Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 50

50 No Alpha of Mine 2

Arya’s POV

His arms locked around me like he could physically force the past back into place.

The contact made my skin crawl.

My shoulders tensed.

My teeth clenched.

“I know you are angry now,” he said, voice rough in my ear, his grip tight like a restraint. “But once everything is in place, you will understand better.”

I laughed right against his chest.

It sounded ugly.

It sounded wrong.

It sounded like a warning.

You are a fool,” I said, and the words came out clear, unwavering. “A big fool.”

His body went rigid.

My voice sharpened, fast and merciless.

“You aren’t the one calling the shots here anymore,” I continued. “You danced into their hands, and now they own your arse.”

James’s arms loosened slightly.

Like the words physically weakened him.

“You are no Alpha of mine,” I said, the final blow delivered cleanly.

He pulled away from me like he’d been struck.

His face went tight.

His eyes glistened again, not with tenderness, wounded pride, wounded ego, wounded delusion.

I saw it in the way his throat worked, the way his jaw clenched, the way he looked at me like he was trying to find the old me behind my eyes,

He couldn’t.

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Because she was gone.

He stared for a heartbeat too long.

Then his expression shifted, control sliding back into place like a mask being pulled on.

“I can understand you are still emotional,” he said, voice forced into calm.

Emotional.

He called me emotional after everything.

He called me emotional like my grief was a tantrum.

Like my fury was inconvenient noise.

“A few more days to reflect,” he added, nodding to himself like he was convincing his own conscience, “and you will understand better.”

I didn’t respond.

I didn’t argue.

I didn’t correct him.

Because he didn’t deserve the effort.

He took a breath, eyes flicking away for a second, then back to me..

“I won’t be around this week,” he said. “We are finalising on the signing soon.”

The signing.

The deal.

The leash.

He spoke of it like it was a wedding vow, like it was sacred.

”

“I hope you will see,” he continued, voice low, strained but stubborn, “that everything I did

was for us,”

For us.

He still said us.

Like he hadn’t cut the “us” out of my neck with a knife.

He stepped closer again, slow, like he couldn’t stop himself.

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His hand lifted.

Not to grab this time.

To do something worse.

To pretend.

He bent toward me.

His mouth aimed for mine.

A kiss.

A claim.

A performance of intimacy.

My body moved before my mind even finished deciding.

I bit him.

Hard.

Teeth sinking into his lower lip.

He jerked back with a sharp inhale, blood blooming instantly.

His eyes flared, shock, pain, anger.

I stepped back too, wiping my mouth with my tongue, tasting iron.

Then I leaned in just enough to lick the blood off his lip, slow, deliberate.

Not affectionate.

Not seductive.

A warning.

A promise.

His breathing turned uneven.

His hand twitched like he wanted to strike me, like he wanted to grab my throat, like he

wanted to force obedience.

But he didn’t.

He just stared, blood on his mouth, eyes burning.

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Then he spoke, voice low, rough, trying to claw back control with words.

“I never claimed Arya,” he said, and the line sounded wrong on his tongue, but he said it anyway like it was a vow, “and you will know just how loyal I am to you very soon.”

I stared at him.

He wanted loyalty?

He wanted medals for the bare minimum?

He wanted applause because he hadn’t replaced my mark yet?

He wanted me to be grateful that he hadn’t fully erased me, while he kept me chained, hidden, branded, and disposable?

I wanted to tell him to save his loyalty for someone else.

I wanted to tell him he was speaking to a corpse.

But I knew he wouldn’t get it.

He wouldn’t understand that I was done.

He wouldn’t understand that I wasn’t going to get back with him.

He wouldn’t understand that he was already on my list.

That he would have to pay for the death of my child.

That all I owed him now was revenge.

James stood there for a moment longer, breathing hard, blood on his lip, eyes glistening like he was holding back another eruption.

Then he turned.

He walked to the door.

Unlocked it.

Pulled it open.

And stepped out.

I heard him immediately, his voice to the guards.

“Remove the chains and watch her closely,” he ordered, the Alpha voice sliding back into place like it belonged there. “Do not let her out of your sight.”

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“Yes, Alpha,” one guard answered.

James’s footsteps moved away down the corridor.

The door shut again.

Locked again.

And the guards resumed their posts like I was a problem they’d been assigned to babysit.

I didn’t bother shouting.

I didn’t bother raging against the door.

I didn’t bother pleading.

I didn’t bother crying.

They could watch me.

They could rotate guards until their feet bled.

They could tighten chains.

They could keep me caged like an animal.

It wouldn’t matter.

Because guards got tired.

Guards got bored.

Guards got sloppy.

And that one day, when they got sloppy, would come.

Soon.

I sat down slowly, breath steady, body aching, face calm.

I listened to the guards outside.

Their shifting.

Their whispers.

The faint clink of weapons.

I didn’t care.

I knew time would do what it always did.

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It would rot their vigilance.

It would dull their fear.

And when it did, I would move.

I would find a way.

I would get out of this place.

And I vowed, Union or no Union, the Nightwind pack would never exist.

I would ensure every member of the Forsaken pack paid for what they did.

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51 Ambition Made Me Blind

James’s POV

My office felt too small for the rage in my chest.

The walls held it in, bounced it back, made it sharper. Every breath I took came out tight. Every muscle in my jaw felt like it was grinding stone.

I stared at the desk like it had answers.

It didn’t.

I stared at the papers like they meant anything.

