Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 62

62 The Bracelet Comes Off

Arya’s POV

Leah’s blood had dried on the wall.

Not in a poetic way.

In a practical way.

A smear. A streak. A mark that proved she’d stood too close to me and paid for it.

I sat on the bed and stared at it like it was a receipt.

Satisfaction sat in my chest like a slow, steady flame.

Not joy.

Not gloating.

Relief.

Because for the first time since the yard, since the cell, since the knife, I had seen fear

flash in Leah’s eyes.

Real fear.

Not the pretend kind she wore when she wanted sympathy.

Not the fragile kind she acted out to pull men by the collar.

The fear of a woman realising the one she tried to crush still had teeth.

I rolled my wrist slowly.

The bracelet hugged my skin.

Zinc outside.

Silver inside.

A “small mercy,” Lesley had called it, the first day she showed it to me, so the silver

wouldn’t burn through my flesh constantly, so I wouldn’t bleed out slowly just from

existing in my own body.

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Mercy.

That word meant nothing to me anymore.

They didn’t give mercy.

They gave control dressed up as kindness.

I lifted my wrist closer to my face and studied the band again.

No clasp I could easily undo.

No quick release.

It was meant to stay until they decided I could be trusted again.

As if I was a dog.

As if I was a rabid thing that had to be managed.

I flexed my fingers.

My hand was steady.

My heart was steady too.

No frantic panic.

No sobbing.

No pleading.

That part of Arya was gone.

I expected James to come.

I expected him to burst in, eyes full of righteous fury, voice full of that sermon he loved

to deliver when he thought he was being reasonable,

You’re jeopardising the pack.

You’re making it worse.

You’re forcing my hand.

You should have just waited.

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I expected him to come spew nonsense, to act like my pain was a strategy problem and my grief was an inconvenience.

I braced for it.

Minutes passed.

Hours passed.

No James.

No guards dragging him in behind them.

No key turning. No bootsteps that sounded like him.

Nothing.

The silence told me everything.

He’d gotten the message.

Or he was too busy pretending the problem didn’t exist.

Either way, I didn’t care.

James could rot with his plans.

He could rot with his Union dreams.

He could rot with Leah on his arm and Marcel’s leash around his throat.

I didn’t care anymore.

My world had narrowed into one goal.

Leave.

At all costs.

I didn’t need James’s permission.

I didn’t need James’s “timing.”

I didn’t need James to decide what to do with me like I was a prisoner he might one day

pardon.

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I would decide.

I would act.

I would leave.

I stood, walked to the door, and pressed my ear lightly against it.

Outside: muffled voices. A guard shifting. The faint scrape of boots.

Still two of them.

They were always there.

Rotation, but always two.

I stepped back.

Then I sat again, calmer than before.

They could watch me all they liked.

They couldn’t watch my mind.

They couldn’t see what I was building.

They couldn’t hear the list I repeated like prayer.

Marcel.

Rebecca.

Leah.

Lisa.

Margaret.

The elders.

The ones who cheered.

The ones who threw insults like stones,

And James.

Always James.

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I kept my face blank.

But inside, the vow stayed sharp.

They ended my baby’s chance at life.

They ended her before she took her first breath.

They used her as collateral.

They used me as a spectacle.

They used my body as a warning.

They believed that would tame me.

They believed that would erase me.

They believed that the pain would break me into obedience.

They were wrong.

I wouldn’t just leave.

I would return.

Not as their Luna.

Not as their prisoner.

As their reckoning.

The door clicked.

A tray slid in first, then the door opened slightly.

Servants.

Not guards.

The servant’s eyes flicked up nervously, then down again, like they didn’t want to meet

my gaze for too long.

Food was placed on the small surface they’d provided, Warm. Steaming. Enough to

suggest they wanted me alive, wanted my body functional.

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The door closed again.

The lock turned.

I stared at the food for a beat.

Then I ate.

Not a symbolic bite.

Not a reluctant nibble.

I ate to my content.

Because hunger made you weak.

Because starvation made you reckless.

Because a body that wasn’t fed couldn’t run, couldn’t fight, couldn’t shift.

They had beaten me and left me bleeding.

They had taken my child.

They had caged me.

But they hadn’t taken my discipline.

I ate slowly, watching every movement of my own hands.

Watching the cutlery.

Knife.

Fork.

Spoon.

They never left me a sharp blade long enough to do damage. Not after the last time I

tried to hold one,

But they still gave me tools.

And tools could become weapons if your hands were patient.

I lifted the knife, weighed it in my hand.

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Not heavy enough.

Not sharp enough.

But metal was metal.

I glanced at my wrist.

The bracelet looked unassuming.

It wasn’t.

It was the difference between me staying human and me becoming a wolf.

The difference between me being trapped behind walls and me barrelling through them.

I chewed, swallowed, and made my move with the same calm I used to use in battle

when my enemy believed I was distracted.

I slid the knife slightly, angled it.

I kept my face blank, eyes down, as if I was simply adjusting my plate.

Then, smoothly, stylishly, I shifted my arm and began to tuck the knife closer to my body,

toward my lap, where I could hide it under the fabric of my clothes.

Not dramatic.

Not frantic.

A clean motion.

A practiced motion.

The kind that would work if the room wasn’t watched.

But it was watched.

The door opened abruptly, faster than usual.

A servant stepped in, eyes sharp now, not timid.

Their gaze snapped to the cutlery.

To my hands.

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To the angle of the knife.

They moved quickly, too quickly.

“Lady Arya,” the servant said, voice tight, “that is not allowed.”

I didn’t look up.

I didn’t argue.

I didn’t lunge.

I held still, letting them approach.

The servant reached for the knife.

I didn’t resist.

Not yet.

Not for this.

Not when the guards were right outside, listening for any excuse to rush in and beat me

again.

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