Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 231

231 Beside Him 3

Arya’s POV

The change in subject took me a second to follow. “Tonight?”

“It was impromptu,” he said. “Something came up regarding the attack on you, Maxwell

and David.

The warmth in me cooled slightly.

That attack.

Of course.

Nothing was ever left alone for long.

“What came up?” I asked.

*Details are still being checked,” he said. ” Pretty much all you got out of Cale. But it was

enough to call a meeting.”

I frowned.

Then he added, “David is on his way. He will represent Dragonclaw.”

I nodded once.

That made sense.

Then he said, “And Nightwind.”

Everything in me tightened,

Not visibly, I hoped. I had practiced too much by now at keeping certain wounds from

showing on my face. But inside, the name still had power. Nightwind was not just a pack.

It was years of my life. It was blood. Work. Loyalty. Dreams. Betrayal. Loss. Humiliation.

Love gone rotten. A future I built with my own hands and then watched get handed

around like some bargaining piece once I stopped being convenient enough.

Nightwind.

I hated that the word could still do this to me.

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Lev saw the change anyway.

He always did.

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He did not call attention to it. For that alone I loved him a little more than was probably

safe.

Instead he only said, more gently, “David will speak in that capacity for now.”

I swallowed and nodded.

“All right.”

That should have been the end of it.

It was not.

Lev’s fingers.tapped once against the table, like he was considering how best to say the

next thing.

Then he turned fully toward me.

“I want you there.”

I frowned slightly. “At the meeting?”

“Yes.”

I almost laughed because surely I had misheard him.

“As what?”

He held my gaze.

“To represent Blackbirth beside me.”

The world did not exactly stop.

But it did tilt.

I stared at him.

Surely he was joking.

Surely this was one of those dark, dry things he said with a straight face that only later

turned out to be teasing.

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But he was not teasing.

I could tell.

He watched me with too much seriousness.

“Lev,” I said slowly, “I’m not sure that is wise.”

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He gave the smallest huff, almost amused. “I was not asking whether it was wise.”

“That is because it isn’t.”

A very slight smile touched his mouth. “There she is.”

“Be serious.”

“I am.”

I searched his face for any crack, any sign that he was playing with me.

Nothing.

He meant it.

He truly meant to place me beside him in a Silverclaw Union meeting, in front of people

who would know exactly what that implied, in front of representatives who would talk,

calculate, gossip, and carry every detail outward by nightfall.

My pulse kicked up.

“That would cause talk,” I said.

“It already causes talk when you breathe.”

I frowned despite myself.

He went on, calm as ever. “Let them talk.”

“You say that because you are not the one they will pick apart.”

His gaze sharpened slightly. “I am exactly the one they will have to answer to when they

do.”

The simple certainty of it hit me hard.

Still, I shook my head once. “Lev…”

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He leaned in a little, forearms braced on his thighs now, focus entirely on me.

“I am not playing with you, Arya.”

There was no teasing left in his voice now.

No heat either.

Just truth.

“I plan to settle down with you when you are ready to accept me.”

My breath caught.

He said it so plainly.

As if he was not saying the sort of thing that should rearrange a woman’s whole

heartbeat. As if he was not placing the future between us with the same ease another

man might ask for more tea.

My mouth parted, but nothing came out.

He kept looking at me.

“For now,” he said, quieter now, “I want people to get used to seeing you beside me.”

My eyes burned a little.

I hated that.

Not because I was sad.

Because I was too moved.

Because some stubborn, wounded part of me had spent so long expecting to be hidden,

denied, delayed, or politely pushed aside that being openly chosen felt almost

unbearable.

James had loved me once. I knew he had. But even at the end, he had made me feel like

something he was trying to keep in one hand while reaching for power with the other.

Lev was not doing that.

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He was not calling what we were temporary.

He was not saying later, maybe, when things settle.

He was saying: stand beside me now.

My throat tightened painfully.

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And that was the problem too.

Because I was not ready.

Not for what he deserved.

Not for what those words meant.

I had just come out of a bond, a life, a history that had nearly destroyed me. Years with

James. Years of love, work, shared dreams, shared war, shared blood. Years that ended

with humiliation and grief and a child I would never hold.

I could not step from that wreckage straight into another forever as if I were whole.

I was not whole.

Not yet.

If I gave myself to Lev fully, I did not want to do it carrying James’s shadow in my chest

like poison. I did not want to love him through wounds that still belonged to another

man. I did not want to keep flinching inside and call it caution. Lev deserved better than

scraps. Better than a woman who came to him half-bleeding and half-looking backward.

And maybe, selfishly, I deserved better too.

I deserved to come to something new as myself, not as the damaged remains of what

someone else had shattered.

I looked down at our hands for a second.

Then back up at him.

His expression did not pressure.

That helped.

He was giving me room even now. Making his intention known without trapping me

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inside it.

I exhaled slowly.

“Lev,” I said, and my voice came out softer than I intended. “What you are asking…”

“I know.”

“No,” I said with a small shake of my head. “I don’t think you do.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

So I made myself be honest.

“I just came out of a relationship I spent years in,” I said. “Years, Lev. I gave everything to

1. And look at what is left of me after.”

Something dark moved through his gaze at that, but he let me continue.

“I need to heal,” I said. “Truly heal. Because if I give myself to you…” My voice thinned for

a second. I steadied it. “If I do that, I want to give myself to you without the baggage I still carry. I don’t want to stand beside you while part of me is still bleeding from another

man.”

The words sat between us.

Too raw to take back.

For a moment the only sounds were the fountain and the soft movement of leaves

overhead.

Lev looked at me in that quiet, direct way he had when he was actually hearing every word.

Then he nodded once.

Not disappointed.

Not offended.

Just understanding.

“I know you need time,” he said.

My chest eased a little.

“But,” he continued, and there was that dangerous steadiness again, “my intentions

toward you do not change because you need time.”

I stared at him.

He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The gesture was gentle

enough to hurt.

“I can wait,” he said. “I will wait. But I will not pretend you are something casual to me

while I do.”

That nearly destroyed me.

Because what kind of man said things like that and still looked so calm after?

What kind of man stood there offering patience without dilution? Desire without

pressure? Certainty without demand?

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to kiss him.

I wanted to climb into his lap and hide my face in his neck and forget the whole ugly

world existed.

Instead I let out a shaky little laugh because anything else would have been too

revealing.

“You are impossible,” I murmured.

The corner of his mouth moved. “You like impossible.”

Unfortunately, he was right.

I looked away toward the fountain, toward the roses, anywhere but directly at the force

of him.

Could I do what he asked tonight?

Could I sit beside him through a Union meeting?

Could I bear the looks? The whispers? The calculations?

No part of me was ready for the deeper promise under it.

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But the meeting itself?

Standing beside him?

That, maybe, I could do.

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And maybe some small selfish part of me wanted to.

Wanted to know what it felt like not to be hidden.

Wanted to know what it felt like to enter a room beside a man who had already decided

he would not let anyone reduce me.

Wanted to know what it felt like to be seen beside power and not immediately treated

as disposable.

1 turned back to him.

“All right,” I said.

He waited.

“I’ll attend the meeting with you.”.

His eyes darkened in a way that had nothing to do with anger.

It was almost worse.

Like that simple agreement pleased him on several levels at once.

One hand came up to my jaw, thumb brushing just beneath my cheekbone.

“Good,” he said.

And God help me, that one word made me feel chosen all over again.

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