Page 87 of Empowering the Wolf's Heart

Shen stared. His eyes trailed from my hair falling in easy waves—completely unbound and driving me nearly as insane as the dress I couldn’t even kick a bear in—down to my slippered feet and back up.

His lips quirked in a tiny grin. “You look… like a woman,” he said.

My nose scrunched. “Just what every girl wants to hear.”

He tapped my nose. I straightened it. “Do you wish to hear you are beautiful?”

I stared at him, opening and closing my mouth. Doesn’t every girl wish to be told they’re beautiful?

He smiled. It was gentle and completely at odds with his sharp cheekbones, scars, and crooked nose. “Alia, you do not need another to speak to your beauty. You are beautiful fromhere”—he pointed to my heart—“to here”—he tapped my head. “And here.”

“You just gestured to all of me,” I said.

His eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief. “I know.”

I huffed out a breath, but a smile crossed my lips.

“The most important opinion is not my own, but yours, Alia. So what do you think of what you see?” He turned me to a mirror.

I stared at my reflection. In it, I saw a girl who had gone through Sixth to be here today. I saw someone who had fought through her own fears, worries, doubts, and pains to confront her past and try to change instead of letting the past define her or remaining in a mire of what she knew to be untrue. She was someone who wasn’t perfect, but was doing her best with what she had.

“I see someone I’m beginning to like,” I whispered at long last.

He squeezed my shoulder. “Would you like a hug?”

I nodded, turning and plunking my face into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me.

“I haven’t forgotten, ya know. We still have to speak about what happened with my grandpa,” I said.

He stiffened just a hair before he sighed, squeezing me harder. “I know, Carissimus. I know.”

But for right then, all I wanted was to feel safe.

And in his arms… I felt safe.

The three elderswaited on the far end of the sandy pit. Elder Timone, Elder Pulma, and Elder Vera. They wore theirceremonial red robes trimmed in gold. The two male elders, Timone and Pulma, were respectively tall and stocky. Elder Timone had a wiry build with a long beard, while Pulma was short and stocky with a head of gray hair. Elder Vera had long blonde hair and was the youngest of the elders. She had smile lines and dark eyes that could pierce metal.

My dress tried to trip me every other step as I walked through the sand to the other end. I think my grandma paid it to misbehave and make my crowning a disastrous failure. I refused to let something so small as a dress make this day any worse than it needed to be.

On the benches ringing the edges of the pit—more arena-style seating were brought in for this occasion—were my people. From Lead Enforcer Markus to the youngest orphans, they had gathered to see this. I just hoped I didn’t make a fool of myself.

If you do, I’ll flame anyone who laughs,Ran said, flying overhead and making a few people duck or scream in fear.

A grin teased at my lips. She’d be the first to laugh.Will you flame yourself, then?

Ha-ha. Very funny,she retorted, though I felt her humor over the bond.

I stopped before the elders. There was no fanfare this day. No massive bonfires, no stomping feet. It was as silent as death itself.

“Today, we see a new matriarch crowned,” Elder Pulma said. I always wondered if he spoke at public events because he had such a loud voice or liked to hear himself talk. Most times, I supposed the latter. “Today, we see a new matriarch to power.”

Elder Timone stepped forward. “Do you, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, accept to keep to the Red Code of Honouras labeled within these pages and lead your people to follow in the Source’s Light?”

“I do,” I said, placing my hand on the Book of Codes—the original one, not the one we had faux plead on in previous generations.

“Power ab intus, tutela omnium,”he said. He bowed and gave me the book to hold in my left hand.

Elder Vera stepped forward. “Do you, Aurelia of the lineage Conscientia from father Liam and mother Annikia, swear to do good by your people and to lead them in the ways of honor and virtue and courage?”

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