Ice Blue [ Book One ]

20 // Ceremony

life is not a love song that we like
we're all broken pieces floating by
life is not a love song we can try
to fix our broken pieces one at a time

• • •

I frowned as Lana moved my curled hair around my shoulders. "A mark? I thought those were for mated pairs only," I said with a confused glance toward Lana's neck. No mark. How had I not noticed this beforehand?

"We have three distinguishable marks," Lana told me, stepping back to eye my outfit and hair with her hands on her hips. She smiled brightly. "You look beautiful."

"Three?" I asked, raising my recently penciled brows at her. "You have three marks? Where's your mate mark?"

She chuckled as she stepped forward and turned me around in the mirror to look at myself in the mirror. "We wolves mark differently than you felines. We do the same thing, we have sex and we bite each other's neck. However, unlike felines, our marking is . . . Different. A bite mark does not remain permanent on each other's necks."

Neither does ours. I closed my eyes and remembered how Andy and I would have to mark each other once a month for the fraction of our relationship. Felines kept the secret of our marking a very deep, very dangerous secret. If the council found out they disappeared, it would have heavy repercussions. It's been a secret for hundreds of years, it would be very bad to have it spewed now.

"Instead, it will match the mark down your spine. The same one you get when you're fully brought into the pack. By the time you have all three marks, your entire spine will have one long, detailed mark running down the skin. You and Princeton haven't marked or mated yet, so your pack mark will take up the bottom section of your back. Your marking mark and the pack mark are like tethers. The marking mark will be at the top of your spine, and the mating mark will connect the two others and complete the entire mark of your back," the former Luna explained as she fluffed yet again at my hair.

"There is a fourth though, but only females get it," she said quietly. "Yours may appear right away when you're integrated, and I feel I should warn you."

The air became thick with tension, and it definitely got Feline's attention. She stood to attention, and she was listening closely now. "What is it?" I asked softly.

"It's directly above the pack mark and below the mating park — it's a large, unfilled circle. It . . . It represents that you have conceived a child at least once. If the child makes it to term and is born, the mark will be filled and completed. If not . . . If not, it will remain unfilled until the female successfully conceives again and carries to term, by which then it will fill." My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach, and the urge to excuse myself to vomit was strong.

"I see," I choked out. She gave me a sympathetic look, her hand running down my back gently. "Why?"

"Marks are communication in our community. They claim, they tell a story, and they let other packs know exactly who you are and who you run with. It tells another wolf that they're marked and mated, or if they're not. It tells us if they're in a pack, but has no mate, or if they have a mate and no pack." She sucked in a breath. "Marking is extremely important in identifying a wolf based on pack. A pack's members will have a similar outline of their marks but unique outcomes based on who their mate is and their individuality as a person."

My heart was racing a mile a second, and now all I wanted to do was rip the dress off and run away. I didn't want them to see my mark. I didn't want the pack to know that I had failed as a mother. "Will I have to reveal the mark?"