Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 124

124 Recognised or Ravaged

James’s POV

I sent the first scouts north before sunrise.

By noon, I had sent two more.

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By late afternoon, I was standing over a map in my office with my jaw locked so tight my teeth hurt, listening to the third report confirm what my instincts had already started whispering.

Boris was waiting.

Not for trade.

Not for weather.

Not for chance.

Waiting.

Nixon stood across from me, one hand braced on the edge of the table, dust still on his boots. Devin

was near the window, arms folded, face dark. Archie had just come in and shut the door behind him,

carrying the kind of silence men brought into a room when they’d seen something they did not like.

I looked at Nixon. “Say it again.”

His eyes flicked to the map, then back to me. “North approach is reinforced. More guards than usual. Rotating watch in tighter intervals. Outer tree line is cut back on the east side for visibility.”

“Temporary?”

He shook his head. “Looks planned, not rushed.”

That was the part that kept scraping at me.

If Boris feared retaliation after the attack, I expected nervousness. I expected men scrambling, panic fortifications, sloppy overcorrections.

What Nixon described was worse.

Confidence.

Prepared confidence.

Devin pushed off the window. “They’re not acting like a pack waiting to see whether you move. They’re acting like a pack that already knows what you can’t do.”

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Jasper snarled low inside me.

Because someone told them.

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I exhaled slowly through my nose.

“They’re suspicious too,” Archie added. “Stopped one of our outer men before he even got close

enough to claim he was lost. Didn’t attack. Just watched him too long. Like they were measuring him.”

I looked back down at the map and tapped the northern routes with two fingers.

Boris’s land.

Not the biggest.

Not the strongest.

Not the sort of pack that should have carried itself like this after taking part in an attack on Nightwind

and expecting no consequence.

Unless he had backing.

Union backing.

Or at least the confidence that Union politics would shield him before my claws ever reached his

throat.

My stomach turned, hard and cold.

“Anything else?” I asked.

Nixon hesitated, then said, “Their men are talking too freely in the wrong places.”

I looked up sharply. “Meaning?”

“Meaning it feels rehearsed.” Nixon’s mouth hardened. “Small comments. Just enough to spread. That Nightwind is unstable. That your land is ‘still contested in spirit.’ That some Alphas don’t regard you as fully settled.”

Archie muttered a curse.

Devin’s expression sharpened. “They’re baiting.”

Yes.

That was exactly what it was.

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Bait.

Push my pride.

Push my anger.

Push my need to answer blood with blood.

Get me to attack Boris directly.

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Give the Union a clean excuse to call me reckless, dangerous, unfit, a threat to recognised territories.

Turn me from victim into evidence.

The office air felt stale all of a sudden.

I straightened and rubbed a hand over my mouth. “Keep scouts moving, but no one gets close enough

to be trapped. I want eyes, not heroes.”

All three nodded.

Nixon stayed where he was after I dismissed the others with a glance. Devin and Archie stepped out quietly, closing the door behind them.

Nixon waited until we were alone. “You think Boris knows you won’t strike.”

I met his gaze. “I think Boris knows someone wants me to.”

He gave a grim nod and left.

When the door shut, silence dropped over the office like a lid.

I stood there staring at the map, every line and border suddenly looking less like territory and more like

a cage.

My phone buzzed on the desk.

I looked at it, expecting another report, another delay, another message I would have to read twice before trusting.

Unknown number.

My eyes narrowed.

I let it ring twice, then answered. “Who is this?”

For a second, all I heard was breathing and road noise, faint and uneven, like the caller was outside or in a moving car with the window cracked.

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Then a man’s voice came through, low, hurried, and unfamiliar.

“Beware of Marcel.”

I went still.

My grip tightened on the phone. “Who is this?”

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“Listen,” the man said. “Don’t interrupt. You don’t have much time before this line becomes a problem.”

My pulse kicked harder.

Jasper rose inside me, alert and vicious.

Trap.

Maybe.

I said nothing.

The stranger kept talking, words clipped like he was forcing them out before courage failed. “Boris is a Union member. You know that. But hear the part no one says plainly, none of them regard your land as

claimed.”

The room seemed to tilt for half a heartbeat.

I moved behind the desk and sat slowly, every muscle in me going cold.

The man continued, voice dropping even lower. “To them, your pack is sitting on disputed opportunity.

Useful if controlled. Removable if not.”

I swallowed once, jaw hard.

“Who are you?” I asked again.

The man ignored it.

“There will be more attacks.”

The sentence landed like a stone dropped into my chest.

Not maybe.

Not be careful.

There will be more attacks.

I stood again so fast the chair scraped behind me.

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“What attacks? Who sent you?”

A short, bitter laugh came through the line. “If I say names, I die faster.”

“Then why call me at all?”

A pause.

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When he answered, his voice sounded strangled by something I could not quite name, fear, guilt,

maybe both.