Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 105

105 When Maxwell Walked In

Arya’s POV

Maxwell did not raise his voice.

That was what made it heavier.

M

The room had gone still after his, Lev… explain, and I had felt the air tighten like a drawn wire. My pulse was still racing from Lev’s hand at my collar, from the heat of his mouth near my cancelled mark, from the humiliating way my body had answered before my pride did, and now Maxwell stood in the doorway seeing too much at once.

Me flushed.

Lev too close.

His hand still near my throat.

No one spoke for a heartbeat.

Then Lev, calm as stone, released my collar and stepped back half a pace.

Not guilty.

Not defensive.

Just deliberate.

Maxwell’s gaze tracked the movement, then landed on me. It softened for only a second, enough for me to feel the protection in it, enough to remind me that I was in his house, not trapped, not cornered, not where anyone could make a show of me and call it discipline.

I straightened my spine.

I refused to look away.

“Nothing happened that she did not choose to stand through,” Lev said.

The answer was clever enough to make me want to elbow him.

Maxwell’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That sounds like a sentence built to avoid detail.”

Lev held his gaze. “I told her to train.”

Maxwell looked at me again. “And?”

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<105 When Maxwell Walked in

My hand was still at my neck. I lowered it before I answered.

“And I agreed.”

The silence shifted.

Not gone.

Changed.

Maxwell took a slow step into the room and shut the door behind him. The click of it sounded final, private. He looked between us once more, reading posture, distance, breath, all the things older Alphas

read without asking.

He knew I was shaken.

He knew Lev was steady.

He probably knew exactly what that combination meant.

But he did not challenge Lev the way another man might have. No chest–beating. No territorial

nonsense. No barked orders meant to prove rank.

He folded his arms and fixed Lev with a hard, level stare. “I trust your judgement.”

Relief flickered through me so fast I almost hated it.

Then Maxwell added, voice lower, roughened by warning, “Don’t break her.”

The words landed in my chest.

Not because they insulted me.

Because they didn’t.

He wasn’t calling me fragile.

He was naming the truth of what I had survived and setting a boundary anyway.

Something hot and painful moved behind my ribs.

Lev didn’t smile Didn’t bristle. Didn’t posture.

He met Maxwell’s gaze and answered with that same maddening calm.

“I won’t.” A beat. “I’ll rebuild her.”

My breath caught.

12:01

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< 105 When Maxwell Walked in

I hated that word.

I wanted that word.

*Mein

Rebuild implied damage. Rebuild implied someone could see the fractures. Rebuild implied I was

something in pieces.

Rebuild also implied I was not beyond use.

Not beyond power.

Not beyond becoming.

I looked away first because both men hearing my silence at once suddenly felt too intimate.

Maxwell nodded once, slow and firm, as if accepting terms in a room where no contract would ever be written down. Then he looked at me.

“If he pushes too hard, you tell me.”

I almost laughed.

Tell him? Yes.

Listen to him if it meant stopping before I got what I needed? No.

But I nodded, because Maxwell deserved honesty in the shape I could manage. “I will.”

His eyes rested on me another second, searching for things I was not ready to let anyone read, then he turned toward the door again.

“Use the east training ground,” he said over his shoulder. “The western ring’s crowded. I don’t want pack mouths turning this into gossip before lunch.”

My jaw tightened. He was right. Again.

Lev answered, “Understood.”

Maxwell paused with his hand on the door, not looking back when he spoke next.

“She’s angry for good reason. Don’t mistake that for weakness.”

Lev’s reply came immediately. “I don’t.”

Then Maxwell was gone.

The room felt different after he left. Quieter. Smaller. Hotter.

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< 105 When Maxwell Walked in

I turned on Lev before the silence could settle on my skin.

“Rebuild me?”

His gaze dropped once, quick and assessing, then returned to my face. “Would you have preferred ‘handle gently and hope for the best“?”

I glared at him. “I am not a broken weapon in your war chest.”

Mana

“No,” he said, stepping closer as if my anger was an invitation. “You’re a weapon trying to use pain as fuel before it’s been forged into power.“C

I wanted to argue.

I wanted to scratch that calm look off his face.

I wanted his mouth on my throat again.

The third thought made me so furious I turned for the door immediately.

“Fine,” I snapped. “There is nothing you can teach me, but I will oblige in the meantime.”

His boots sounded behind me, unhurried, certain.

The walk to the east training ground felt longer than it should have.

Maybe because every step gave my body more time to remember him.

The press of his chest behind me.

His fingers at my collar.

The way he had kissed near my cancelled mark like he was trying to turn humiliation into heat.

My skin still burned there.

I hated that I could feel it even in the breeze.

Dragonclaw moved around us as we crossed the inner yard, guards changing posts, servants carrying baskets, younger wolves hauling water, two fighters sparring near the weapons racks under a trainer’s barked corrections. A few people looked our way. More than a few pretended not to.

I kept my face cold.

I kept my shoulders square.

Let them look.

105 When Maxwell Walked In

tera

No one here had seen me in chains. No one here had stood in a yard while I bled and pretended it was justice. If they whispered, they could whisper around my back.

The east ground lay tucked behind stone walls and ancient pines, spacious for drills and ring bouts, yet secluded for the kind of training that demanded focus. The soil beneath was still dark and moist from the night’s rain, cool against bare skin. Wooden posts stood sentinel along one edge, while a rack of blunted swords and staffs waited nearby. Sandbags slumped against the wall, heavy with promise

of endurance tests.

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