Chapter Fifteen
Liora’s POV:
They call this the Luna’s wing now!
Silken curtains. Gilded sconces casting
g warm amber light. A hearth that never truly dies, even when the embers dim. The scent–gods, the scent–of lavender and rosemary still clings to the fabric, no matter how many oils I burn, no matter how much sage smoke I smother in every corner. It’s her. Selene. Her essence lingers like a curse. I’ve changed the bedding ten times. Scrubbed the walls till my knuckles bled Burned every trinket she left behind.
Still, she remains. Her ghost is clever that way. But this is my wing now, Mine
Every bowed head from the omegas, every whispered “Luna Liora” echoing in the hall, every meal prepared for me–not her–feeds something raw and long–starved in my chest. I hold the weight of this title on my shoulders like a crown forged in spite, and spite alone. And yet Ronan’s eyes linger in empty doorways when he thinks I’m not watching. Calix has stopped calling me “Mom,” reverting to “Ma’am” like I’m a stranger in my own pack. Elara shrinks from my touch, even flinches when I brush her hair. Ryker… Ryker stares at me too long sometimes, like he’s trying to see through me. Like he knows something but can’t name it.
And I hate it.I hate her. Selene. The real Luna. The beloved. The dead darling X
Only she’s not dead. Not really. Not to me.
I felt her rage clawing at the veil when I first summoned the ancient one. Felt her screaming as I whispered my price. I gave everything- my name, my blood, my soul, I think. I just wanted in. Inside this life. Inside this power
The entity listened. It taught me how to mimic tears. How to sweeten lies with just enough truth to make them stick. How to stitch grief Into my face like thread through cloth. I wore humility like perfume Played the nanny. The helpful nanny. The one who asked for nothing but offered everything.
Ronan believed me. The fool Selene tried to unravel it when it was already too late. She returned expecting a parade of welcome. A reunion. She didn’t see the noose until it was around her neck.”
I buried her. Now I wear her pendant, though it burns my skin every time I clasp it. Sacred things don’t lie. But I’ve leamed to endure the sting. I wear her robes. Sleep in her bed. Sit at her table. Every thread soaked in falsehood, but I wear them with pride.
Still, the air in this house is heavy with her. Her memory sits at the dinner table. Walks the halls in silence. The children whisper her name when they think I can’t hear. Ronan dreams of her–I know it I see it in the way he sometimes wakes with her name on his breath
I can’t breathe in this house,So I leave &
The servant’s entrance swallows me whole, my cloak plain and gray like a commoner’s. The wind bites at my cheeks as I make my way northward. The woods greet me with frost–kissed silence. Branches creak. Owls blink in the dark.
I take the long path, the hidden one, the one Kael carved out in the underbrush like a secret.
He waits Always. His presence cuts through the cold like a flame. The moment I step into the clearing, he’s there–towering, carved from rage and war and ruin, Gold eyes gleam beneath the moonlight, his skin pale as bone, his chest bare, and his gaze eating me alive. Kael never speaks first. He doesn’t need to. I step into him like stepping into fire. His hands grip my waist, hard, demanding, bruising. I don’t flinch. I crave the ache.
His lips find my throat, teeth scraping just enough to make me hiss. We don’t kiss to taste. We kiss to claim. His fingers tangle in my hair and pull my head back as he drags his mouth over my skin, over the mark Ronan left, erasing it with tongue and spite “You came late,” he growls, voice like gravel.
“I had to pretend to care.” I whisper back, breath hitching, “Ronan likes to linger after dinner. Like we’re still in love.”
Kael growls low in his throat and lifts me effortlessly, carrying me over the threshold of the cabin. Inside, it’s all shadows and heat. Furs and stone. The fire crackles like it knows what’s coming.
Clothes fall in pieces–his shirt ripped, my dress unfastened with impatience. There’s no finesse here. No slow burn.
We crash like thunder”
He presses me against the wall, teeth grazing my collarbone, hands exploring every inch of me like a map he’s memorized but never tires of. He worships like a sinner–violent and desperate. There’s no gentleness, only need
The furs catch us as we fall, tangled and breathless, skin hot and slick with sweat. We don’t speak. The silence between us is sacred. It’s filled with old wounds and unsaid promises. It’s filled with everything I’ve lost–and everything I still want.
Later, the sprawled across him, my fingers tracing the scar down his chest a bitter satisfaction pooling in my belly.
“She still haunts them,” I murmur. “Even now. Even dead, she holds more power than me.”
Kael’s arm tightens around me. “You’re Luna now She’s nothing.”
I sigh, hating the way doubt coils in my stomach. “Ronan is changing. He looks at me like he’s remembering things he shouldn’t.“% Kael’s voice is colder now. “Then finish it. Kill him. Take the power. Make it yours.”
He turns my face toward his, gold eyes burning “You’ve done the hard part. You’ve infiltrated. Kill him, and we’ll rule together. As it should have been”
I close my eyes. I let myself imagine it–the blood, the screams, the silence after. Me in his arms. The children kneeling at my feet. A crown of ash and bone!!
But a sound–a small, almost imperceptible snap–breaks through the firelight.
Kael’s head lifts I freeze A footstep? No. A gasp? My pulse quickens.
Thrat unnight reaching for my cloak. The fire crackles too loud now. The wind outside in too.
(11:01 am ɗ d
I bolt upright, reaching for my cloak. The fire crackles, too loud now. The wind outside is too still
I rush to the door, throwing it open. Nothing.But I felt it. Someone watched us Someone knows.
And then, just barely, I see it. A flicker of blue between trees. The glint of something delicate–a shoe? No. A shadow? I can’t tell. But it’s small. Too small for a warrior. Too quick for a spy.
Kael appears behind me, already half–shifted. “You want me to track it?
“No,” I whisper, throat dry, mind racing. “No. Not yet. Let me think. Let me-”
But the scent is already gone.And this time. This time, they won’t be easy to bury.
