My face felt like it was on fire. People's gazes shifted between the newly marked pair and myself.

"Alex! What did you do?" Alpha Anwar bellowed, storming toward his son.

"Oh, shit!" Ashley whispered loudly. "There is some serious drama lama going on here tonight."

"Ash!" I looked at her, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"Girl, you dodged a freaking bullet here. I'm sorry, but had that been you, you deserve better than this hot mess."

King Orsand murmured rather loudly and Queen Amelia looked completely disgusted.I locked eyes with Rich momentarily. He looked shocked and mad.

"Harmony!" he finally screamed.

"You're not watching this anymore. I refuse to allow it!" Ashley grabbed my hand and dragged me across the ballroom toward the stairs.

As we stormed past Alex and Harmony she glowered at them. "You two are shit for doing that like that."

I looked back as they stood, nuzzling one another. Nobody else, besides Alpha Anwar had even dared to move. Not even our completely mortified parents.

Ashley held my hand tight as she pulled me up the stairs and all the way to my bedroom. "Okay. You stay. I'll be right back."

I nodded as she shut the door behind her. I sat on the floor, sobbing and hugging my knees.

There was a soft knock on the door and a voice called out, "Can I come in?"

"Ashley?" I sniffled, recognizing my friend's voice.

"Yeah, it's me. Can I come in?"

I stood up and opened the door a crack, allowing Ashley to poke her head in.

"Hey there." she asked.

I looked at her and sniffled.

Ashley nodded sympathetically. "I know this is really tough, but I brought something that might help. I bribed the bartender and got us this bottle of champagne and some glasses. Want to try to drown your sorrows a little?"

She held up the bottle and glasses, and I reached out my hand to take one.

"Maybe not everyone saw what happened," Ashley said, trying to comfort me.

"Everyone saw!" I wailed, collapsing back onto the bed. "I can't believe this. Why would he do something like this in public? I loved him, Ashley. I can't understand why he would humiliate me like this."

"I know it's hard to understand, but the whole concept of a mate bond can be really confusing. Maybe he just couldn't control himself," Ashley said.

"But what about Harmony? She's my sister. She could have at least told him to wait until the marking ceremony. I was so sure he was my mate," I said, feeling hopeless.

"I know," Ashley said, handing me a glass of champagne. "It sucks that this happened, but if he couldn't even wait to mark his mate privately, maybe you dodged a bullet by not being with him. You deserve someone who will treat you with respect and love."

"I know, but it still hurts. Why couldn't he wait like a normal wolf? How am I supposed to go back to school and face everyone after this?" I asked, feeling overwhelmed.

"It's not that bad."

I rolled my eyes while chugging the bubbly in my glass. "It's worse than bad. It's completely humiliating."

"Yeah, that is pretty bad. I doubt anyone's going to care."

"Ashley, they're going to care. They're going to talk about it. The future alpha marked his girlfriend's sister. In public. At their birthday party. This is the biggest news to hit the pack in years."

She sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. "If anyone says anything, you want me to beat them up? I can do that."

I let out a small chuckle. "No. Just give me more champagne."

"I don't think anyone would really blame you if you took a few days off of school. Since we are graduating in just a few short months, maybe there's a way that you could rework your entire schedule to not go to class."

"How would that be possible?"

"So, you know I work in the office as an office aide."

"Yeah," I said.

"I happen to know some rules when it comes to senior wolves and their schedules."

"What kind of rules?" I queried.

"A rule that says the wolf with the highest grades, who is eighteen and desires to run for local council after graduation, they can work closely with the head of the strategy department and not go to class."

"I do like strategy," I mumbled. "And Council President Andrew is knowledgable and nice."

"Indeed."

"Yeah, that can work. I can do that. But I am definitely taking like two weeks off of going back to that place. I don't want to see anyone."

As we sat on the bed the door flew open. Harmony jumped up and down in the doorway.

"What do you want?" I growled.

"Oh my god! Can you believe it Elanor? The future alpha mated with me!"

"Yeah, I fucking know. My boyfriend. Get out. I don't want to see you."

"What? You're not happy for me?"

"Are you dense? Happy for you? No, I'm not happy for you! You humiliated me in front of everybody. Why would you mark each other in public? I never want to speak to you or him ever agian! Get out!"

Her smile vanished as she stood staring at me. "But, you're my sister."

