Alpha's Discarded Luna (Talia) novel Chapter 288

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Chapter 285

Aires‘ POV

The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of my dark master bedroom echoes through the cavernous space like a slow, rhythmic hammer. I stare up at the coffered ceiling, my eyes wide and bloodshot, tracking the distorted shadows cast by the moon slicing through the heavy velvet drapes. It is exactly two days since the charity gala, and once again, sleep remains completely out of my reach.

Around midnight, a sudden, violent shift occurs in the atmospheric pressure of my consciousness.

bolt upright in bed, my chest heaving, my skin instantly slick with a cold, heavy sweat. An overwhelming, suffocating sense of dread clamps down around my lungs like a physical vice, making it nearly impossible to take a deep breath. My wolf claws at my ribs from the inside, pacing frantically in a state of chaotic, blind panic. The beast is snapping its jaws, its instincts completely on high alert, screaming that something is profoundly wrong, but I have no target for the rage.

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And then, the phantom melody rings out.

It pours through the structural columns of my mind, loud, thunderous, and completely inescapable. But it doesn’t sound like the soothing, ethereal lullaby that saved my young sanity twenty years ago. Tonight, the keys sound sharp, discordant, and frantic. The notes bleed into one another with an

the

Surge tempo racing forward like a heartbeat on the verge of giving out. It doesn’t calm my volatile senses; it sounds like a desperate, bleeding warning. It sounds like a scream for help carried over an invisible current.

Talia.

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Her name tears through my mind, a sharp spike of pure agony. The life–altering certainty that she is my childhood angel has been torturing me for forty–eight hours straight. Every time I close my eyes, I see her freezing, vacant stare from the auditorium corridor, completely erasing me from her existence. The guilt is a living monster in my gut, eating away at my pride, leaving me completely hollowed out.

I rip the satin sheets off my legs and swing my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. I cannot stay in this silent

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tomb–like mansion for another second. The suffocating dread is pushing me out, demanding that I move, that I run, that I do something to quiet the raging storm inside my soul. I grab a dark leather jacket from the armchair, throwing it over my plain black t–shirt, and snatch my car keys from the nightstand.

I stride down the grand marble staircase, my heavy footsteps echoing through the empty foyer, before stepping out into the crisp, midnight air.

My sleek sports car growls to life with a low, thunderous purr that slices through the dead silence of the estate. I press my foot firmly against the accelerator, the tires screeching against the gravel driveway as I gun the engine, tearing through the iron gates out into the sprawling, dimly lit city.

The drive is entirely aimless. I navigate the winding, empty asphalt at dangerous speeds, the neon streetlights blurring into long, silver streaks across my windshield. I am seeking a distraction, any distraction, to drown out the frantic, discordant piano notes still vibrating through my skull. I roll the window down, letting the freezing midnight wind whip against my face, but the biting cold does nothing to numb the suffocating premonition of 4:41

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danger tightening around my throat.

My hands grip the leather steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turn a ghostly, stark white. My wolf whines beneath my skin, its ears twitching, its internal compass spinning wildly in the dark.

I shift gears, automatically steering the vehicle toward the elite residential district. I need comfort. I need a

familiar, steady presence to tell me that I am losing my mind, that the phantom melody is just a product of my own fracturing guilt and sleepless exhaustion. My car smoothly glides down the familiar, tree–lined avenue, eventually slowing down as I approach the tall, decorative iron gate of Imema’s luxury apartment complex.

I pull up to the intercom barrier, idling the engine, my finger hovering just inches away from the security button. I take a deep breath, expecting the thought of her sweet, vulnerable face to soothe the edges of my panic.

But the moment I look at the dark windows of her building, a sudden, violent wave of intense revulsion hits me straight in the solar plexus.

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an instinctual, visceral rejection so powerful that my

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stomach physically twists in disgust. My wolf lets out a fierce, defensive snarl inside my mind, baring its teeth at the very structure of her home. The image of her wide, innocent eyes–the ones I used to view as a fragile responsibility–suddenly feels heavy, suffocating, and dripping with an artificial sweetness that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The memory of Old Master Gerard’s thunderous words from the gala flashes through my mind, mingling with the dark, suspicious whispers of my dawn dream.

A worthless, rigid lump of coal… an artificial fraud.

I stare at the iron gate, my hand freezing in mid–air. My alpha instincts, the raw, supernatural premonitions that have kept my pack alive for generations, are screaming at me to turn away. They are telling me that there is no comfort to be found behind those doors, only a toxic, deceptive fog that will completely blind me further.

I pull my hand back from the button, my lip curling into a low, unconscious sneer. I throw the car into reverse, spinning the steering wheel aggressively as I slam my foot onto the pedal, turning away from her gate without a single backward glance.

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