Blue Moon

C H A P T E R 12

HER CALL

ARRAH

"We don't have to be here, Mace." Dragging my weight, I pouted as she led us to the group of people gathered in a wide circle around an open columned wooden structure. It was like a larger rectangular gazebo – open on all sides, elevated a foot or two off the ground, and accessed through mini-stairs.

"I need to be here," was all she said.

Macey was wearing a red off-shoulder knee-length dress. Her hair was done up but she wore no accessories. "Do I look ok?" She asked.

"You've never been lovelier." I wasn't about to tell her she appeared as broken as she felt under all that make-up. She beamed at me.

I wore a denim dress over a white V-neck short sleeve shirt. The back cut open but tied by crisscrossed black strings so it wouldn't leave me so exposed.

"Emma and Lex are over there," seated in front with a clear view of the ceremony and of the celebrants.

Macey tightened her hand around mine as we took our seats beside her parents. Bea was still not here but her intended, a male close to our age, was going around welcoming everyone.

"This is suicide, Mace!" Fuck who hears!

"Chill, babe." She covered my mouth and nodded an apology for the disturbance. "Just stand by me tonight, Arrah. Give me strength." I stopped struggling.

Alpha Pierce, Bea's father, took the center and marked the start. The man who mocked Macey when she came introducing herself as Bea's mate. Pierce was the man who could not bear to have a queer daughter, one who gave his child to be mated to the third son of his beta and one who dared to defy the mate bond with a forced union.

Why would he not let them be?

I hardly saw a homosexual pairing in their pack.

Moreover, Bea chose to hide and pretend to be someone she was not because she was too afraid to upset the status quo. The Alpha preached tolerance but he deprived his daughter of her life and freedom.

I heard Macey's breath hitch as Bea stepped up. She was beautiful. Taking her father's side, the confident woman who openly glared at me this morning was lost, and in her place stood a meek puppy.

Choose Macey!

"On this glorious night, we shall stand witness to the mating of my beloved daughter Beatrice to our beta's outstanding son, Caius." At the Alpha's words, everyone erupted into cheers save our puny band of four.

He went against the mate bond even when someone staked a claim – saying that when the fates robbed unclaimed wolves of their mates, then they would take another as their own. "So when the fates tell you that 'there's no one meant for you', then we shall say, 'I'll have one for me.'"

He droned on and on about how the mating bond was sacred.

Oh, the irony of his words was bitter!

He devalued the blessings of a fated mating. True mates could be the only ones who could settle the beasts inside each other or, the ones unmated wolves freely claimed as theirs. The bond between chosen mates was not as strong as the bonds between true mates but at least it was built on mutual love and respect. A forced mating, however, was void of the vital essence of the union of two willing souls, devoid of love and all its constructive emotions that pushed one to be a better person.

He smothers his own people.

His pack, though ranked with strong purebloods, was not happy. Shadows were forming and settling into the cracks of discontent. The pack bond strained by constricting laws and their spirits slowly crushed and shriveled up. This Alpha was bringing them down to a path of destruction.