Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 48

48 Release the Rogue Bitch 2

Arya’s POV

A day passed.

They brought food twice.

I ate enough to keep my body from collapsing.

Not for them.

For me.

Because if I wanted to live long enough to ruin them, I had to remain alive.

If I wanted to burn them properly, I had to stay standing.

So I ate.

Not much.

But enough.

The guards rotated outside my door too.

I heard them shifting.

Heard them talking low.

Sometimes laughing.

Once, one of them muttered, “Should’ve died.”

I didn’t react.

I didn’t move.

I memorised his voice.

The next day, I woke with a sharp tension in my chest.

Not fear.

Expectation.

The air felt different.

Heavier.

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<48 Release the Rogue Bitch 2

Like something was coming.

I sat up on the bed, wrists still chafed from chains, and listened.

Footsteps.

Not the heavy stomp of guards bringing food.

Not the light step of Lesley.

These were slow.

Measured.

Familiar.

I stared at the door.

A key turned.

The lock clicked.

The door swung open.

And the one person I never wanted to see again stepped inside.

James.

He didn’t walk in like an Alpha.

He didn’t walk in like a man who’d won.

He walked in like someone carrying weight too heavy for his spine.

His shoulders were tense.

His face drawn.

His eyes shadowed.

He looked… broken.

And I hated him for it.

Because brokenness didn’t erase what he’d done.

Brokenness didn’t bring my baby back.

Brokenness didn’t undo the knife across my neck.

He shut the door behind him.

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48 Release the Rogue

The guards didn’t come in.

They left him alone with me.

Of course they did.

He was Alpha.

He could do whatever he wanted with the rogue in the far room.

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James’s gaze swept over me, my bruises, my bandaged skin, the way my body still moved carefully.

Something tightened in his expression.

He inhaled, and I caught the faint tremor in it.

Then his eyes moved to my neck.

He didn’t flinch.

He stared like he was looking at a wound he’d created with his own hands.

Then his gaze dropped to his own neck.

I followed it.

The mark was still there.

The one I had given him.

The one he’d cancelled with the knife.

It looked like a ghost now, present, but empty. So he too did the same to himself.

He bore the same mark as me. Rejected, rogue, but it didn’t matter.

He was the one who did it. He marked us both, and for that, I would never forgive him. I

looked at the scar on his neck again.

A scar without a bond.

He hadn’t claimed Leah yet.

Not properly,

Not in the way that would overwrite what had been.

Not in the way that would seal it.

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48 Release the Rog

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It didn’t matter to me.

He could mark every woman in the pack.

He could marry Leah in front of the whole Union.

It wasn’t my business anymore.

James took a step forward.

I didn’t move.

He stopped, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed closer.

His mouth worked.

Then he spoke.

“How are you?” he asked quietly.

I stared at him.

No answer.

He waited.

Silence.

He swallowed.

He tried again.

“Arya,”

I didn’t let him finish.

I rose from the bed, slow and deliberate, my eyes never leaving his face.

The chains clinked.

James’s gaze flicked to them, jaw tightening.

I stepped forward once.

Then he stepped forward too, like he couldn’t help it.

The moment he moved, my body reacted.

I backed away fast, the motion sharp, the pain ignored, my eyes burning with fire.

James froze.

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He nodded slowly.

Like he understood.

Like he accepted it.

Like he knew he didn’t deserve to be near me.

He lifted both hands slightly, palms open, trying to look harmless.

Then his expression tightened again, frustration sharpening his grief.

“Hear me out,” he said, voice low.

I didn’t respond.

James’s eyes flashed.

He took a breath like he was forcing patience.

Then he spoke, and the words came out like he’d rehearsed them. Like he’d repeated them to himself until they sounded like truth.

“Had you not done what you did,” he said, “none of this would have happened.”

My mouth twitched.

Not from humour.

From disbelief.

James kept going, like he needed to convince himself more than he needed to convince

“You knew they hated you,” he said, voice rising slightly. “You knew what they were looking for, Arya, and you played right into their hands. You put me in a bad position.”

He took a step forward again, unable to stop himself, voice tightening with frustration.

“This was the only thing I could do,” he said, “to keep you alive.”

For a heartbeat, I just stared at him.

Then I chuckled.

The sound was low, bitter, wrong.

James’s jaw clenched.

He didn’t like my laughter.

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He never did.

Because it meant I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

I tilted my head slightly.

“You humiliated me,” I said, voice calm.

James’s

eyes flickered.

I kept going.

“You beat me up,” I said. “And you killed my child to please them.”

His face tightened.

My voice sharpened.

“You killed your child to please them,” I repeated. “You have no soul.”

James’s expression snapped.

Anger surged across his face, raw and immediate, like I’d ripped something open.

Tears filled his eyes.

Then he yelled.

“You think I don’t mourn!” he roared, voice cracking the room.

His chest rose and fell hard.

His fists clenched.

His eyes were wild with grief and rage.

I watched him.

Then I chuckled again.

The sound made his face twist like he wanted to shake it out of me.

“Mourn for what?” I asked, voice quiet but cutting.

James flinched.

I stepped closer, not to reach him, but to sharpen the distance between us into a weapon.

“You have the pack,” I said. “You own the land. You own your freedom.”

My eyes locked onto his.

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“What do I have, James?” I asked.

Silence.

His face broke.

I didn’t stop.

“Nothing,” I said flatly. “You have no soul.”

James’s breathing turned harsh.

He lunged forward suddenly, grabbing my shoulders.

Pain flashed through my bruises, but I refused to make a sound.

He shook me once, hard.

Tears spilled down his cheeks.

His voice came out broken and furious.

“I love you!” he shouted. “I was doing everything for us! All you had to do was wait!”

I stared at his hands on me.

Then I lifted mine and shoved him off.

Not with strength.

With disgust.

His hands fell away like he’d been burned.

I stepped back again, eyes cold.

“Wait for what?” I asked.

My voice didn’t shake.

My face didn’t soften.

“For you to kill me, James?” I said. “Because you have already done that.”

His breath hitched.

I pointed to my neck with a small motion.

“You severed me,” I said. “You branded me. You cancelled me.”

My eyes hardened.

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“Your love is shallow,” I said. “And selfish.”

James’s face contorted.

I kept going.

“I don’t want it,” I said.

James stared at me like he didn’t recognise me.

Like he was looking for the woman who used to soften when he spoke, the woman who

used to believe him.

That woman was gone.

He swallowed.

His voice dropped, pleading now, strained.

“Had you just played along,” he said, “we would be together…”

I laughed.

This time it was sharper.

Louder.

It bounced off the walls and tasted like blood in my mouth.

“The only person that stood in the way of our future,” I said, “is you, James.”

His eyes widened slightly, like the truth hit harder than any insult.

But I didn’t care if it landed.

I didn’t care if it hurt him.

I wanted it to hurt him.

“I don’t care anymore,” I said.

Then I stepped back again, tilting my head, voice dropping into something cold and final.

“You said all that needed to be said that day in the cell,” I said. “You let me know my place.”

James’s mouth opened, then closed.

I didn’t let him speak.

“I am just waiting,” I said, each word clean, deliberate, “for you to release this rogue bitch.

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into the wild.”

James’s face twisted.

A painful chuckle left him, broken, hollow, like he didn’t know whether to cry or rage.

He looked at me like he was staring at the ruins of something he’d built with his own hands.

And I held his gaze without flinching, because there was nothing left to save.

Only something left to destroy.

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