Chapter 24: Chapter 24

SELENE

The infirmary was silent.

Too quiet.

I should have been asleep. My body was wrecked, still aching from the shift that had torn through me, still adjusting to the new presence in my mind. My wolf was there—present, breathing, waiting—but something wasn’t right.

I could feel it in my bones.

The pull.

Not just to him, but to everything I had been denied for so long.

My mate was still awake too. I could hear it in the steady way his breath moved, not quite slow enough for sleep. His body was warm beside me, solid, grounding. He hadn’t let go of me since I woke, his hand resting just above my hip, his fingers curled slightly against my skin, like he needed the reassurance that I was still here.

I shifted slightly, wincing at the soreness in my limbs. He felt it immediately.

“Lie still,” he murmured, voice rough with exhaustion.

I huffed. “I’ve been lying still for hours.”

His fingers flexed. “You need rest.”

I turned my head toward him, searching his face in the dim light. His sharp features were unreadable, but there was tension in his body, something coiled beneath his skin.

“You’re not sleeping either.”

A beat.

Then, slowly, he exhaled. “No.”

I frowned. “Why?”

He didn’t answer right away. His fingers traced idle patterns against my side, like he was thinking.

Then—softly, carefully—he said, “I remembered something.”

I waited, sensing the weight behind his words.

“When I was a boy,” he murmured, “my father would take me into the forest at night. It was always the same time. The same place.” His voice was quieter now, like he was pulling the memory from some locked corner of his mind. “He called it a sacred ritual. He said it would bring me closer to my mate. That I was meant to find her early.”

I sucked in a breath.

My stomach twisted.

His fingers stilled, curling slightly against my skin. “I believed him,” he continued, his voice steady, emotionless. “I was raised to lead. Raised to know that an alpha must have a mate. That we must be strong. And so, I thought…I thought these rituals were helping me find her faster. That they would lead me to her.”

I swallowed hard, my pulse quickening. “But you never found her.”

His lips pressed together. “No.” A pause. “Not for lack of trying.”

The weight of his words sank deep.

He had been searching. Waiting. Hoping.

But he never found me.

Not because I wasn’t there.

Because his father had made sure he wouldn’t.

I felt it before he spoke again—the shift in his energy, the slow realization unraveling inside him.

“My father lied to me.”

It wasn’t just a statement. It was an admission.

He had been tricked. Controlled.

And worst of all—he had believed in it.

His grip on my waist tightened, just slightly. “I thought those rituals were meant to bind me to my mate. That they were meant to strengthen the bond. But they weren’t. My father…he knew about you.” His voice was lower now, edged with something dark, something raw. “Or at least, he knew there was a chance. He knew my mate existed, and he chose to destroy the bond before it could take hold.”

A sick feeling curled in my gut.

My fingers curled into the blanket, my mind racing, trying to understand why.

Why would his father do that?

Why would he want to sever the bond that had always been meant to exist?

I turned fully, ignoring the pull of exhaustion, my heart pounding. “Alpha…why would he do that to you?”

His face was unreadable, but something flickered behind his clouded gaze. A thought. A suspicion.

Then, finally, he answered.

“Because he didn’t want my blindness to carry on.”

The words hit me like a punch to the ribs.

I sucked in a sharp breath, but he wasn’t done.

“My father wasn’t a kind man, Selene.” His voice was almost too steady now, like he was holding something back. “He didn’t see my blindness as a weakness. He didn’t allow it to be a weakness. But he still…resented it.”

He exhaled slowly, tilting his head slightly toward the ceiling. “He never let me use walking sticks. Never let me be dependent on anything. By the time I was nine, I had memorized every inch of our pack lands. Every step. Every pathway. Because if I stumbled, if I failed—he would know.”

My chest ached.

The image of my alpha as a child—alone, in the dark, forced to learn the world without help, without comfort—made my stomach twist violently.

I reached for him before I could stop myself, my fingers brushing against his forearm. He tensed, but didn’t pull away.

“He made sure I was strong,” he murmured. “That I knew how to fight. That I could track a wolf by sound alone. He taught me how to hunt by scent. He didn’t allow excuses. And when he died—” A sharp inhale. “I was nineteen. The youngest alpha this pack had ever seen.”

I stared at him, my breath caught in my throat.

“I had already given up on love by then,” he admitted. “I didn’t see a point. If I wasn’t going to find my mate, then what was the purpose?”

He had resigned himself to a life without a mate. Without love.

Because of his father.

