Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 269

269 What Did You Really Do for Me?

James’ POVO

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The moment I heard Marcel had arrived at my pack house, I already knew he did not come because he

cared. Men like him did not come in person when they meant well. They sent word. They sent

pressure. They sent reminders. They sent people to smile and talk softly while carrying threats under

their tongues. They only came themselves when something had slipped from their hands and they wanted to seize it again before it went too far. That was what this was. I had slipped. He could feel it.

He could feel that I was no longer standing where he left me. He could feel that I had stopped waiting

on his approval and stopped treating him like the answer to my problems. He was here to remind me

who he thought he was in my life. He was here to make noise and make me feel guilty and cornered and small again. The sad thing was that version of me would have worked on before. Not because I trusted him fully. Maybe I never really did. But because I was desperate, and desperation makes a

man hold on to filth and call it rescue. I knew that now. Too late, but I knew it.

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He came into my office looking offended, angry, stiff with self-importance. Like I had betrayed him. Like I had done something cruel. Like he was the wounded one here. I just stood there and looked at him. I did not rise to greet him. I did not try to smooth things over. I did not pretend we were still

playing that game where he ge

trying to protect my future

while slowly taking my life apar

e truth. Tired in a way sleep

could not fix. Tired in my bones. Tired in my head. Tired in my soul. I had too many regrets already. Too many things replaying in my mind every time I closed my eyes. Too many moments I would cut out of my own life if I had the power. So I did not have the energy to pretend anymore. I just watched

him and waited for him to say the rubbish he came to say.

“All I have been doing is trying to help you,” Marcel said. “And this is how you repay me? By teaming up

with Maxwell behind my back?”

I kept looking at him.

He stepped closer, breathing hard with outrage, but I knew him now. I knew that his anger was never just anger. It was always something else too. Performance. Calculation. Pressure. He wanted me to hear help and feel shame. He wanted me to hear Maxwell and panic. He wanted me to remember all the ways he had inserted himself into my life and think I still owed him gratitude for it. It might have worked once. Moon help me, maybe it did work once, Maybe that was why I was standing here now with a dead child and a broken mate bond and a life that felt like ruins. Maybe that was exactly why.

“Do you know the magnitude of trouble I got into simply because I tried to expedite the Union joining

for you?” Marcel asked.

I almost laughed.

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<269 What Did You Really Do for Me?

Almost.

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That was the word he wanted to stand on. Help. He kept saying help as if it was holy. Help. Like that word could hide everything else. Like that word could clean the blood off what happened. Like that word could erase Arya’s humiliation, or the chain, or the flogging, or the mark, or my child. Help. Was that what he called it? Was that what all of this was supposed to be? My life was in pieces and he still

had the nerve to stand in my office and use that word.

The door opened before I answered, and Leah rushed inside crying. She looked exactly how she was supposed to look. Soft. Fragile. Hurt. Eyes wet. Lips trembling. A woman treated badly by the husband who was supposed to care for her. She rushed to Marcel and clung to him, and he wrapped one arm around her like he was some devoted father arriving just in time to see his daughter wronged.

“Daddy,” Leah cried. “James has not been treating me well.”

Marcel turned to me with fresh outrage in his face.

“You should explain,” Marcel said.

I still said nothing.

I did not tell him that I knew his Union licence had been suspended. I did not tell him I knew he was already in trouble. I did not tell him I knew that whatever trouble he was talking about now was not noble sacrifice for me, but the result of his own greed and overreaching and dirty meddling. I wanted to hear him first. I wanted him to keep talking. I wanted him to stand in front of me and keep calling poison help while I looked at him and remembered everything he had cost me.

“All I ever did was try to secure your future,” Marcel said. “I took risks for you. I put myself in difficult positions for you. I moved things for you. And now you throw all of that back in my face because Maxwell whispered in your ear?”

That was when I finally spoke.

“What have you really done for me?” I asked him.

He paused.

It was tiny, but I saw it. A crack. A little break in the smooth rhythm of his act. He wasn’t expecting that. He was expecting me to defend myself. To explain. To deny. To maybe even apologise. Not that. Not a question he could not answer without showing what he really was.

“What?” Marcel asked.

“What have you really done for me?” I repeated. “Other than ruin my life and back me into a corner, what have you done?”

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Leah looked at me like I had gone mad.

Marcel’s face hardened.

“Mind your tone,” Marcel said.

“At least I married Leah,” I said. “At least I fulfilled part of what you wanted from me. I gave your daughter a place in my house. I married her. I did my part. So tell me, Marcel, what have you done for

me?”

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Good.

Because that was the truth. Nothing. He had done nothing for me that actually saved anything. He had made demands. He had pushed conditions. He had stood over me with false urgency and sold me desperation wrapped in Union language. He had wanted land. He had wanted gold. He had wanted his daughter placed. He had wanted control. But help? Real help? Protection? Relief? No. He had done none of that. He had only made everything worse while making it sound like he was my only path.

Instead of answering me, he turned sharply to Leah.

“This is your fault,” Marcel snapped at her.

Leah jerked back in shock. “Daddy?”

“Yes, yours,” he said. “Had you not brought James to me claiming he was the father of your child and that you loved him, I would never have become entangled in this mess.”

I just stared at him.

There he was.

That was Marcel. Not the version he sold to rooms full of people. Not the careful voice. Not the strategic Alpha. Just a man who threw blame like dirt and waited to see who would wear it better. Anyone hearing that without knowing better would think he was the wronged one. The burdened one. The father dragged into this by his emotional daughter. But I knew him now. I knew that wounded voice. I knew the act. He was shifting the blame because he had no answer for me. He was trying to move the room away from my question because he could not stand in it.

I took a step closer.

“No,” I said. “Don’t do that. Answer me. What have you done for me?”

< 269 What Did You Really Do for Me?

He glared at me.

I did not stop.

“The worst things that have happened to me,” I said, “have happened since you offered to help.”

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