Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 136

136 Confession in Chains

Arya’s POV

Margret collapsed forward after that, sobbing openly now, and I finally let go of her hair. She crumpled onto the stone with her shoulders shaking like her bones could not hold her up anymore.

I stared down at her and felt nothing soft. This woman had begged for safety while I bled in front of everyone. This woman had taken a deal and sold me to wolves and stood there while they called it justice. Her fear now did not move me. Maxwell’s voice came beside me, low and steady.

“Arya.”

I looked at him. His face was hard, but under it I saw something colder, older, satisfaction maybe, and anger for me that had burned so long it no longer looked hot.

“You heard enough?” he asked me quietly.

I looked back at Margret and answered without needing a second to think.

“Yes.”

Bootsteps sounded then from the far side of the hall, and guards came back with Lisa. She was half

dragged and half marched into the room, confusion all over her face until she saw Margret on the floor, saw me standing over her, saw the way the Alphas were looking at both of them now.

“What, what happened?” Lisa gasped out.

One of Marcel’s guards, not even bothering with manners now, shoved her forward and said,

“Orders.”

Lisa stumbled and dropped to her knees hard enough that I heard it. Margret looked at her through

tears and whispered,

“I told them.”

Lisa went white so fast it was almost ugly to watch. Maxwell turned to his envoy, who had already stepped forward with Dragonclaw men behind him, and said,

“Bind them.”

Nobody in Silverfang challenged him. Not now. Not after everything the room had just heard. Chains were brought out, and the cold iron sound of them clinking through that hall settled under my skin like a promise. Lisa and Margret were hauled upright, wrists dragged behind them, ankles secured, their cries getting louder and uglier the tighter the chains closed. They pleaded over each other.

< 136 Confession in Chains

“Arya, please.”

“We were afraid.”

“She made us.”

“We didn’t know it would go this far.”

“Forgive us.”

I stood there and watched them and that word felt filthy in my ears. Forgiveness. As if a word like that belonged anywhere near what they had done. Margret twisted toward me as the guards tightened the chains and dropped to her knees again despite them trying to hold her up.

“Please, Arya,” she sobbed. “Please forgive me. I was scared. They promised…”

I crouched in front of her slowly, not because I pitied her, but because I wanted her looking right at me

when I asked. Her eyes were swollen and red and desperate and ugly with panic.

“Did you look at me that day,” I asked quietly, “and know you were killing me?”

She started sobbing harder and tried to speak.

“…”

“Did you?” I asked again.

She could not answer me. That was answer enough. I stood back up and looked at Maxwell.

“Take them,” I said.

He gave one short nod, and his envoy pulled the chain line so both women staggered toward the exit under Dragonclaw guard. Lisa cried out for Rebecca like that woman had ever been capable of saving anyone but herself.

Margret begged again and again, her voice breaking worse each time. No one answered either of them. As they passed through the hall, wolves stepped aside in silence. No sympathy now. No easy certainty. Just the ugly weight of everyone realising truth had arrived too late and still managed to

stink up the whole room.

I watched them until they were gone beyond the doors and only then realised my hands were shaking. Not from fear. Not fully from rage either. From what came after rage. From the way vindication and grief could live in the same body and poison each other from the inside. I had the truth now, or enough of it to choke them with. Leah. Rebecca. The deal. The lie. The membership. The trap. And still my baby was gone. Still I felt phantom pain in my body some nights. Still I woke up with my throat tight and silver burning in memory like the past had teeth.

136 Confession in Chains

#Get 20

The hall slowly began breathing again after that. Voices rose low and urgent all around me. Alphas leaned toward advisers and whispered. Guards shifted. Servants started clearing the dropped cups and spilled drink like they were cleaning around evidence after a storm had already done its damage. I felt suddenly and violently tired, the kind of tired that sat in the bones and made everything feel far away for a second. Maxwell stepped closer to me.

“We’re leaving,” he said.

I nodded. No speech. No triumphant nonsense. No pretending any of this had fixed what needed

fixing. Just movement.

As we turned toward the doors, one of the older Alphas, the one who had spoken earlier about James,

looked at me differently than he had before. There had been doubt in his face earlier. Wariness too.

Now there was respect there and it was clear enough that I saw it without trying. He inclined his head

to me.

I did not return the gesture. Not because I missed it. Because I did not need it. Not from men who had watched women be ruined by rumour for years and only found a conscience once the lie became inconvenient to their politics. I kept walking. My boots sounded too loud on the stone and I did not

care. Let them hear me leave.

Outside, the air hit my face like cold water and for a second it felt like I had stepped out of a fever. I breathed once. Then again. My body felt like it wanted to shake apart now that it was done and I hated that weakness, even though I knew it was not really weakness at all. Maxwell waited until we reached

the vehicle before he spoke.

“You did well,” he said.

I laughed once, bitter and hollow.

“I dragged a woman to the floor by her hair in Marcel’s hall.”

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