December's Moon

3| AURORA

| AURORA |

The warm fire bathed Aurora's pale skin in hues of red and orange. The flames licked the sides of the logs like tongues of serpents, spitting smoke and embers into the night sky. A gust of wind blew across the small clearing, and Aurora's nearly-white blonde hair danced across her face. She flipped her hood over her head, covering her ears against the chill. After taking a sip of her whiskey and Coke, she scooted a few inches closer to the flames.

A chorus of happy revelry filled the air. Aurora smiled, watching her classmates catch up after the long summer away from the Academy. She played with the crescent moon charm on her silver choker, running it back and forth across its delicate chain. For her, this school was more of a home than any place else had ever been, and she couldn't be happier to be back.

On the far side of the fire, Luca stood with a group of boys. He took a sip of his beer, nodding casually along with their conversation but not really talking. As if he knew Aurora was looking at him, his gaze snapped to meet hers. She held eye contact through the smoke and the flames and winked at him. He wrinkled his eyebrows at her before finally looking away.

She was surprised Luca had come to the party tonight at all, to be honest. He almost never showed up to things like this. He was the strait-laced, no-trouble, golden boy of the school, after all. More surprising to her was the fact that he had come with December—something she had deduced from the fact that they were drinking beer from the same cooler. That, and the fact that she'd asked December point blank, and he'd confirmed it.

Her gaze shifted to December. He was laughing as he talked with a group of their classmates. His bright turquoise windbreaker and silver spandex getup was ridiculous. Combined with his sunglasses, he looked like a villain out of a fever dream from the eighties. She supposed he didn't know any better, though. Or, maybe he did and just pretended he didn't for kicks. For some reason, having essentially no shame seemed to work for him. Maybe, he knew what he was doing and wasn't as oblivious as he often acted.

Aurora chewed on the insides of her cheeks as she openly stared at December, continuing to keep tabs on Luca out of the corners of her eyes. Ever since childhood, she'd been overlooked—cast in their shadows. No one even considered Aurora a contender in the tournament, dismissing her because she would never be as strong, as fast, or as big as either of them. The position of Alpha was for a man, not a woman. Many of the elders believed she shouldn't be allowed to even compete—that her birth date was a mistake.

She thought that was sexist bullshit. Aurora Louve had no intentions of rolling over and surrendering.

Luca and December weren't going to take it easy on her during the physical portions of the tournament, so she wasn't about to give them a break on the strategy . . . a test that had already begun, whether they realized it or not. While these boys were playing checkers, she was playing three-dimensional chess. There was so much more to this game than they knew—layers they weren't even aware of.

The fact that they were friendly enough with each other to show up here together was worrying. That wasn't something she had planned for. She would have to figure out a way to deal with it at some point, but right now, her priority was the fact that the two of them were too focused. She needed to do something about that.

"December looks good," Priscilla, one of Aurora's friends, said, pulling Aurora from her thoughts. She must have noticed Aurora staring at him for the past minute and a half.