Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 195

195 What Family Feels Like

Arya’s POVO

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By the time I got back to my room that evening, I was exhausted in a way that felt older than the day itself. The women’s centre had taken more out of me than I admitted while I

was still in it. Not the work. I could handle work.

Work was honest. Blankets did not lie. Needles did not whisper. Fabric did not smile at your face while deciding where to cut you later. But people did. Rooms did. And today I had stood inside one for hours, smiling when I had to, directing when needed, slapping when pushed too far, then putting order back together like my hand had not cracked across Gail’s cheek and shifted something in Dragonclaw by a fraction.

The house was quieter when I stepped in. Evening had settled properly by then. Lamps were lit. The long halls glowed amber against stone, and servants moved with lowered voices carrying trays, folded cloth, and all the small quiet duties that kept a pack house breathing after sundown. I climbed the stairs slower than usual.

My body was still paying for too much all at once. The road. The blood. The partial shift. The bad sleep. The thinking. Too much thinking. My shoulders ached. My arm still pulled faintly where stitching and healing were still arguing over who ruled the flesh first. Even my jaw hurt a little. I had probably spent half the day clenching it against anger I did not

want anyone to see.

When I finally pushed open my door and stepped inside, I let out a breath I think I had been holding since afternoon. My room had started feeling familiar in a way that still caught me off guard. The curtains were half drawn.

Firelight from the small hearth moved softly over the walls. The bed had been turned down. A basin of fresh water had been left beside the washstand with that quiet kind of care that meant someone in Maxwell’s house had started noticing what I needed without

making me ask twice.

I crossed the room, pulled the tie from my hair, and let it fall loose over my shoulders. Then I lay on the bed without even changing, just for a minute, I told myself. Just long enough to breathe. The mattress took my weight, and for the first time all day there was

no one watching me.

No women weighing my place. No guards reporting. No maps spread open with names

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and enemies and routes. No family proving itself and frightening me with how much I

had started needing the proof. Just quiet.

And of course, in the quiet, my mind went straight to Lev.

I stared at the canopy above me and let myself think about him because fighting it only

ever made it worse. What was he doing now? The question came first, simple and

impossible. What was he doing in Blackbirth?

Was he in some council room with old wolves and bad tempers, carrying Radimir’s

weight while pretending the old man had not tried to collar him in public? Was he in the

training yard working anger out of his body the way he seemed to drag it from mine?

Was he standing in some cold office with Milo beside him, sorting through reports and

route maps and names of men stupid enough to think they could move against him

without consequence?

Or was he thinking of me too?

Ria stirred immediately, shameless as ever.

Of course he is.

I shut my eyes for a second.

“You are no help.”

He carried us in front of everyone.

Heat crept into the back of my neck before I could stop it. I rolled onto my side and

glared at the empty room like that would do anything at all for my wolf’s smugness. He

had carried me. He had kissed me in that shadowed corridor at Blackbirth until my knees

felt weak and my thoughts stopped making sense. He had looked at me like I was the

only thing in the room worth seeing. He had told me there was only one woman for him.

That memory did dangerous things to a body already too tired to lie to itself properly.

I pressed my face into the pillow for a second and let out one muffled, annoyed sound at

myself. Because the truth was embarrassing. Secretly, stupidly, I wanted him to appear.

That was it. That was the humiliating truth. I wanted a knock at my door that would not

be just a knock.

Wanted that dangerous stillness of his filling the room. Wanted his voice low in the

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dark. Wanted those eyes on me. Wanted his mouth too close and his hand at the small

of my back like he had every right to be there and none at all.

I wanted him to show up and ruin my peace in exactly the way only he could.

And I knew he probably would not.

Blackbirth had him now in a way Dragonclaw did not. He was acting Alpha. That weight

was not coming. It was already here. Radimir might still sit in the seat, but Lev was the

one being made to carry the shape of succession before the old wolf fully gave it up.

Lev would be pulled in every direction. Watched. Pressed thin. Dragged through duty,

politics, expectation, and all the smiling people who sharpened knives behind folded

hands. He might not have the freedom to disappear into Dragonclaw just because I

wanted him to.

That truth sat in me like a stone.

Then, because I was tired and tiredness makes foolish thoughts louder, another name

slipped in.

Mary.

I went still and hated myself for even thinking it. Maybe Mary was already making her

move. Maybe the women around Radimir had already told her the right times to

approach him. Maybe Diana, cold and composed and too observant by half, had decided

to help the match along anyway.

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