Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 283

283 Fifty Men and a Dead Bond 2

James’ POVO

Nixon gave another nod. There was no softness in it. No surprise either. He had been there for all of it He had seen what Marcel and Leah brought into this house. Seen what they helped make of mine If

there was judgment in him, it was not for my hatred of them.

“I’ll keep the guards where they are,” he said.

“Do that.”

He reached into the inside of his jacket then and pulled out another paper, this one more crumpled, like

it had already passed through too many hands before reaching his.

“This one matters more.”

I could tell from his tone alone that the air was about to change. I pushed away from the window and

came back to the desk.

“What happened?”

“Silverfang.”

The word hit the room like a thrown blade. I took the paper from him. My eyes skimmed quickly over the rough notes scratched across it. Names. Sightings. The western edges. Movement in the tree lines. Rogue tracks. Minor attacks near store routes. Two outlying houses hit during the night. No major deaths yet. Livestock taken. Watchmen injured. Fear spreading. Support requests quietly made. None clearly answered. I looked up.

“Daniel?”

Nixon tipped his chin once.

“That’s the rumour.”

I read the lines again, slower this time. Daniel mobilising rogue warriors. Pressure building around Silverfang’s borders. Testing strikes. Probing. Not full war yet. Not open takeover. Just enough blood to let a pack know the wolves at the wall were no longer afraid. Something hot and black uncurled low in my chest. Not panic. Not sympathy. Something meaner. I set the paper down very carefully.

“So,” I said.

Nixon was watching me with that same measured look.

“So,” he repeated.

X283Ffty Men and a Dead Bond 2

My mouth pulled into something that was not a smile.

“He’s finally choking.”

Nixon did not pretend not to understand who I meant.

“Looks that way.”

I sat again, slower now, a different kind of stillness settling into me. It was almost obscene, the shape of the satisfaction that moved through me. Marcel Rainhorn. Great Marcel. Union wolf. Power broker. Collector of favours. Seller of daughters. Man who had once looked at my desperation and found a use for it. Now standing where the ground moved under his own feet. Now reaching outward, not downward, because there was no one left beneath him he had not already squeezed.

I should have felt only hatred. I did feel hatred. But tangled in it was something darker. Recognition. The cruel mirror of it. There had been a time I stood backed against my own ruin, watching Nightwind shake and telling myself I had to do whatever it took. Whatever it cost. Whatever I had to sell. Whatever line I had to cross. That was the story I fed myself while I drove a blade through the one thing in my life that had never asked to be traded.

Arya.

One choice. Then another. Then another. Each one dressed as necessity until the whole thing stank of blood and politics and I could no longer tell where cowardice ended and strategy began. Now Marcel was in that place. Cornered. Needing. Asking. The symmetry of it was ugly enough to make me want

to grin.

Nixon spoke into the quiet.

“There’ve been reports of him reaching out to old contacts.”

I glanced up.

“Begging?”

“As close as a man like him gets.”

That black thing in my chest settled deeper.

“Good.”

Nixon leaned a shoulder against the cabinet beside the desk.

“No one important has moved yet. Not publicly. A few messages passed. A few watchers seen near the border. But no one has stepped in with force. It looks like people are waiting to see whether Silverfang can hold on its own.”

38

<283 Fifty Men and a Dead Bond 2

“Or whether it deserves to.”

His eyes flicked to mine.

“That too.”

I looked back down at the paper. Daniel. Of all wolves to circle Silverfang, that one made a certain kind of brutal sense. Daniel never wasted movement. If he was gathering rogues, he already smelled weakness. He would not have stirred unless he believed the ground under Marcel was softer than it

looked.

And Arya knew Daniel. That thought came quick and mean. Not because I believed she needed him

Arya needed no man to sharpen what already lived in her. But I knew the history. The wilderness years. Old paths. Old names. Wolves we had both crossed when we had nothing but each other and the next

mile of dirt. Daniel was one of them.

Had she called him?

My fingers tightened once on the paper. Maybe. Maybe not. Did it matter? What mattered was that

Silverfang was bleeding at the edges and Marcel had finally been forced into the posture he used on other people like a weapon. A hand extended, not to bless, but to take.

I let out a slow breath.

“He used desperation like currency,” I said. “Now he gets to learn the taste of it.”

Nixon said nothing. He did not need to. He had been standing in the room ago when Marcel first began pressing his thumb into Nightwind’s throat. He remembered. He remembered more than I wanted him to, probably. The hesitation. The rationalising. The slow ugliness of a man making his own ruin sound

like duty.

A sour ache moved through my chest then. Brief. Sharp enough to make me hate it. Because the truth

sat under all of this like rot under floorboards. Marcel’s desperation had circled back to him, yes. But

mine had cost me Arya. That was the difference. He was scrambling to hold territory. I had handed over my mate and called it a future. I looked away from Nixon before he could read too much in my

face.

“Any sign the Union plans to intervene?”

“Nothing official.”

“Lev?”

“Hosting a birthday banquet,” Nixon said dryly. “That probably tells you enough about where his

attention is.”

< 283 Fifty Men and a Dead Bond 2

At Arya’s side, a voice in my head said. I shut it down hard.

“What about Radimir?”

Nixon shrugged once.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify