Chapter 44

Juniper

“What do you think, the ivory or the cream?” Luna Claire asked me as she held up two, almost identical, off-white linen samples.

To the untrained eye, they might look the same, but my artist’s eye could differentiate between them easily. I lifted the navy blue sample between them, comparing each to the blue, before I made my decision.

“The ivory,” I stated confidently.

I had spent the better part of the morning after Lukas left for training with Claire in the packhouse, helping her to plan out the decorations and seating chart for Lukas’s ceremony and after party.

The ceremony itself would take place just before sunset on the summer solstice. Because we were further north, the sunset would take place late, around 10 pm.

I felt odd, helping her, since I wasn’t Lukas’s true mate, but his parents hadn’t even batted an eye when we announced we wanted to be chosen mates.

“Perfect,” she said with a smile, setting the ivory with the chosen decorations, and the cream in the rej