Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 244

244 The First Strike

Arya’s POVO

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The next morning, I woke with Lev’s scent still all over me. It was in the sheets. On my skin. In the air. In the places he had touched and kissed and held like I was not something broken. For a few seconds after my eyes opened, I forgot everything else. I forgot the tribunal. I forgot Marcel. I forgot Rebecca. I forgot the time I had spent swallowing pain until it became part of my blood. I just lay there in the bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the slow ache between my thighs and the weight of the night still sitting deep in my bones.

Then memory came back in full. Not just the way Lev had made love to me. Not just the way he had held me after, like he was not in a hurry to escape what we had become. No. The real thing that came

back was his voice.

Death is often the easy way out.

I stared at the ceiling harder. I hated that he was right. I hated that even in my anger, even with all the filth Marcel and his family had poured into my life, Lev still managed to reach the cold part of me and

make it think.

Because killing Marcel would b Chapter Unlocked, Enjoy Reading! I had imagined it enough times. Silver to the throat. Claws to the flesh. Blood on my hands. Their breath stopping while I stood over them and watched. That kind of revenge was simple. Hot. Immediate. It would satisfy the first wound. The first scream. The part of me that still woke up sometimes remembering how Rebecca looked at me, how Marcel spoke to me, how James let them.

But peace?

No.

No, death would not give me peace. It would end them too quickly. It would stop the fear too fast. It would let them leave without fully feeling what it was like to lose power inch by inch. To stand in the centre of something they believed was theirs and realise nobody was coming to save them.

My mouth tightened at the thought.

Silverfang.

I had not stopped thinking about it since yesterday. Lev had created an opening. Maybe not for that reason alone. Maybe he had done it because Marcel deserved to be stripped publicly. Maybe because he wanted the Union to make an example out of him. Maybe because he wanted me to see that my

pain had not been ignored. Maybe because all those things were true at once.

It did not matter.

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What mattered was that Silverfang was exposed now. No Union shield. No retaliation on Marcel’s behalf. No certainty that if war landed at his gates, help would come running to rescue him from the

mess he created.

That changed everything.

I turned slowly on the bed and looked at the other side. Empty. Lev was gone already.

A strange feeling moved in me at that. Not hurt. Not even disappointment exactly. Just awareness. The kind that comes after a night like that. The kind that makes a woman pause because she knows something has changed and she does not yet know how to wear the change on her skin in daylight.

I sat up slowly and pushed my hair back from my face. The room was quiet. Calm. But my mind was not. I could feel the old anger moving again. Not wild. Not out of control. Worse. Focused. Cold. Clear.

I looked down at my body and saw the marks Lev had left on me. Faint dark bruises. The kind a woman notices and touches before she can stop herself. My fingers brushed one at the base of my throat. Another low on my shoulder. Heat moved through me so suddenly I almost cursed.

God.

One night with him and I was ruined in a whole new way.

The thought should have embarrassed me. Instead it made my chest feel strange. Heavy and warm at the same time. Because it had not just been sex. It had not just been want. Lev had looked at me like he understood exactly what he was taking into his hands. That was the dangerous part. Not his body. Not his mouth. Not even the way he made me come apart under him like I had been starving for him for longer than I admitted.

The dangerous part was that he made me feel safe while he did it.

I got out of bed before that thought could sit in me too long. I did not have the luxury of lingering in softness this morning. There was work to do. Real work. The kind that dirtied the hands and stained

the soul and still felt necessary.

I freshened up in silence. The water on my skin woke me properly, but it did nothing to cool the steady

fire running beneath it. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Marcel’s face in that meeting. Every time I

opened them, I saw a map in my head. Silverfang territory. Its borders. Its weak points. The wolves

who once feared Union punishment too much to risk touching it. The wolves who no longer had that

reason to hesitate.

By the time I dressed, I was no longer drifting in memory.

I was planning.

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I chose something simple. Dark trousers. A fitted top. My hair tied back out of my face. No softness.

No room for distraction. I needed to think clearly. I needed to sound certain when I made the call I had

already decided I would make.

I sat at the desk near the window and stared outside for a moment before reaching for my phone.

There were names I had not spoken to in a long time. Phone numbers committed to memory. Men

knew from the wilderness. Wolves James and I had crossed paths with when we had nothing. Back

then, before Nightwind had walls and authority and land that could be defended, we knew what it was

to move without roots. To sleep where we could. To fight for scraps. To measure safety by how many

hours remained before another threat found us.

Free wolves lived hard lives. People spoke about them like they were a nuisance. A problem. A restless

species within a species. But I knew the truth of it. Most of them were not lawless because they

enjoyed chaos. Most were simply shut out. They had no territory to belong to. No pack to shelter them.

No place that would take them without demanding obedience first and dignity never.

Land meant everything to wolves like that. Land meant a future. Land meant children with a chance to grow up under a roof instead of under fear. Land meant not spending every season wondering where

the next threat would come from.

And Silverfang had land.

Good land.

More than Marcel deserved.

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