Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 270

270 What Did You Really Do for Me? 2

James’ POVO

The room went quiet after that. Even Leah stopped crying for a moment. Maybe the words landed harder than I meant them to. Maybe they did because they were true. Maybe they did because I had been carrying them too long and once they started coming out, there was no stopping them.

“I lost my unborn child,” I said.

My throat tightened the moment I said it. It still did that. Every time. My child. Mine and Arya’s. Gone. A life that should have had a chance. A child that should have lived. A child that should have been protected. A child that died while I was busy making stupid choices and trusting the wrong people and trying to secure a future that fell apart anyway. There was no pain like that. None. It sat in my chest like something dead and heavy and it never moved.

“I lost my mate,” I said.

That one nearly broke something in me too. Because Arya was not dead. That was the cruel part. She was alive. Alive and walking and breathing and probably hating me and hurting because of me and

carrying my child in memory if

in every way that mattered.

Sometimes that felt worse. The

fing what it was like before I

destroyed it.

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“I lost the trust of my people,” I said. “I lost my pack members. I lost face. I lost everything.”

Marcel tried to interrupt.

I didn’t let him.

“Everything I wanted to protect,” I said, “the very things that made me agree to all this rubbish, all of it still happened. The loss. The attacks. The humiliation. The instability. All of it still happened. So tell

me now, other than asking me for land transfer and gold and asking for a place for your daughter,

what have you done?”

He had no answer.

Again.

Because there was none.

His help had protected nothing. Nothing. Not my land. Not my pride. Not my child. Not my mate. Not my pack. Not even my name. Everything still fell apart. In some ways, it fell apart worse because I let

him inside it.

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“And don’t think I don’t know about Lisa and Margaret,” I said.

That changed both their faces at once.

Marcel stiffened.

Leah went pale.

Yes. Good. Let them feel that. Let them know I was not still the fool they thought I was. Let them know I knew. I knew about the reward. I knew those women did not frame Arya out of nowhere. I knew hands had been greased. I knew lies had been fed. I knew poison had been passed around until it felt

like truth and I swallowed it like the idiot I was.

My voice changed then. I heard it. Heard the hurt in it. Couldn’t stop it. Didn’t want to. Because the memory of it still lived too close to the surface.

“I locked her up,” I said.

Leah looked at me like she had never heard me say anything so ugly.

Maybe she hadn’t.

“I had her beaten and humiliated,” I said.

The words tasted rotten in my mouth. Because they were mine. My orders. My house. My failure. Marcel could lie. Rebecca could scheme. Lisa and Margaret could be greedy little snakes. But I was the one who let it happen. Me. I was the one who should have stood in front of Arya and said no one touches her. Instead I became the reason she was touched at all.

“She would have died,” I said, “all because of a lie.”

The images hit me harder then. Arya bleeding. Arya bruised. Arya dragged down under humiliation she did not deserve. And me. Moon, me. Standing there in the middle of it, believing I was doing what had to be done. Believing I was protecting the future. Believing I was the wronged one. I hated myself then, but I hate myself more now, because now I know exactly what I was. Weak. Proud. Stupid. Possessive. Cruel when cornered. A man who loved a woman and still treated her like an obstacle

because fear made him ugly.

“You turned the pack against Arya and me,” I said to Marcel. “You made it look like she had jeopardised our future. You made it look like she was the danger. I was stupid enough to believe everything, and I lost the only support I really had.”

That was the truth that hurt most. Arya was my real support. Not Marcel. Not Leah. Not any Union favour. Not any outside alliance. Arya. The woman who stood with me from nothing. The woman who built with me. The woman who bled beside me. The woman who loved me properly. And I let myself be

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turned against her. No. That was too soft. I turned against her. I did that. Me. That was worse.

I looked Marcel straight in the face.

“If you think I will ever trust you again, then you must be senile,” I said.

That made him drop the act for a second.

“I did not know about that plot,” Marcel snapped. “That was Rebecca’s doing.”

I stared at him.

Rebecca.

That was what he was going with.

He wanted to lay it all at Rebecca’s feet and step back like the rest of us were supposed to clap for his innocence. He thought naming her would save him. As if he had not fed the exact climate that made it possible. As if he had not built the suspicion. As if he had not kept pressing on Arya’s position in my life until everyone around us started treating her like the thing standing between me and safety.

“What did you do to fix it?” I asked him.

He frowned.

“What?”

“What did you do to fix it?” I repeated. “Since you claim you didn’t know, what did you do when you

found out? What did you do to fix it?”

He said nothing.

Of course.

“What can you do to fix it?” I asked him.

Still nothing.

Because there was nothing. What could he fix? A dead child? A broken mate bond? Arya’s humiliation? The flogging? The chain? The blood? The mark? My soul? What exactly did he think could be fixed? That was the thing. Men like him loved meddling because they always believed there would be room to rearrange the damage later and still come out looking powerful. But some things do not rearrange.

Some things do not mend. Some things stay ruined.

I was angry at him, yes. I wanted him to feel every word. I wanted him to stand there and hear the ugliness of what his help really looked like. But even while I was speaking, even while I was looking at

him and throwing all of it back in his face, there was another truth sitting inside me like a blade.

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