"Was."

"I was hoping you could help me when the time came to become Luna."

"Are you out of your absolutely ditzy, airheaded, idiotic mind? I'm not helping you. I'm doing nothing for you! Go away!"

She pouted and stared for a minute.

"Uh, you heard Elanor, right?" Ashley asked, glaring at my sister. "Shoo."

"Oh, okay."

She shut the door and was gone.

"Was I too mean?" I asked, staring at the wood.

"Too mean? Hell no! You have every right to be pissed!"

"It's not really their fault though. I mean they can't help that they were mated. That's something that's determined before we're born."

"They didn't have to rub it in the way they did. They could have done it privately like you're supposed to. I mean we're wolves, we're not uncultured animals. Some things are meant to be done in private."

"I guess."

I poured more champagne and sipped it slower. I still felt a little bad for yelling at Harmony.

"What are you going to do with two weeks of nothing?"

"I don't know. Travel around the packs? Experience life a bit."

"Find your mate?" she asked, nudging me.

I smiled a bit. "No. I don't even want to think about that right now. I think just doing some traveling will do me good. I have been having this weird feeling lately. Like something is not right."

"Okay, weird."

"There's something else." I pushed my hair out of my face and showed her the moon and bow marking on my forehead.

"Okay, that's weird. What is that?"

"This is going to sound so incredibly crazy and insane. I'm still not sure if it's real or I was hallucinating. And you have to absolutely swear to not tell anyone!"

"Okay. Pinky promise."

"When I shifted, I went into this black void. The Goddess Artemis was there."

"I'm sorry...what?"

"I'm not finished. That's not even the craziest part."

"There's more?"

"Uh, yeah, Ashley."

Her eyes were as wide as saucers.

"So, she approaches me and tells me, get this, I'm her daughter."

"We're all Artemis's daughters and sons."

"No, like her legit daughter. Her child."

"What?"

"Right?" I asked.

"How? You and Harmony are twins."

"That's where I was confused. But Artemis said that since mom was pregnant with Harmony at the time, it was easy to put me there. Since she's a goddess she couldn't give birth. She said something bad was coming and wanted her child to help save the packs."

"Something bad?"

"Yeah, the feeling I've been getting the past few weeks, what if that's it?"

"And not turning eighteen and shifting for the first time?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I told you it sounded crazy."

"Are there other children?"

I shrugged my shoulders again. "I don't know. She didn't say there were."

"Maybe there's something in the archives?" she suggested.

"Maybe. I'll go there before setting off on my great adventure."

"I want to adventure."

"Come with me."

"What?" she asked.

"Come with me."

"I don't know. I mean, you think I should?"

"What are we going to miss? Sitting in class doing nothing for the last few weeks of school?"

"The rest of our finals?"

"There's what three left? We can do those and then leave. I can postpone taking a few weeks off," I said.

"Okay. Yeah. Yeah! That'll be fun! That'll be awesome." Ashley bounced excitedly on my bed nearly spilling her glass of bubbly.

"Yeah, it will!"

"Wolves don't travel without their pack though?"

"No, but we're not leaving forever. Just a little bit."

"Okay. I can do that! Yes!"

We finished drinking the champagne and made our plans for going on an adventure. I hoped that it would be nothing but fun, but that nagging feeling was in the pit of my stomach.

As the sun started to crest the horizon, I heard the jovial sounds of laughter below my window.

Everyone must be leaving.

I stood and watched as everyone filed out of the house and towards their cars. I spotted Harmony, hanging onto Alex, as he left. She giggled and kissed him as they walked to his car.

I hope she just leaves.

She kissed him long and hard before turning back to the house.

There's that electricity again.

I felt a tingling in my body and that was so odd. My gaze was drawn to the royal family. Prince Edmond stopped and looked around before looking up at my window.

My throat seemed to suddenly feel so dry. Our eyes met and the feeling intensified.

No. It's nothing. You're crazy.

"Who are you staring at?" Ashley called, laying on the bed.

"Oh, nobody. Everyone's just leaving my birthday party."

"You're party! Did you even get cake?"

I shook my head. "I don't really like red velvette cake. That's Harmony's favorite."

"Let's get some sleep so we can get these plans put into motion!"

"Sounds good."

I lay next to Ashley and talked until the sun was high in the sky, eventually drifting off.