They didn’t.

I stared at the inked drafts, the maps, the projections, the lists of signatures and witnesses and terms, Union protection, mining rights, border commitments, patrol schedules, every

line that had once looked like a future.

Now all I could see was Arya’s face.

Not the bruises.

Not the blood.

Her eyes.

That look.

A look she used to reserve for enemies.

Predators.

People she was about to destroy.

And she had turned it on me.

I hadn’t expected it to hit like that.

Not because I thought she would be grateful, no, I knew she would be furious. I knew she would spit fire, I knew she would spit my name like poison. But I had expected the anger to have cracks in it. A weakness. A place where she still saw me. A place where she still

remembered what we were.

There was nothing.

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No softness.

No hesitation.

No “why.”

Just the stare of someone who had decided you were dead to them.

I paced behind the desk, then stopped. My hands flexed, then clenched.

She rejected me.

Not with words alone.

With her entire being.

With that bite.

With that laugh.

With the way she looked at me like I was the same as Marcel Rainhorn.

Worse.

Because Marcel had never pretended to love her.

agged a hand down my face, fingers catching in my hair. My throat felt raw, like I’d been eaming for hours even though I hadn’t raised my voice in here once.

How did it get this far?

No.

I knew how.

I just didn’t know how to fix it.

And the worst part was the doubt.

It kept crawling back in.

Lisa and Margaret.

Their testimony,

Their trembling voices, their tears, their righteous certainty when they spoke of Arya like` she was a monster hiding in plain sight.

They’d sounded convincing. They’d sounded terrified. They’d sworn they saw her. Sworn t hey heard her. Sworn she was the one who did it.

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Marcel had jumped on it like it was a gift from the Moon itself.

Rebecca had smiled like she’d been waiting for it.

And Leah, Leah had played her part, shaking, fragile, wide-eyed, as if the world was collapsing and only I could save her.

At the time, I hadn’t had room to question it.

Everything had been moving too fast.

Threats layered over threats.

The Union hovering like a blade over my pack’s neck.

The signing in the balance.

Marcel’s voice, calm, calculated, turning every second into a choice between survival and

ruin.

And Arya,

Arya refusing to play along.

Arya fighting back.

Arya raging instead of bowing.

Arya, stubborn as ever, fearless as ever, proud as ever.

And my people watching.

Waiting.

Ready to turn on whichever of us looked like the easier sacrifice.

I stopped pacing and braced my hands on the desk, leaning forward.

I tried to steady my breathing.

Was Arya lying?

Or were Lisa and Margaret lying?

Or was she just… so hell-bent on not giving them the satisfaction that she would rather burn than admit anything?

I didn’t know.

And that was the problem.

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<51 Ambition Made Me Blind

I didn’t know anymore.

The one person I used to read like my own heartbeat had become a stranger who wanted to see me bleed.

I shut my eyes for one second.

And the memory hit anyway.

Arya unconscious in the yard.

Her body limp in the chains.

Blood everywhere.

Her skin grey with shock.

I had pushed through the crowd.

I had carried her.

I had felt her weight against me, too light, too still, and something inside me had snapped.

I had taken her to the infirmary myself.

I had given blood.

My blood.

Watched it drain into tubes.

Watched Lesley hook it into Arya’s vein.

Watched colour return to her lips in slow, stubborn increments.

I had sat by her bed for days.

Days.

Cursing Marcel under my breath. Cursing Rebecca. Cursing the entire pack for being weak,

for being fickle, for being so easily swayed by promises of protection.

And I had stayed away from Leah.

Even with Marcel watching.

Even with Rebecca hovering.

Even with the pressure mounting.

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I hadn’t claimed Leah.

I hadn’t mated her.

I hadn’t touched her the way Marcel wanted.

I had kept the one line I could still call mine.

So why?

Why couldn’t Arya see it?

Why couldn’t she work with me?

Why couldn’t she just, just hold on a little longer?

I slammed a fist lightly on the desk, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to feel the impact in my bones.

Because the child.

The baby.

Our baby.

The grief flared hot, and it fed the anger like oil.

I was hurt too.

I was.

I wasn’t made of stone.

I’d wanted that child.

I’d wanted the future Arya had kept tucked behind her eyes, the one she hadn’t said out

loud yet, the one she had guarded like a secret treasure.

But there had been no choice.

There had been no choice.

It was either her or the baby.

And I chose her.

I chose her life.

I would choose it again.

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And yet she looked at me like I was the executioner.

I swallowed hard, jaw locking.

Love. My love. Deep. True.

Not shallow.

Not selfish.

Not a lie.

So why did it feel like I was the only one still standing in it?

A knock hit the door.

Sharp. Controlled.

Not a guard.

Not Leah.

I straightened slowly, eyes narrowing.

“Enter,” I called.

The door opened.

Nixon stepped in.

My Beta.

He didn’t saunter like he used to.

He didn’t smile.

He didn’t even pretend today.

His face was tight, his eyes serious, his body held like he was bracing for a blow.

I’d noticed it for days now.

Not just Nixon.

My top three officers too,

They moved around me like the air was unstable. Like they weren’t sure if I would explode.

They spoke less.

They avoided my gaze.

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They answered orders, but the ease was gone.

The loyalty was still there, on the surface.

But something underneath had cracked.

And now that Arya was out of immediate danger, I was done pretending I hadn’t noticed.

Nixon closed the door behind him.

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