(Kieran POV)
I stood outside Catherine's chambers for a full ten minutes before finding the courage to knock, the crimson gown draped over my arm like a banner of intentions I wasn't sure I had the right to declare. The Festival of the Moon was tomorrow night—the one celebration each year where my pack came together not as servants and master, but as family bound by more than duty or fear.
I'd never invited anyone outside the pack to witness it. The festival was ours, intimate and wild in ways that revealed truths about our nature that daylight conversations could never convey. But the thought of Catherine missing it, of her spending another evening isolated in silk-draped chambers while life pulsed through the castle around her, felt like denying both of us something essential.
The kno
