Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 160

160 The Union’s Blade 2

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James’s POV

I turned away from the desk and walked to the window, staring out over the training

yard below. Nightwind was settling into evening drills. Young fighters rotated in pairs.

Two elders watched from the rail. Life. Routine. A pack trying to look stable while

enemies measured our walls.

“I can’t attack Boris directly,” I said finally. “Not yet.”

“No,” Nixon agreed. “Not if you want a path forward.”

Devin rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Then we expose him.”

I turned back. “With what proof?”

That shut him up.

Because that was the rot at the centre of all of it, wasn’t it? We all knew Boris had blood

on his hands. We all knew the attack on Nightwind wasn’t some random rogue strike. We had prisoners. We had fragments. We had instinct.

Instinct didn’t survive tribunal.

Paper did.

Witnesses did.

Payment trails did.

Orders did.

Archie looked at me. “Donald asked to speak again.”

I stilled. “About what?”

“He said he remembered something he didn’t think mattered before.” Archie glanced at Nixon. “Nixon thought you’d want to hear it directly.”

Nixon stood. “He’s in the lower hold. We kept him separated.”

I was already moving for the door. “Bring him to the interrogation room.”

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Donald looked worse than the last time I saw him.

Not beaten for sport. We weren’t running a butcher’s den. But tired. Pale. Sweat at the

temples. Eyes too alert in a face that had started to understand just how badly his

choices had gone.

He was shackled to the metal ring fixed to the table when I walked in. Modern restraints.

Steel cuffs. Chain bolted to concrete. The room itself was plain, cement floor, overhead

light, camera in the corner, drain near the wall. Clean. Cold. No theatrics.

Nixon stood by the door.

Devin leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

Archie set the tablet on the table and opened a notes file.

I took the chair opposite Donald and sat.

He looked at me, then at the others, then back to me. “I told you what I knew.”

“You told me enough to stay alive,” I said. “That’s not the same thing.”

His jaw twitched.

I leaned forward. “Archie says you remembered something.”

Donald swallowed. “Not remembered. Decided to mention.”

“Mention it.”

He looked down at his cuffed hands, then back up. “The payment runner.”

My pulse kicked once.

“What about him?”

Donald hesitated, and Jasper bared his teeth inside me.

I kept my voice flat. “Careful.”

He exhaled. “He wasn’t just carrying coin. Not normal coin. He had one piece he kept

showing when people questioned him at stops. Like a pass.”

Archie glanced up from the tablet. “Describe it.”

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Donald shut his eyes briefly, picturing it. “Dark metal. Heavier than standard mint.

Stamped. Not a pack crest I know. Looked like… not a wolf exactly. More like a blade

through a crescent. Or a fang. Something curved.”

The room sharpened around me.

Nixon and I exchanged a look.

The symbol.

The same kind of mark threaded through too many whispers lately. Union routes. Private

payouts. Men travelling under protection they hadn’t earned by name alone.

“Where did you see it?” I asked.

Donald licked his lips. “Twice. Once on the road before the staging point. Once after,

when he met Boris’s man.”

Devin straightened from the wall. “Boris himself?”

Donald shook his head quickly. “No. One of his officers. Tall. Scar on the chin. They

argued about timing.”

I leaned in another inch. “Timing of what?”

“The attack.” His eyes flicked to my face and away again. “They were pissed because the

schedule had changed. Said both targets were gone and that was the point.”

The words hit like a blow, even though I already knew the shape of them.

Both targets.

Me and Leah.

Away from Nightwind.

Away from the pack.

Away from the fight.

I felt Jasper surge, rage and shame colliding hard enough to turn my vision sharp at the

edges.

They had planned around my absence.

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They had counted on me being gone.

Counted on Leah being safe somewhere else.

Counted on Nightwind vulnerable.

Counted on Arya,

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My throat closed for half a second.

Counted on Arya being neutralised before the strike.

And if she had been?

If she’d been dead, locked down, too weak, too broken to coordinate?

I would have come home to ash.

Packless.

Landless.

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