Please, white moon.

You can hide them for a while, can't you?

Just them. Just the two of them. The pack can wait to try to pull her back, to smother her in praise, to train her to be a sixth of the presence that Mosaic is. The town can wait to call upon Mosaic to solve its problems with her incredible feats of strength and charm and huntressesness.

Don't let anyone else see them and the way they wrestle breathless and glowing among the flowers, how Ember squirms so that she can prove Mosaic's power, how those incredible shoulders are a canopy over the little wolf. Don't let anyone else hear the eager panting, the way that Mosaic wrings her name out of Ember's lips, the hitches of breath and the way her voice is dragged up into taut need. Don't let anyone else feel the sleek, glowing skin; don't let anyone smell the Adoration and the Lust and the Submission dusting the petals of the flowers.

You can do that for them, can't you, lovely white moon?

For Mosaic and the hunts she carries out in your name, at least. And for the little kisses Ember lifts to you when she sees you rising while she roams the hunting-grounds of Beri. And for the way that Ember wraps her firm runner's legs around Mosaic. How can you look at that and not wish to protect it, eight-faced moon?

Your work will be cut out for you. Mosaic's name carries embarrassingly, adoringly far. Now that her pack knows beyond any doubt, how can she not be eager beneath her love? How can she not cling, and melt, and reflect Mosaic's desire back to her? This, too, is alchemy, and alchemy has always been touched by moonlight.

So hear her ragged prayer, white moon. And if not for her sake, for the sake of the hero of Beri, whose mystique must be preserved.