Chapter 30
3/5 95.3%
ancuuy triere.
Again.
Kael raised an eyebrow when I walked past them both without a word.
“You good?” he asked me.
“Perfect,” I said.
Nathan shifted behind me. “I could use some help with this grip, actually.”
Kael paused. “Ask someone else.”
“I meant Alice.”
I turned slowly, finally meeting his eyes for the first time in days.
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.”
He blinked.
I held his gaze. “You meant to pull me back into whatever story you’re still telling yourself. But I’m not in that book anymore.”
“You don’t even care that I’m bleeding?” Nathan said, stepping forward.
“I cared for years,” I replied. “And it almost killed me.”
He stopped short, like I’d slapped him.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, his voice breaking. “We were-”
“You were cruel. You were arrogant. You didn’t choose me, Nathan. You chose to believe what everyone said over and over. Even when it shattered me.”
He swallowed hard.
“I came back.”
“You came too late.”
I turned, walking away.
He followed. “I’m not that person anymore.”
“No,” I said without turning around. “Now you’re just the echo.”
He didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.
The flowers were wilting in Kael’s grip by the time he finally found me.
He stood in the doorway to the training yard, his eyes bright, cheeks a little flushed like he’d been pacing for twenty minutes wondering if this was a stupid idea.
I turned and blinked at the sight.
He held out the crooked little bouquet-wildflowers, dandelions, a couple weeds.
“Don’t laugh,” he muttered. “I had help.”
“Liora?”
“She judged me the entire time.”
I smiled, stepping forward and taking the flowers gently from his hand. “They’re perfect.” “They look like I wrestled them from a goat.”
Chapter 29
4:21 pm DJ
Chapter 30
apter 30
Liora and Nathan had been out by the creek when the rain started.
I reached the bank in seconds.
Both of them had fallen-Liora with a bruised ankle, Nathan with a nasty gash across his temple.
Liora sobbed as I scooped her up, brushing her damp hair back, checking her limbs, rocking her gently.
Nathan sat quietly, blood dripping into the grass, watching me.
Expecting me to come to him too.
But I didn’t.
I handed Liora to a healer, pressed a kiss to her temple, and turned back toward the house.
That’s when he snapped.
“You don’t even care that I’m also bleeding?”
I stopped walking and turned slowly.
“You think a little blood is enough to make me forget?”
He rose, “You don’t even look at me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because the last time I did, all I saw was the boy who told me I was useless. The one who flinched when I walked into his room. Who laughed when others spat at my feet. Who said I’d never be wanted.”
Guilt filled his face.
Then Liora’s voice broke through behind me-fierce and small and trembling with outrage.
“You said those things?”
He turned.
She limped toward him, wobbling on her wrapped ankle, eyes burning.
“You said that to Alice?”
Nathan tried to soften his tone. “Liora-”
“You don’t deserve her,” she snapped. “You don’t even deserve her name in
your
mouth!”
He blinked.
And she kept going.
“You’re mean. You hurt her. And now you want her to pretend it didn’t happen? You fall and cry for her to care? She cared when no one else did!”
Nathan didn’t speak.
Liora’s little fists were balled at her sides. “She’s mine now. Me and Kael. Go cry somewhere else.”
And just like that, she limped back to me.
Nathan left the next morning. Alpha Jareth wasn’t happy with it but he insisted on leaving.
I didn’t go out to see him off.
He waited a while. I know he did.
I sat on the porch steps with Liora in my lap, braiding tiny flowers into her hair as she hummed tunelessly. Kael leaned against the post beside us, his arms crossed, watching the sky like it might rain.
Months passed.
The bite of winter softened into spring, and when the moon marked Helena’s death anniversary.
Silverclaw hadn’t changed much.
It still stood tall and cold, its walls weathered like old bone.
Damien sat at the head of the table, a cane propped beside him where his left leg used to be. His skin looked thinner, his hair more gray than black.
He stared at Kael holding me close, helping me remove my cloak, whispering something that made me laugh.
And that, I think, was what killed him more than any blade ever could.
I walked to Helena’s memorial her name carved deep.