Because of what had been taken from him.

Something raw and painful swelled in my chest, something too big to hold.

“Alpha.” My voice was barely a whisper.

He exhaled, turning his head slightly, his expression unreadable.

Then, softer, he murmured, “I never told you that you could call me by my name.”

I blinked, caught off guard.

“What?”

“I realized it earlier.” His fingers skimmed lightly over my hip, tracing idle circles. “You always call me alpha.” A pause. “But I like the way my name sounds when you say it.”

My lips parted, heat creeping up my neck.

He wasn’t looking at me, but his voice was softer now, the tension in his body easing just slightly.

“You can call me Lux,” he murmured.

The words settled into me, warm and unexpected.

I swallowed hard.

Then, tentatively, I whispered, “Lux.”

A slow, deep inhale.

His fingers tightened against my waist.

He didn’t say anything.

He didn’t need to.

Because the bond between us spoke for itself.

LUXURY

I should have been with the council.

I should have been planning the funerals, ensuring our fallen were honored. I should have been overseeing the burning of the hunters’ bodies, securing the perimeter, making sure the scent of death didn’t linger in our lands.

Instead, I was here.

Doing ~none~ of that.

I didn’t care.

Not when my luna was involved.

The weight of my responsibilities pressed against my ribs like iron, but it meant nothing in the face of what had been taken from me. The pack could whisper about my absence. The council could question my choices.

Let them.

They weren’t the ones who had been lied to.

Who had been ~robbed~.

My father had stolen everything from me.

I sucked in a slow breath, my pulse thudding in my ears.

He made sure I would never find her. Made sure that the bond—the one thing that was meant to belong to me—was cut before it ever had the chance to take hold. I had spent my entire life waiting, searching, thinking I wasn’t worthy of a mate.

And all along, he had known.

A growl rumbled deep in my chest, my wolf prowling beneath my skin.

Beside me, Selene stirred, her breath hitching as if she ~felt~ the storm inside me. I ran my fingers along her hip, grounding myself in the warmth of her skin.

The council wanted to see me.

Too bad.

I had no time for politics. No time for the council’s bullshit.

I had a ritual to perform.

To undo the damage my father had caused.

And I had no idea what that would cost me.

A sharp knock at the door cut through my thoughts.

I didn’t move.

Another knock.

Then—Julian’s voice, calm, measured. “Alpha.”

I stayed silent.

A pause. Then, “The council is waiting. Erik is waiting. The pack—”

“I ~don’t~ care,” I said, voice low, edged with warning.

Julian exhaled, shifting outside the door. He knew better than to push when my voice dropped like that.

But he was persistent.

“I understand,” he said carefully. “But the pack is grieving. They need you.”

A bitter laugh scraped up my throat.

They wanted answers?

I had none.

All I had were ~lies~—a history rewritten by my father’s hands.

They wanted leadership?

For the first time in my life, I felt ~untethered~.

Because my father had stolen my ~choice~.

I clenched my fists.

“I’ll deal with them soon,” I said, clipped and final.

Another pause.

Then—Julian relented. “Understood.”

His footsteps faded down the hall, and silence crept back in.

Selene shifted, the sheets rustling as she turned toward me.

“You’re tense,” she murmured, her voice still heavy with exhaustion.

I exhaled. “I have reason to be.”

She made a soft sound, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

I felt her watching me.

Waiting.

She always ~waited~—as if she knew I needed to pull the words from myself at my own pace.

I rolled onto my side, meeting her gaze.

“My father did this,” I said, my voice rough. “He stole years from me. From ~us~.”

“He made it so I would never find you,” I continued, my jaw clenching. “And now I have to undo it.”

A beat.

Then—she spoke. “Magic always has a price.”

“~I know~,” I bit out, dragging a hand through my hair. “And I don’t care.”

Selene pushed herself up slightly, flinching at the movement. Instinctively, I reached for her, my fingers brushing against her arm. She didn’t pull away.

I felt the shift in her, the tension in the air between us—heavy, uncertain.

“Lux—”

“I ~will~ do it,” I said firmly.

I wasn’t giving her a choice.

I wasn’t giving ~myself~ one either.

For a long moment, she was silent, but I felt the weight of her attention on me, the unspoken battle waging behind it. Then, finally—

“…Okay.”

The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding eased out, my grip tightening slightly on her waist.

She was ~mine~.

And I would make damned sure nothing—not my father, not the past, not the cost of this ritual—~ever~ took her from me again.