Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 236

236 Before Them All

Lev’s POVO

The second Arya finished speaking, the hall exploded.

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Voices rose at once. Chairs scraped. Men who had sat there in stiff silence while she spoke now

leaned forward, turned to one another, started muttering in open disbelief. Some were outraged. Some

looked sick. Some wore the kind of cold, careful faces men wore when they did not want their reaction

used against them. A few said nothing at all, but their silence was not clean. It was the silence of men

calculating what this meant now that the truth had been dragged into the open where it could not be

buried again.

I stayed seated.

I did not need noise to control a room.

I only needed a moment.

My eyes went to Arya first.

She sat beside me with her back straight and her chin high, but I could feel the storm under her skin.

Not because she was weak. Not because she was close to breaking. Arya did not break like that. But I

knew what it had cost her to say those things aloud in front of men like these. To take what had been done to her, all the filth of it, and lay it bare before a hall full of wolves who would now carry those

details in their heads forever.

There was pride in me then.

Dark, fierce, dangerous pride.

And something more private too. Something rawer. Because she had done it trembling only inside, not

outside. She had given them truth with her spine unbent. She had made men who would have happily

dismissed her look at what Marcel had done and hear it in her own voice.

She was magnificent.

My wolf moved heavily under my skin, pleased and territorial and half a step from violence because

Marcel was still breathing the same air as her.

Across the hall, Marcel stood abruptly.

“Those are lies,” he snapped.

His voice cracked the chaos enough to turn heads back toward him. His face had lost that polished

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control he liked to wear. The outrage in him now was real, but it was not righteous outrage. It was the outrage of a man cornered too fast. The outrage of someone who had believed the woman he had wronged would never get the room on her side long enough for truth to matter.

Before I could speak, David did.

“There are receipts,” he said.

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. It carried cleanly enough. He sat with that easy Dragonclaw calm of his, but I knew him well enough now to hear the steel under it.

“Everything my sister has said can be proven.”

Sister.

Interesting choice.

Very deliberate too.

I noticed the way Arya’s eyes flicked toward him for the briefest second. I noticed the way a few men in the room did too. Good. Let them hear it like that. Let them understand Dragonclaw had not merely given Arya shelter. They had placed her among their own.

Marcel laughed then, but there was nothing amused in it.

It was the ugliest kind of laugh. Bitter. Dismissive. The laugh of a man too arrogant to know when

denial had already failed.

Then he shrugged.

Actually shrugged.

“They were fair game,” he said.

The room shifted again.

Some of the men who had been merely shocked now looked openly revolted.

Marcel did not care. Or perhaps he did care and had simply crossed too far into desperation to retreat.

“It is not as if Nightwind was a recognised pack,” he went on. “There was no Union protection over it.

No standing. No claim any of you would have cared to defend before now.”

There it was.

His true face.

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Not even bothering to pretend anymore that he had done nothing wrong. Not denying the predatory calculation. Just justifying it. Wrapping theft and coercion and political greed in technicalities as if the absence of certification made wolves less real when they bled.

I heard Arya chuckle beside me

The sound was soft

Too soft

That was what made it dangerous.

She turned her face slightly toward Marcel, and there was no softness left in her expression now. No ache. No uncertainty. Just a calm, old hatred that had been cleaned down to something sharp.

1 only wish James were here” she said, “so he could finally see your true colours for himself.”

The words slid across the room like a blade.

Marca’s mouth hardened instantly.

The mention of James rattled him. Of course it did. Men like him preferred their puppets guilty and

confused and absent. Easier that way.

He got to his feet fully now, palms flattening on the table.

1 already have a claim on Nightwind,” he said. “Maxwell cannot simply take it.”

That made several things happen in me at once.

First, mtation

Second, contempt

Third, the immediate instinct to look at Arya, because no claim on Nightwind existed that did not pass

through her blood and labour too, and hearing Marcel speak as if her years there meant nothing put a

dark taste in my mouth.

Arya did not hesitate

“James alone does not decide that,” she said

Her voice was level, but I could hear the hate in it. Not wild hate Controlled hate. The kind that had

been lived with long enough to grow teeth.

1 fought for that land too. I bled for it too. I built it too. I am Alpha too. Half of Nightwind is mine. And Maxwell is my father. So you have no say.”

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My chest tightened at that.

Not because of the claim.

Because of the word.

Father.

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Simple. Direct. Claimed without apology.

I saw David’s jaw shift in approval. Saw several heads turn. Saw Marcel register the weight of it a

second too late.

Arya did not look at me when she said it, but I heard the rage inside her words. Heard exactly how deeply she despised that man. Heard what she was not saying too, that he and his daughter had taken what she had helped build and then expected her to disappear quietly from its history.

Marcel pointed at her.

“Watch your tone.”

The air in me went cold.

I did not think.

Did not pause.

Did not weigh what the room would make of it.

I turned my head toward him and said, “No. You should watch yours when you address my mate.”

Silence.

Utter silence.

Not a murmur. Not a breath loud enough to mark the room.

Every eye shifted.

Not to Marcel.

To me.

Good.

Let them look.

I felt Arya go still beside me.

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I did not look at her yet. If I did, the room would see too much of what I felt and I already had one hand around my own restraint.

My voice remained even.

“I will not tolerate disrespect toward Arya,” I said. “Not from you. Not from anyone in this hall.”

The silence did not break immediately.

It thickened.

Shock moved through the room in waves. I could see it on faces too slow to hide it. I could smell it too, under the polished wood and old stone and too many wolves packed too close together. Surprise. Interest. Displeasure. Curiosity. Satisfaction from a few corners. Alarm from others.

Then some fool at the far end muttered, not quietly enough, “I thought he would be mating Mary.”

There it was.

The name.

The rumour.

The expectation half this circle had probably already been nursing in their heads.

I turned very slowly toward the voice.

Whoever had spoken suddenly found the table fascinating.

Before I could tear into him for forgetting where he was, Radimir spoke.

“That is enough,” he said sharply. “My family matter is not up for discussion in this council.”

Family matter.

Interesting choice again.

His face was hard, but I knew my uncle. He was not merely irritated by the disruption. He was irritated by the declaration itself. By the fact that I had made it publicly, plainly, and without seeking his blessing or inviting his opinion. He had swallowed it because he had no immediate way to challenge it without looking like he was interfering in my personal claim before a room full of watching wolves.

Still, the murmurs started up anyway.