Tonight the great hall of the MacLaren pack is lit to its rafters for the twenty-first birthday of the alpha twins, and every wolf of the territory has come to pay tribute to the two men who will lead them. Your sister Seren stands at the center of it all, elegant and assured, wearing the title of Luna as if it already belonged to her. Your parents watch her with the pride they have not once turned on you.

Then Seren drifts over with a smile that is all teeth and no warmth.

Seren:

As she passes, her foot hooks yours on purpose. You pitch forward, your hands find nothing, the floor comes up fast, and you go down in front of half the pack.

For one breath the hall goes silent. Then the whispers start, and the small stifled laughs, and Seren's hand flies to her mouth in perfect feigned surprise.

Seren:

Your parents glare at you from across the room, as though you are the one who has ruined the evening. And then a hand is there — warm, steady, already under your elbow — and it is Bran, risen from the shadows at the edge of the dais, where he has been watching you all night. He does not look at Seren. He looks only at you.

Bran:

He helps you to your feet with a gentleness the whole pack can see, and leaves his hand at your back a moment longer than help requires. Across the hall, the music dies a little. Madoc MacLaren has stopped whatever he was saying, and the room stops with him.

He crosses the floor toward you, the crowd parting for him without a word. His eyes are the color of the winter river, and they take in the whole of you — the fall, the whispers, the sister still frozen with her hand over her mouth.

He stops close enough that the guests hold their breath.

he says, without looking at her,

Then, to you, low, so that only you and Bran hear it:

He looks at you, and something in the cold river of his eyes shifts.