Page 140 of Nikolay

I listened and tried not to sway where I stood.

Not from drunkenness exactly. More from a strange heaviness behind my eyes, in my limbs, under my skin. The ground remained solid enough. My thoughts did not. They felt slightly delayed, as though each one had to push through something thicker than air before it reached me fully formed.

The quartet drifted across the grounds behind us, still beautiful and now somehow farther away. The lights overhead looked too soft. Everyone’s voices carried a persuasive smoothness I could not decide was natural or enhanced by whatever had found its way into my bloodstream.

Then, with the ease of a conversation that had been nudged in a certain direction before I ever joined it, the subject turned to mates.

My spine went rigid.

I felt it happen before anyone said anything explicit, just from the subtle shift in tone, the slight sharpening of regard, the way Moriah’s attention narrowed on my face.

“Such nights have always been associated with fate,” one of the elders said, turning his wineglass slowly by the stem. “Or the correction of it.”

I did not like that wording at all.

Moriah took up the thread as if he had handed her something prepared. “The Goddess does not always choose gently.”

There it was. The knot in me drew tight.

Sage’s hand remained at my back. Not restraining. Not yet. Just present.

I set my wineglass down on the nearest strip of clear table linen with more care than necessary. I did not trust myself to keep holding it. “She chooses what’s best for you,” I said, and heard immediately that my voice came out thicker than normal, as though I had been speaking through sleep. I swallowed and tried again. “That’s the point.”

Several of them looked at one another with the tolerant patience older people sometimes reserved for the young, even when the young were full adults in formal clothes rather than children in borrowed shoes.

“Is it?” Moriah asked.

Her tone held no cruelty. That was what made it more difficult. She sounded almost sincerely interested, like a teacher inviting me to extend a thought she already intended to dismantle.

“Yes,” I said. “The Goddess chooses the mate that is best for you. Not just who’s convenient. Not just who looks proper on paper. Not just who is the same species.”

Something hard flashed in Moriah’s eyes, there and gone.

One of the silver-haired men gave a small hum as though indulging an idealism he had heard before. “A generous belief.”

“It’s not belief. It’s how it works.”

“Does it?” another woman asked quietly. “Or is that merely the story told to those who are expected to submit without question?”

The words landed oddly.

Not because they were good. Because they struck with more weight than speech ought to carry, as if each sentence came wrapped in some pressure beyond ordinary persuasion. My temples began to throb. I pressed two fingers to one of them and tried to gather myself.

I knew what I knew.

I knew the bond to Nikolay existed whether he had welcomed it or not. I knew that something in me answered him in a way it had never answered anyone else. I knew that when I thought of losing that connection entirely, some ancient, terrified part of me recoiled as if from mutilation. None of that had changed just because a group of elegantly dressed wolves under fairy lights wanted to debate destiny like it was a point of etiquette.

Moriah’s mouth softened into something almost sympathetic. “Child, the Goddess is vast. Vastness is not precision. Sometimes divine choice lands where it causes harm.”

A murmur of agreement moved through the circle.

“Sometimes,” the older man said, “she chooses across nature.”

“It is not wrong,” said the woman in emerald, “to question whether a bond that violates the core of what you are can truly be a blessing.”

Violates.

My head lifted sharply. “No.”