Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 113

113 The Price of Speaking in Silverfang

Arya’s POV

Gut 78

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By the time Lev and I returned to Maxwell’s house, my body was exhausted, but it was not the kind of

exhaustion that led to rest.

It was the kind that left my skin too aware.

My muscles still held the memory of the training ground. The wall at my back. Lev’s hand at my waist His mouth too close. His calm, infuriating control while I came apart between anger and want and

humiliation. He had toyed with me and called it training. He had denied me release and called it

connection. He had looked at my fury like it was something useful, something sharp, something he

meant to wield and return to me better than he found it.

I hated him for it.

I hated that part of me had started to understand him.

The house was alive when we stepped inside.

Servants moved quickly through the front hall carrying trays, folded linens, polished cutlery, candles.

Someone was arranging flowers in wide bronze bowls near the stairway. Two guards stood at the

entrance to the main hall, and even from where I stood, I could hear low voices and the clink of glass

inside.

Preparations.

A gathering.

My stomach tightened.

Maxwell stood in the middle of the sitting room as if he had been waiting for us. His gaze moved over

me first, brief but thorough, checking for what training might have cost me, then shifted to Lev

“Good,” he said. “You’re back.”

Lev gave him a short nod. “We are.”

Maxwell folded his hands behind him. “I’m throwing a banquet tonight in your honour

The word hit me before I could hide it.

Banquet.

It was just a word. A hall. Food Music People.

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But my body did not care about reason. My body remembered too quickly.

A crowded room.

Smiles with teeth in them.

Leah in my place.

Eyes watching me.

The feeling of being stripped without hands.

I stilled, every instinct turning sharp.

Gef 28 > #Menu-

“I would rather not attend,” I said before I could soften the truth. Then I forced my voice steadier. “If it’s

acceptable. I can stay out of sight.”

Maxwell looked at me, really looked, and the room went a shade quieter in my head because he understood at once what I was not saying.

This was not fear of Dragonclaw.

It was memory.

“It’s my house,” he said, blunt as ever. “My pack. My hall. Not theirs.

I held his gaze but said nothing.

Maxwell’s eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger, in insistence. “You will come.”

I exhaled slowly through my nose.

Part of me wanted to refuse anyway. To say no and let him be offended if he must. To avoid the hall,

the music, the eyes, the possibility of my body turning traitor under pressure again.

But Maxwell had opened his home to me when I had nowhere left to stand with dignity. He had given

me shelter without making a spectacle of it. He had named me daughter in front of witnesses. He had done what no one had ever done for me without bargaining attached.

And this, this was not a request from a packmate.

It was a father’s insistence.

I lowered my head once. “If you want me there, I’ll come.”

His expression eased by a fraction “Good.”

< 113 The Price of Speaking in Silverfang

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Then, as if he sensed exactly how close to the edge my patience sat, he added in a rougher tone, “A dress will be sent to your room. Wear it. Stand in my hall. Let them look.”

The words should have irritated me.

They did.

But there was something else under them too. Protection dressed as command.

I nodded again.

Maxwell turned to Lev. “And you, don’t disappear before I introduce you properly.”

Lev’s expression did not change. “I won’t.”

Maxwell gave a curt grunt and strode away, already issuing instructions to someone in the hallway

before he had fully crossed the threshold.

Silence settled in the room after he left.

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