Chapter 81: Gateway Drugs & Cooties-Prevention Rituals

Explosive silver cuffs? Done.

Holy-woman-strip-show? Next slide.

Celeste Starborne’s personality? Chronic. Somehow not fatal.

Winter in Thunderfang? Auditioning for final boss and brought references.

The hover yacht doors opened and the cold announced itself. Wind rushed in, carrying snow. Even for regular wolves, this was cold. But it was extra cold for Nova.

Derek pulled her tighter against his side. Behind them, Tavian had Maria tucked against his chest along with every other ranked officer with a mate.

In front of them, Alpha Thunderfang and Celeste walked six feet apart. Nova felt a flicker of secondhand heartbreak for them. Then it dawned on her that everyone was different and it was ignorant to assume they would want things different. Obviously, this was their preference. Maybe the elders knew what they were doing after all.

The Thunderfang capital was called the City of Light. The moment they stepped through the doors, Nova understood why.

Everything glowed, from the winter flowers lining the streets to the Thunderfang banners. Wolf pups ran through the crowd, wearing miniature light-up suits like Derek’s and Alpha Thunderfang’s.

"Welcome to Thunderfang," Derek said. "You’ve arrived for the annual ’why the fuck do we live here’ special. Worst time of year."

"So this is why you are all angry," Nova shivered.

Derek flashed a devilish grin down at her. "Was that sarcasm coming out of you? My sweet, innocent, mate. The girl who says ’yes, Elders.’"

Normally, Nova would have kept a comment like that to herself. It had slipped out before her brain could filter it. Something that kept happening with Derek specifically. Her mate was a goddamn gateway drug and she was too far gone to course-correct. Fuck it.

"People are allowed to have range, Derek. Try to keep up."

Derek let out a laugh, warm and genuine. "Let’s get the labels straight. My brother is the angry one. I’m the handsome one. Landon, don’t you dare lie."

Alpha Thunderfang did not turn around or indicate he could hear them whatsoever.

"Can you shut the hell up back there?" Celeste snapped over her shoulder. "Nobody wants to hear a slave doing stand-up in a royal procession."

"The slave wasn’t talking there. I was," Derek replied. "And I am laughing. My mate is laughing. Tav’s laughing. Maria’s laughing. That’s four out of six. Majority rules, Sunshine."

"I wasn’t asking for a vote."

"And yet you lost one."

A growl came from under Celeste’s ribs, the sound of a wolf whose last nerve had been found and stomped on by a bastard who was enjoying the stomping.

Derek winked down at Nova. She shook her head once, fighting the urge to laugh. He might get away with poking Celeste, but Nova was still her slave and she would absolutely make Nova pay for it.

Whatever punishment was loading vanished under the roar of a capital greeting its Alpha.

"We missed you, Alpha Thunderfang!"

"The Starborne princess! She’s even prettier in person, Alpha!"

"Luna Celeste! Luna Celeste!"

Celeste basked in the crowd, waving with both hands, big and bright, before she started to blow kisses to no one in particular.

A wolf pup in the front row performed the ancient cooties-prevention ritual of duck-and-cover. Derek glanced down at Nova. Nova looked up at him and immediately bailed before she laughed. Gods. Eye contact with Derek during a Celeste moment was dangerous and kept happening. The man’s face was a detonator for joy that she couldn’t afford.

"Smart kid. Good reflexes," Derek commented, voice perfectly neutral.

"Derek."

"What? It’s an observation. I’m a scientist."

"You’re not a scientist."

"I’m a scientist of the people. And my data says that pup has better survival instincts than half the elders at the Moonfire."

"Give the elders fourteen business days and they’ll have a comeback to that, Thunderfang."

"Fourteen business days. Bold estimate. I’d say twenty."

"Twenty is generous."

"I’m a generous man. That’s my brand. People have range, Nova. Keep up."

"I thought your brand was sarcasm."

"That too. You don’t seem to mind it."

The roar of the crowd killed the conversation. They went from polite Alpha-and-future-Luna cheers to losing their entire goddamn minds. The whiplash should have come with a concussion warning.

"PRINCE DEREK! OVER HERE!"

"Prince Derek, you legend!"

Nova kept forgetting her mate was a literal prince. In her defense, he kept referring to himself as a bastard. But he was raised as an Alpha’s son, claimed by their father as the spare heir.

"SHE IS SO BEAUTIFUL, PRINCE DEREK!"

"7709! OH MY! WE LOVE YOU!"

"THEY MATCH! HIS SUIT IS GLOWING AND HER HAIR IS GLOWING!"

Nova’s face heated. If she weren’t wearing gloves, she would have checked her hands to verify.

"Oh look at that. Your hair is glowing again," Derek observed, answering her unasked question. His tone came across like this was completely normal. "And you’re blushing too."

"Now we match," Nova said, watching his suit light up under his cloak.

"We could show up in trash bags and still be the best looking couple in this procession. Have you seen the competition?" Derek tilted his head towards Landon and Celeste. "I rest my case."

Nova shook her head, a grin already misbehaving, then she spotted a hover cart loaded with Lightning Nectars. Glowing blue. Looking like the best thing she would ever put in her mouth.

Derek’s voice broke through her fantasy. "No."

Nova glanced up at him, just now realizing he had been watching her.

"Your eyes told me everything I need to know," he said flatly. "You win a three-way chicken fight, you get one. That’s the contract. Don’t get cute."

"Consider it won. Start pouring," Nova replied.

Derek glanced behind them. "Tavian, did you hear that?"

Whatever Tavian responded with, Nova missed it. Her gaze snagged on something else.

A little boy broke away from the crowd, his eyes locked on Nova. He was wearing a Thunderfang suit lit up electric blue. Derek’s color.

Nova saw him face-plant in the street. No one else seemed to notice. The procession was long, the crowd was loud, and a pup eating pavement didn’t register on anyone’s radar but hers.

He looked maybe four or five and was clearly disoriented. Nova had taken care of enough pups to know that look. Overwhelmed. Overstimulated. One loud noise away from tears.

She scanned the crowd, looking for his mother, finding her after a few seconds. A woman was making her way towards the boy, laughing and relaxed. Crisis averted.

Nova’s shoulders relaxed an inch.

Then she clocked a cargo pod coming in hot. Ground level. Lights off. Silent. Two tons of metal and nobody was reacting because no one was looking in the gap. The parade was doing its job, everyone focused on the spectacle.

Except a slave who had spent her entire life watching what other people missed.

A little boy was in that gap.

His mother saw the cart at the same second Nova did. Her laugh died. She screamed his name.

Nova was already moving.

Derek’s hand closed on air behind her.