybe a mile in and a stitch in my side forced me to stop and breathe. "Fine." I cursed to myself as I shrugged my bag off and stripped out of my clothes. I stuffed them into my backpack before calling upon the wolf inside of me. Besides, I reasoned, running all the way there was going to leave me sweaty and much more tired if I didn't shift.

This was only my ninth or so time shifting. I stopped counting after I got to the fifth, but I wasn't even a year into having my wolf that it couldn't have been more than ten. It was still slightly disorienting when I opened my wolf eyes and saw everything at a sharper angle, from a farther distance. Every leaf that rustled reached my ears at a much more intense volume that it was often hard to catch my bearings right away. Shaking my pelt out, I clamped my teeth around my bag strap and took off at a full sprint. I only stumbled once, but I didn't fall.

Good thing I ended up shifting because the last three miles would have taken me another hour instead of less than ten minutes. I broke out of the trees still running, not expecting the foliage to end so abruptly and literally spit me right onto the track that surrounded the football field. I tripped on the sudden terrain change, my claws scraping against the synthetic rubber. My paw pads burned and tingled and I yelped like I had been kicked. I let go of my backpack and let myself roll in a heap of scrambling legs. My jaw hit the field turf with a thump and I whined through my teeth.

Ow.

Leaping to my paws, which still felt like they had the outer layer of skin shred from the pads, I whipped my head around in search for anyone that could have seen that. It was a nicer day of April, and I wasn't sure when track and field started for the season. I ran sometimes to exercise or relieve stress, but I wasn't a sports girl and had no interest in our teams' schedules.

Thank the goddess it was completely empty. The only sound was the rustling of newly sprouted leaves from the forest behind me. I shook out my pelt and trotted over to my dropped bag, picking it up and ducking back into the trees again. I shifted in the cover of the foliage and threw on my clothes, double checking my hair was still secure in its knot behind my head before I left the trees and jogged across the field.

It felt so wrong entering the building alone. A few stragglers wandered the halls towards their fourth periods but otherwise the halls were empty. The bell must have just ended. Since we were kids, I always came to school with Sky. Sure she was a year older, so not many classes overlapped, but her not being here. . . it didn't feel right. Besides, she was stronger when it came to Scarlet.

Scarlet Jones. My forever school bully, the only girl in the entire school district that hated me. Well, I should say girls. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but she and her band of nobodies made it daily entertainment out of nagging me with nonsense. Well it was nonsense to Sky, but it usually hit me pretty hard. I tried to take Sky's advice and not let it show, but sometimes it was harder said than done.

Sure enough, as I slipped into my math class, Scarlet was waiting for me. Her bronze skin caught the light as she whipped her midnight hair around to watch me take my usual seat. Her red painted nails drummed across her desk, as if she were thinking of something mean to say to me and couldn't come up with anything yet.

Wonderful.