Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 139

139 Leah in the Silence

James’s POVO

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Leah’s confidence grew in the silence. “He never liked me. Everyone knows it. And people saw him hugging Arya the day she left. He even gave her a phone.”

Nixon didn’t flinch.

He looked at me, not her. “I did.”

Leah blinked, thrown for half a second by the lack of denial.

Nixon kept going. “I hugged her goodbye. I gave her a phone. And I’d do it again.”

Leah spun toward him, triumphant and shrill. “See? See? He admits it! He’s compromised, James.

He’s always taken her side,”

“He did it for a reason,” I cut in.

The room went still.

Leah turned slowly back to me. “What?”

I held her gaze. “I trust Nixon with my

life.”

Nixon stayed quiet, but I felt the tension in him shift.

Leah stared at me like I’d slapped her. “James.”

“As for him lying,” I said, voice colder now, “if Nixon tells me something, I believe him.”

Color rose high in her cheeks. “You believe your Beta over me?”

Nixon moved then, stepping forward just enough to enter her line fully, and when he spoke his tone had changed. No deference. No diplomacy.

“It’s odd,” he said, studying her face, “how sober you look for a woman who lost a child.”

Leah recoiled. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t stop.

“When Arya lost her baby,” Nixon said, “everyone with eyes could see she was grieving.”

The memory hit me so hard I felt it in my knees.

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Arya’s face white with pain. Her body shaking. Blood. Her voice gone hoarse. Me standing there, furious for the wrong reasons while she carried grief like a wound no one else could feel.

I looked away for a second and saw nothing but that day.

Nixon’s voice kept cutting through it.

“But you?” he said. “You’ve been moving around this house like nothing happened. Dressing up. Listening at doors. Pushing for status. Almost like you’re happy that baby is gone.”

Leah’s mouth fell open, then tightened into fury. “How dare you.”

Nixon’s eyes went hard. “Did you do it on purpose?”

Silence.

The question landed like a dropped blade.

He took another step, relentless now. “Did you deliberately abort your baby and blame Arya for it just to disrupt the signing and turn the pack against her?”

Leah stared at him, then at me.

“James?” she said, disbelief and outrage fighting in her face. “Are you going to let him speak to me

like this?”

I heard her.

I barely processed the words.

Because Nixon’s accusation had slammed into every loose piece in my head and they were fitting together in ways I had fought for days not to see too clearly.

The timing.

Her certainty.

The pressure around the signing.

Marcel’s urgency.

The testimony.

Leah’s performance.

Arya’s tears.

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The way Leah had moved afterward, less devastated than inconvenienced.

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I looked at Leah and for the first time in weeks, I wasn’t seeing the arrangement or the political weight or Marcel’s daughter.

I was looking at a possibility I should have considered sooner.

That she had poisoned herself.

That she had chosen the child as collateral.

That she had used my house, my pack, my mate, and my unborn baby’s death in the aftermath to

secure leverage.

Jasper snarled so violently inside me my vision sharpened at the edges.

Say something. Make her answer.

Leah mistook my silence for weakness and rushed to fill it.

“This is insane,” she snapped, pointing at Nixon again. “He’s obsessed with Arya. He’s helping spread this because he never wanted me here. He never accepted me. He’s a rogue without protection and he

should remember that before he starts accusing,”

Nixon bared his teeth in a humorless smile. “Try me.”

She whirled fully toward him, rage cracking through her polish. “Be careful how you speak to me! My

father can,

“P

I moved before she finished.

One step.

Two.

My hand closed around her throat and drove her back against the edge of my desk hard enough to

rattle everything on it.

Her eyes went wide.

Nixon went still but did not interfere.

Leah clawed at my wrist, choking on shock more than pressure at first. I did not squeeze fully. I didn’t need to. The message was in the grip, in the fact that I touched her at all.

I leaned in until she had no choice but to look at me.

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“Listen carefully,” I said, my voice low enough that it shook with what I was not yet doing. “You are nobody in Nightwind.”

Her lips trembled. “J-James,”

“Nobody,” I repeated. “Not Luna. Not authority. Not command. If you are not careful, I will have you

dealt with.”

The room went dead quiet.

I could hear Leah’s breath snagging around my hand. Could feel her pulse hammering against my

palm.

But even then, even with her fear right in front of me, part of my mind was elsewhere, still racing through Nixon’s words.

Did you deliberately abort your baby…?

I saw Arya again.

I saw her warning me.

I saw myself not listening.

I saw Marcel’s face when I questioned him.

I saw Leah now, furious instead of grieving, calculating instead of broken.

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