Archive of Our Own ^beta

They choose a New Moon for the ceremony. It’s only right—the New Moon is a time for new beginnings, for fresh starts, for promises of good things to come. Marin actually wanted the Full Moon at first—“signed, sealed, and stamped,” she recited from her astrology books—but Talia knew that even a seasoned wolf like Laura wouldn’t remember as much as she’d like if she was married before a shift.

“I’d rather not spend my wedding night with one of my wives eating a dead rabbit,” Braeden said dryly, earning her a pinch from Marin.

The ceremony wouldn’t take place in a church. It also wasn’t quite a Pagan wedding, not quite something the emissaries would practice amongst their own. It was a gentle, careful mix of practices all three of them knew and recognized. Some of it came from Marin’s books, from her ancestors. Some came from the ways of the wolves, from Laura’s blood. And some came from the traditions passed down in generations of Braeden’s family.

It was a wedding for them and no one else.

“I can feel it,” Marin murmurs, eyes fluttering shut as they step off the porch of Hale house and into the dew-damp grass. Their hands are linked, a row of women in white dresses and loose hair, clasping tightly to one another as they ascend into the preserve. “It’s a good night for this.”

They all decided to have one attendant each—a person who would prompt them in their vows, a person to witness the union. Laura chose Talia, of course, as her mother and alpha. Marin chose her brother, who was also able to perform the Druid aspects of the marriage. And since Braeden’s family was long gone and her oldest friends were scattered across the globe, she chose the closest person she had to a sister—Malia, who brought out the human in everyone. They all wait in the clearing, surrounded by tea lights and hanging lanterns, the buzzing the cicadas bringing them all together. In the center of the clearing, there is a fairy ring—flowers and mushrooms, teeming with life and a crisp, metallic magic that only Marin can scent on the wind. Talia, Alan, and Malia stand around it, smiling, waiting for the brides.

Inside the fairy ring is a mound of rich, dark dirt. This is where Braeden and Marin will hold their wrists when Laura bites them—this bite will not turn them. It’s a mating bite, a bonding bite.

“This feels like…like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” Braeden says, voice constricted with emotion as they walk, bouquets of purple roses lining the way.

“It feels like a beginning,” Laura says softly.

And if they say it is, then it is. With them, with their love, there are no rules except the ones they make for themselves.