I laid lilies on the base, kneeling quietly.
Kael stood behind me, his presence a shield.
“I kept my promise,” I whispered. “I didn’t let them turn me into something else.”
Damien never spoke a word to me.
He just sat there.
Watching the life that could’ve been his legacy-now completely out of his reach.
FIVE YEARS LATER
The war scars faded. The shadowborn were completely eradicated. Peace, it turned out, wasn’t the absence of conflict-it was the decision to build something stronger after surviving it.
And today, we celebrated the future of that peace.
Kael’s coronation.
My father, Alpha Jareth had stepped down with little fanfare, claiming he was “too damn tired” of ruling and wanted to go fishing before his back gave out. No one questioned it.
Kael stood at the front of the hall, dressed in ceremonial black and silver.
The crowd gathered around, wolves from every region-elders, warriors, traders, even pups with ribbons in their hair.
And I stood beside him as his Luna.
I reached for his hand. He didn’t even have to look-his fingers found mine without hesitation.
“Are you nervous?” I asked, my voice low.
“Terrified,” he admitted.
4:21 pm
“You don’t look at it.”
“That’s because you’re beside me.”
I smiled.
And then, a figure stepped through the arch.
Older, taller and broad-shouldered.
He walked slowly, his hands tucked into his coat pockets.
I hadn’t seen him in over a year.
We hadn’t needed to.
We’d exchanged letters here and there, Kael finally moved on two years back, Silverclaw was at the edge of breaking not until my father sent me over there that I set everything right. Damien was lacking, he was later dethroned and Beta Zane was elected in his place.
Nathan stopped in front of us. He gave Kael a nod. Then handed me a single white lily.
“For the Alpha and his impossible Luna,” he said.
I took it, smiling softly. “Thank you.”
“You two did good.”
Kael extended a hand and Nathan shook it.
Nathan turned to me. “I’ve got a date in twenty minutes and she’ll murder me if I’m late.”
That caught me off guard. I raised an eyebrow. “She must be terrifying.”
“She is,” he said with a crooked grin. “That’s why I like her.”
A pause.
Then he glanced over his shoulder, toward the far edge of the crowd.
“My father didn’t come,” he said quietly.
I nodded. “I figured.”
“He’s… different now.”
I didn’t answer.
Nathan looked back at me. “He regrets it. All of it.”
“I know.”
“He asks about you. All the time.”
I swallowed hard.
“I don’t think I’m ready to see him,” I said softly.
“I figured,” he said. “But I told him I’d ask.”
“Thank you for that.”
Nathan gave a small bow. “Congratulations, Luna.”
Nathan turned to leave, already halfway down the steps when a voice called out behind him.
“Well, well,” Liora said, gliding through the crowd. “If it isn’t the former golden boy.”
Nathan sighed without turning around. “Please don’t.”
Chapter 30
10020
“You’re late,” she continued. “You were supposed to trip on your pride at the door, remember?” Nathan turned, hands raised. “I’m not here to argue with a girl who wears knives as accessories.” Liora smirked, her long braid brushing her waist. She was no longer the wild little pup chasing butterflies. She was a young lady now.
“Still acting like you’re mysterious,” she teased. “When we both know you cried the first time Alice ignored you.”
Nathan groaned. “That was five years ago.”
“And yet…” Liora twirled a loose strand of her hair around her finger, smug. “You still flinch when mention it.”
“I’m leaving,” he muttered.
“Have fun on your date,” she called. “Tell her you used to be terrible, but you’re working on it.”
Nathan waved her off with two fingers raised high. “Thanks, cousin.”
I smiled, watching Nathan disappear through the gates.
And then… it was just us again.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s just strange… closing that chapter.”
“You didn’t close it. You rewrote it.”
I leaned into him. “Think I did okay?”
He wrapped an arm around my waist. “You burned kingdoms. You healed children. You made the cruelest man in Silverclaw regret everything. And you still manage to help Liora tie her boots every morning.”
I laughed.
He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “You did more than okay, Alice.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
His eyes softened. “Forever?”
“Till eternity.”
