Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 201

201 You Lost Everything for Nothing 3

James’s POVO

Maxwell’s voice dropped to its coldest point.

“You were played, James. And you lost everything for nothing.”

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There it was. The final sentence. No shouting. No dramatic condemnation. Just truth. I

had lost Arya. Lost my child. Lost whatever remained of honour in her eyes. Lost the

right to speak of love without tasting my own hypocrisy. Lost the moral ground under Nightwind by trying to gain legal ground through Marcel. Lost the ability to hear my own justifications without knowing they were filth. And for what? No Union seat. No secure

certification. No lasting alliance. No Marcel loyalty. No protection. Nothing.

I do not know how long I stood there without speaking. Too long maybe. Long enough for every memory to turn cruel in the new light. Arya in the cell, furious and disbelieving. Arya pleading. Arya’s face when I chose process over her. Arya’s silence after the worst

of it. The blood. The loss. The way I kept telling myself there would be time later to fix

what I had broken. There was no later. Not for the child. Not for the woman who now

belonged to another house.

“…”

I stopped because there was no sentence that did not sound pathetic. I tried again.

“I knew Marcel was lying about something. I knew it. But I…”

Trusted him? No. Needed him? Yes. Wanted the lie to work anyway? Also yes. The truth

of my own motive made me sick.

Maxwell watched me with no kindness left to spend on this part of the conversation.

“You wanted it to be true,” he said.

The words hit like a hammer to bone. Yes. That was exactly it. I had wanted the officers

to be real. Wanted the process to be valid. Wanted the pain to mean something because

otherwise I would have had to look too early at what I was becoming. So I had looked

away from every warning Arya threw at me until the warnings bled to death in my

hands.

I dragged a hand over my mouth. For one wild second shame turned to rage. Not at

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<201 You Lost Everything for Nothing 3

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Maxwell. Not at Arya. Not even at Leah. At Marcel. At that oily smiling bastard who

walked into my pack, smelled desperation, and decided to build a future for himself

around it. At the way he spoke of war and urgency and expediency. At the way he made

Arya sound like an obstacle instead of a warning. At the way he used my fear for

Nightwind and twisted it until I called betrayal necessity.

I looked up sharply.

“Did Radimir believe it?” I asked.

Maxwell’s expression did not change.

“Radimir believed enough to say no one can promise anyone a Union seat.”

That answer told me enough. Marcel had not only lied to me. He had lied upward too, or

at least bent the truth far enough that even his own cover was beginning to tear. My jaw tightened. I thought of every hour. Every argument. Every compromise. Every cold look Arya had given me that I answered with firmness instead of listening. All of it stood now

on rotten ground.

Nixon moved then, finally speaking into the silence.

“If Marcel denied the officers, then he set the whole scene,” he said carefully.

Maxwell glanced at him once in acknowledgment.

“Yes.”

Nixon looked at me. He did not say I told you. He did not need to. I remembered every

time he hesitated before defending Marcel’s certainty. Every time he looked at me like he

wanted to say more and stopped because I was still Alpha and still determined to get

this done. I looked away first. The shame of being wrong hits differently when men you

trust saw the cliff and watched you step anyway.

Maxwell folded his arms again.

“I didn’t come here to comfort you.”

I almost laughed at that, but there was nothing in me light enough for laughter. He

continued.

“I came because if Nightwind stands exposed, the wolves who used you once will keep

using your weakness. And because, despite everything, I remember why you came to me

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<201 You Lost Everything for Nothing 3

in the first place.”

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That startled me enough to drag my eyes back to him. His face was still hard, but the

disgust had shifted into something else now. Not forgiveness. Never that. Assessment.

“You loved her once,” he said.

The once cut. I opened my mouth to argue the tense and stopped. Because present tense

had not saved her. Because love without protection is a thing women bury under other

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