Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 188

188 The Man Who Wasn’t a Rogue 3

Arya’s POVO

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The prisoner turned his head away, and his shoulders shook once, hard, like he hated his

own body for betraying him. I did not speak. I waited. That was the part people always

rushed. They got the crack and panicked, pushing too hard for answers, too fast, and

giving the person enough room to crawl back into defiance. I did not make that mistake. I

let him sit in it. Let him hear the chains every time he moved. Let him hear his own

breathing. Let him hear the silence pressing in from all sides.

When he finally spoke, his voice sounded scraped raw.

“She… she told me not to go.”

Maxwell’s gaze sharpened at once. David straightened fully, no longer pretending to

lounge against the wall. I kept my tone steady because he was still right at the edge,

and one wrong push would send him running back into himself.

“And you went anyway.”

A laugh broke out of him, but it died halfway and turned into something ugly.

“Because I thought… I thought it would be quick. A road strike. In and out. Scare him.

Hurt him if we could. Kill him if the opening came. We were told…” He swallowed hard and shut his eyes like even repeating it shamed him. “We were told it would be clean.”

Maxwell’s voice came from behind me like a blade.

“Who told you?”

The prisoner flinched. He did not fully close again, but I felt the retreat trying to happen. I

spoke before he could disappear behind it.

“Your Alpha?”

He shook his head once, then froze like he already knew that was too much.

“Look at me,” I said.

He did.

Tears had cut through the dirt and drying blood on his face. He looked younger

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suddenly. Not younger in years. Younger in certainty. Like whatever story he had been

telling himself about honour and duty and loyalty was breaking apart right in front of

him, and he did not know what was left when it was gone.

“You already know they left you here to die,” I said. “If you stay silent now, you are not

protecting them. You are only making sure your mate loses you for men who never

planned to come back for you.”

His throat moved.

Maxwell stepped closer then, enough that the prisoner could feel the Alpha weight in

the air. It changed the whole room. It always did. Some men shouted to prove power.

Maxwell never needed to. He only had to stand there, and the walls themselves seemed

to listen.

“If you speak truth,” Maxwell said, his voice low and deadly calm, “I can decide what to

do with it. If you lie, I will know.”

The prisoner’s gaze moved between us. Maxwell’s control. David’s simmering rage. My

silence. Then it came back to me. Maybe because I was the one who had reached the

part of him he could no longer defend. Maybe because I looked like someone who knew

exactly what it meant to lose too much because of another person’s orders. Maybe

because pain always recognises pain even when it hates it.

He whispered first.

I did not catch it.

I leaned closer.

“Say it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and forced the words out louder, like he was confessing to

the stone.

“Alpha Boris.”

David exploded before I could even breathe.

“What?”

The prisoner’s shoulders hunched on instinct like he was waiting for someone to hit him.

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No one did.

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sfer

Maxwell’s face went still in that frightening way powerful men have when rage turns

colder than shouting.

“The same Boris?” David snapped, stepping right up to the bars. “Gracefield Boris?”

The prisoner nodded, tears still on his face now, pride gone, grief in its place.

“He sent us.”

For a second, all I could hear was blood rushing in my ears.

Boris.

That name hit like something ugly finally dropping into place. Every masked scent. Every

wrong movement. Every instinct that had been clawing at me since the roadside attack.

Every part of me that knew this was too organised, too clean, too deliberate to be

rogues. Boris.

I thought of Nightwind.

Smoke.

Blood.

Panic.

Timing.

I thought of packs circling rich land and wounded territories like vultures pretending to

be wolves. I thought of how fast some men moved when they scented weakness. I

thought of how often power dressed itself in excuses. One attack here. Another there. A convoy struck on the road. A pack left exposed. Chaos made to look random when it was

anything but.

Maxwell’s jaw flexed once.

Only once.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

The prisoner obeyed immediately.

“What was the order?”

<188 The Man Who Wasn’t a Rogue 3

The man shook his head weakly, panic flickering again.

“I… I told you who,”

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Maxwell stepped forward, and the prisoner shrank back before he could stop himself.

“What,” Maxwell repeated, each word precise, “was the order?”

The man licked blood from his lip. He was trembling now.

“Intercept the convoy. Make it look rogue. Kill if possible. If not, injure badly enough to

weaken… weaken your response for the next move.”

David stared at him.

“Next move?”

The prisoner’s breathing went ragged again. He looked at me, and I knew what that

meant. He was deciding how much more of himself he was willing to bury tonight. I held

his gaze and said nothing. No rescue. No pressure. No softness. Just silence.

He broke first.

“I don’t know the whole plan,” he said quickly. “I swear it. We weren’t high enough for

that. We just take routes and targets and timing. That’s all. We get told what road, what

hour, how many vehicles expected. That’s all.”

Timing.

Routes.

Not rogues.

Intelligence.

Pack networks.

My mind moved fast. Too fast. It flashed to James’s pack being attacked while he and Leah were away. To the whispers of coordinated strikes. To men who waited for openings like they were born for it. To opportunistic Alphas. To smiles that hid teeth. To

Marcel. To Boris. To all the pieces I had felt brushing against each other without fully

fitting. They still were not complete. Not yet. But there was enough there to cut.

I glanced at Maxwell.

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He looked like he was building the same board in his head.

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David dragged a hand through his hair and swore again. He paced once in the narrow

space like he wanted to break the stone with his hands. I stayed where I was, watching

the prisoner try not to fall apart completely. He had given us Boris. He knew what that

meant. He also knew there was no taking it back now. No swallowing the truth once it

had already been dragged into the room.

I asked quietly,

“Did your mate know whose order you were carrying?”

He flinched.

“No.”

“Would she have let you come if she knew?”

His face twisted at once.

“No.”

I believed him.

That made me even angrier.

So many women left to clean blood off floors men had stained with their choices. So

many women waiting by doors, by windows, by empty beds. So many women told

loyalty meant silence, sacrifice, patience, understanding, while power-hungry men

moved them around like pieces on a board and called it duty. I was sick of it. Sick of how

often women paid for male ambition. Sick of how often love was what got cut open first.

I stood slowly, my knees stiff from crouching too long.

Maxwell looked at me. Something like approval flickered there beneath all the fury and

calculation.

“You did well,” he said.