Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 161

161 The Union’s Blade 3

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James’s POV

Devin returned with a sealed evidence pouch and dropped it on the table. Archie gloved

up, opened it, and started sorting devices with efficient hands.

Minutes stretched.

No one spoke.

The only sounds were the hum of the overhead light, the scrape of Archie’s chair, the faint clink of Donald’s chain when he shifted.

Then Archie said, “Got it.”

He angled the screen toward me.

Blurry photo.

Cracked screen capture.

But enough.

A message thread.

Names obscured by saved aliases.

References to “window,” “inspection distraction,” and “claim status.”

One line stood out in a way that made my stomach go cold:

“Boris moves after both are out. No Luna in play.”

Another below it:

“Union route confirmed. Coin will clear gate.”

I stared at the screen until the words burned.

No Luna in play.

They had reduced Arya to a variable in a plan. A tactical obstacle. A title to remove. And

I had stood in my own house and helped them do it by doubting her at the worst

possible moment.

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My jaw locked so hard pain shot up the side of my face.

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Nixon was watching me carefully. He knew that look. He knew what memory was doing.

I could see it too now, whether I wanted to or not,

Arya crying at the banquet.

Arya trying to speak while pressure and politics and Marcel’s threats crowded the room.

Arya looking at me like she still believed I would choose right if she could just make me

listen long enough.

She never cried like that.

She was fierce even in pain.

Proud even when angry.

She fought with words, with action, with her whole body.

I should have known.

I should have known.

Instead I let ambition and fear and urgency turn me into a man who called strategy what

was really cowardice.

I looked away from the screen before anyone in the room could read too much of that on

my face.

“This is enough to start a file,” Archie said quietly. “Not enough for tribunal conviction,

but enough to build.”

“Build fast,” I said.

Devin nodded. “We can trace the route, suppliers, road checkpoints, traders who saw the

coin.”

Nixon added, “And we pressure Boris’s weaker links. Quietly.”

I looked back at the screenshot. “No reckless moves. If this leaks before we’re ready, Boris buries evidence and Marcel gets ahead of the story.”

At Marcel’s name, the room tightened again.

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161 The Union’s Blade 3

Because that was the part I could not prove yet and could not ignore.

Marcel, with his smooth answers.

Marcel, calling me off digging.

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Marcel, always circling land and gold and certification.

Marcel, somehow present at every bad turn of this mess.

The more I pulled at the threads, the clearer one thing became: Boris was not the top of

He was a blade.

A useful one.

A deniable one.

A Union member with enough standing to act but maybe not enough power to design something this layered alone.

This was bigger than Boris.

Bigger than one grudge.

Bigger than one land raid.

It smelled like a system.

Chaos applied to rich territories.

Pack pressure.

Delayed recognition.

Manufactured threats.

Then “help” offered at a cost.

Control dressed up as order.

I stood so abruptly the chair scraped the floor.

Donald flinched.

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I barely saw him.

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“This isn’t just Boris,” I said, more to my men than the prisoner. “It never was. Someone

inside Union is letting this happen, maybe feeding it, maybe profiting from it. Packs with

valuable land get squeezed until they submit to the wrong people or fall apart.”

Nixon’s expression hardened. “I think you’re right.”

Devin looked grim. “Who do we take it to?”

That question hit the exact wound.

Who?

Marcel? No.

He was in it, or close enough to poison anything I handed him.

Union tribunal? Not without stronger proof, and not while I stood outside the door as an

unregistered Alpha whose enemies could paint him as desperate and vindictive.

Radimir? I didn’t have access.

And even if I did, who would introduce me now? On what credibility?

Maxwell.

Always back to Maxwell.

And Maxwell would not see me.

I laughed once, bitter and tired and angry at myself for needing the man after everything.

“I don’t know.”

No one answered.

Because none of them had a better name.

I looked at Donald again, forcing myself back to the room. “You keep breathing, you keep

remembering, and you keep talking. If you left out anything else, now would be a good

time to rethink that.”

Donald nodded rapidly. “I’ll talk.”

“Good.”

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161 The Union’s Blade 3

I stood and motioned to the guard outside. “Move him back. Separate hold.”

Donald was taken out.

The door shut.

Silence settled like dust after a collapse.

Archie saved copies of the image to multiple drives and looked up. “What’s next?”

I stared at the closed door for a long moment.

What was next?

Maxwell ignoring my calls.

Leah still in my house.

Marcel smiling while tightening his grip.

Union law hanging over my pack like a blade.

Boris fortified and confident.

Arya in Dragonclaw with every right to hate the sound of my name.

And me, Alpha in title, trapped in practice, trying to build a case with scraps while my

enemies moved with networks I had been stupid enough to trust.

Jasper pressed hard against my ribs, furious, restless.

Move, he snarled. Do something.

“I am doing something,” I muttered.

Nixon heard and pretended he didn’t.

He stepped closer to the desk. “James.”

I looked at him.

His voice dropped. “You’re not useless.”

The words nearly made me angry.

Not because he was wrong.

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Because he saw too much.

I looked away, jaw flexing. “Feels like it.”

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“You’re still standing,” Devin said. “You’re still thinking. That’s more than the men who

planned this wanted.”

Archie closed the folder. “And now we have a route, a symbol, and a message thread. It’s

not enough yet. But it’s not nothing.”

I exhaled slowly.

They were right.

That did not make the trap feel smaller.

“Fine,” I said. “Archie, build the evidence chain. Every mention of that stamped coin, every road report, every checkpoint witness. Devin, double scouts but keep them invisible. I

want Boris watched, not provoked. Nixon,”

He was already nodding. “I’ll manage internal chatter. If this spreads wrong, Marcel hears before we’re ready.”

“Good.”

They stood to leave.

Nixon lingered a second after the others moved toward the door.

He looked at me the way a man looks at another man he respects enough not to lie to. “Maxwell might answer later.”

“Might.”

“He might not.”

I met his eyes. “I know.”

Nixon hesitated, then said the thing I had not let myself say aloud tonight.

“If he doesn’t… we keep building anyway. For the pack. For the truth. And for her.”

My chest tightened so sharply I almost told him to get out.

Instead I gave one short nod.

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He left.

The office was quiet again after the door shut.

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I stood alone in the middle of it, phone in one hand, screenshot burned into my head, the

weight of Union law pressing from one side and Marcel’s shadow from the other.

I wanted Maxwell to call.

I wanted Arya to look at me once more and let me say. I was sorry.

I wanted a clean enemy I could hit without consequences.

I wanted my pack safe.

I wanted to tear the whole rotten system open and drag every hidden hand into the light.

What I had was a symbol on a coin, a half-captured message thread, a prisoner with fear in his eyes, and a growing certainty that the people bleeding packs like mine had been doing it for a long time.

I looked at my phone one more time.

Still no call.

The screen reflected my own face back at me, tired, harder than I remembered, and not nearly as in control as an Alpha should look.

I set the phone down carefully this time.

Then I leaned over the desk, braced both hands on the wood, and stared at the map spread out under the lamp, Nightwind, Silverfang, Blackbirth routes, border roads, trade lines, all of it connected by ink like veins.

Somewhere in those lines was the hand holding the blade.

And until I found it, I was a man with a pack to protect, no Union shield, and too many enemies smiling at my door.

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