Chapter 19
Thome’s voice trembled, but he held her gaze with desperate conviction
“I know I used to see her as a shadow of someone else. A reflection. But I swear to the Moon, I came to love her–for who she was. Her scent, her rage, the way she fought even when broken. I saw her, Nia.”
Nia’s throat tightened.
“You saw her,” she echoed softly, voice raw. “When?”
His mouth opened, then closed.
She continued, breath shaking
“Was it when she lay half–conscious outside the stronghold gates, frostbitten from your punishments? Or when she knelt beneath the Moon Altar, bleeding for Marina’s survival, while your hand guided the blade?”
Thorne flinched as though struck.
Nia stepped back, her fingers brushing the curve of her binding ring–etched with the sigil of her engagement to Caelan.
“You say you loved her. But love isn’t something that grows only after loss. It’s what you choose in the moment–when it costs you, when it demands courage.”
Thorne’s voice cracked. “I was a coward. I know that now. But I’m not asking to undo the past–I just… I just want to walk forward with her again. With you.
Her smile was
was brittle as frost. “You can’t walk forward with a ghost, Alpha Blackridge. She died the moment you watched her soul burn away and called it a sacrifice.”
He stepped forward as if to touch her hand, but a figure materialized at her side Caelan Quinn, steady and silent.
Thorne froze.
Nia turned slightly, not in tear, but in calm dismissal.
“Caelan, this is the Alpha who once held my heart like a hunting knife.”
Caelan met Thorne’s gaze, eyes cold as winter dusk.
“Then I pity you,” he said, voice quiet but cutting. “For you were given a Luna the Moon herself marked–and you chose power over devotion.”
Thorne opened his mouth, but Nia silenced him with a look.
“You ask what would earn her forgiveness?” she said, voice soft as snowfall. “Nothing. Because forgiveness is a gift from the living. And Selene Elowen no longer lives.”
She turned to Caelan.
“Let’s go. We still have starlight to dance under.”
Together, they walked back into the Skyspire Gardens, where lanterns glowed like stars and the future awaited with open arms.
Thorne remained behind, staring at the spot where she had stood
The warmth of the glade had fled him. The lights of the feast blurred through the haze in his vision. All that remained was a hollow ache and the distant pulse of a memory.
For the first time in his life, the howl building in his chest had no pack, no mate, and no Moon to answer it.
Only silence. And the memory of a soul he could never reclaim.
Back inside the Elowen Estate, after the gala moonfeast, Nia had returned quietly with Caelan. The ceremonial wine still buzzed lightly Chapter 17
in her veins, but her mind was sharper than ever. Thorne’s voice–his confession–still clung to her like frost.
She said nothing of it to her betrothed.
The next morning, the pack bustled with preparations for her bonding rites. But instead of celebration, Nia’s thoughts were drawn to her son, Theo.
“You must forget the past to walk forward,” the Moon’s Whisper echoed in her mind.
But some pasts claw at the future.
Far away in the shadowed reaches of Whitmoor, Thome sat in silence.
He no longer denied what he had done.
“I cast her aside while calling her my bonded Luna… and only after losing her do I know what I buried. ”
He no longer called her Selene, not Nia. Now, to him, she was simply the one he lost
Theo sat nearby, eating in silence. Then he looked up and asked: “Is Mom really never coming back?”
‘Thorne’s voice cracked. “No, but… she lives on in you. And I’ll honor her by raising you with all she left behind.”
It was the only promise he could still keep.
Back in Elowen, Nia sat with Lady Althea. Her mother brought her tea brewed with moonblossom root and sea fennel–comforting herbs of the highlands.
“You’ve seemed distant,” Althea murmured. “Is it because of the Quinn match?”
Nia shook her head. “No, Mother. I’ve just been thinking a lot. About the ones we’ve left behind.”
Her mother nodded, misinterpreting the source of her sorrow. “The dead rest, star of mine. It’s the living who must keep moving.” Nia drank slowly, her thoughts already adritt.
Elsewhere in Whitmoor, Marina had returned home, but joyless,
The manor halls once adorned with laughter now echoed in silence. Her mother, Moira, had retreated to Selene’s former chambers, tending to the few belongings her daughter had left behind,
Moira spent each day wiping down the old books, straightening the quilt, restocking Selene’s writing tools as if she might return at any
moment.
Marina stood in the doorway, conflicted. She had lived, She had won.
And yet….
“Mother,” she said gently, “Come eat something.”
Moira didn’t turn “Fm not hungry.”
Marina kneeled, her voice breaking. “It’s all my fault. Don’t hurt yourself over me. I. I never meant to-
Moira turned and slapped her.
The sound was deafening in the quiet
“It was your fault!” Moira screamed, shaking, “If not for you, Selene would still be here! My daughter–my firstborn–is dead because
Chapter 19
of you.”
Marina reeled back, stunned. Moira had never struck her before.
“Why?” she sobbed. “Why do you hate me now? I didn’t wield the blade. I didn’t plan the ritual. You all said it was Selene’s fault I was born sick. So why can’t I have her heart without guilt? Wasn’t I always the one you loved more?”
Moira’s chest heaved. She couldn’t find the words,
Cedric entered then, face dark with fury. He caught Moira before she collapsed.
And then he turned on Marina.
“You vile child. We raised you with more love than you deserved. Selene gave her soul for you, and you speak of her like a burden!”
He kicked the hearth bench aside in rage. “She was your sister! Her blood runs in your veins. And all you can do is shame her memory!”
Marina stared at them both, realizing she no longer recognized her parents.
The home that once bathed her in favor had become a tomb–and Selene’s name, its ghost.
Marina staggered back, alone for the first time in her life.
Chapter 19
