Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 207

207 String Her Along

James’s POV

After Maxwell left, the house felt wrong. Not quiet. Nightwind was never truly quiet.

There were always boots, always doors, always someone on watch, always a radio

crackling somewhere, always that low hum of men trying to look calm while the ground

under them shifted. But it felt wrong in the way a room feels after someone says the one

sentence you have been avoiding your whole life. Like the air still held the shape of it.

You lost everything for nothing.

I stood in the receiving hall longer than I needed to. I watched the last of Dragonclaw’s

vehicles roll out through the gate, watched their taillights fade, watched our own guards

straighten like they had just been reminded what real protection looked like. Then it was

just Nightwind again. Me and my pack. My land. My mess.

Nixon waited until the door shut and the echo died before he spoke. He didn’t rush me.

He never did. That was the thing about Nixon. He had a way of letting you sit in your

shame long enough to taste it, then dragging you back to what mattered. He stepped

closer, hands behind his back, face set into that Beta calm that was never truly calm.

“That deal Maxwell offered is the best bet we have now.”

I didn’t answer immediately. Nixon kept going anyway. He’d learned when my silence

was thinking and when it was avoidance.

“If we sit under Dragonclaw, no one will dare attack us head on. Not with Union eyes

watching, not with Maxwell’s name over the territory. It buys us time.” He looked at me

hard. “And it lets us investigate without risking tribunal.”

Tribunal. That word always tasted ugly. Union rules were designed to keep order. That

was the official story. But I’d learned the truth the hard way. They also kept power

where it already sat. A Union member could bleed you in shadows and call it border

conflict and rogue pressure, and if you struck back wrong, you became the threat. Nixon

wasn’t wrong. Maxwell’s offer was ugly for my pride, but it was clean in the only way

that mattered now. Protection. Time. A shield big enough that wolves like Boris would

have to hesitate.

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck and exhaled slowly.

*11:24

< 207 String Her Along

“I’ll agree to it.”

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Nixon’s shoulders eased a fraction. Not relief exactly. More like, good, you’re finally

thinking.

“Alright. Then we need to move fast while the shock of Maxwell’s visit is still fresh.

People talk. Rumours spread. And your enemies, whoever they are, will adjust.”

He paused, then asked the question he had clearly been holding until the deal was

decided.

“What will you do about Leah?”

My jaw tightened. Leah. Just her name made my mouth taste like something bitter and

spoiled. I walked toward the side table where the refused tea tray still sat, Leah’s

courtesy. The silver gleamed under the lamplight like it was proud of itself. I didn’t touch

1. I just stared at it for a second like the tea could answer Nixon for me. Then I said it.

“If Marcel is behind all this, Leah is his insurance policy.”

Nixon didn’t blink. He was already following the same line.

“They’ll string her along. Keep her in the dark. Keep her close. No matter how crazy

Marcel is, he won’t harm his own daughter. Not truly.”

Jasper stirred inside me, disgust rolling through my blood like heat. You’re talking about

using her like a shield. I ignored him for the moment.

Nixon frowned.

“So you’re keeping her here.”

“For now.”

Nixon’s eyes narrowed.

“And if you suddenly start being nice to her, she’ll suspect something.”

That almost made me smile, except nothing in me was amused.

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