The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 145

What she doesn’t see

What she doesn’t see

(Caius)

I looked down at Isla after she spoke

Now I ask why you climbed onto roofs.

A smile appeared on my face before I could stop it. The fact that she’d chosen that as proof of progress was ridiculous. The fact that she was probably right made it worse.

She settled against me again.

I let her.

Neither of us seemed interested in saying anything else. The conversation had already gone farther than I’d expected it to.

My thoughts stayed on what she’d said.

Not about the roof.

About herself.

I think I would’ve talked more.

The words stayed with me.

I understood why she’d said them. I understood why she’d wondered who she might’ve been if her life had been different. Most wolves probably would’ve wondered the same thing.

The truth was that there was no answer.

There was no version of her waiting somewhere to be discovered. There was no way to separate Isla from everything that had shaped her life. The past couldn’t be undone.

Even so, I thought she was wrong.

Not about everything.

Just about herself.

She thought she would’ve been louder.

Maybe.

She thought she would’ve asked more questions.

That part was definitely true.

The thing she didn’t seem to realize was that she already did.

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I’d lost count of how many questions she’d asked since arriving in Wraithbone. Some were serious. Some weren’t.

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What she doenstsen

It didn’t matter.

She asked them anyway.

Because she wanted answers.

Because she was curious.

Because she wanted to understand things.

That wasn’t new.

That was her.

Maybe she’d hidden parts of herself to survive Ashcrest. Maybe she’d learned to stay quiet because speaking came with consequences. That didn’t mean those parts had disappeared.

They were still there.

I’d seen them myself.

The wolf sitting beside me asked questions constantly. She challenged things she didn’t agree with. She paid attention to details other people missed.

She was curious about everything.

Sometimes that curiosity created problems.

More often than not it created arguments.

I wasn’t sure she’d admit that.

Then again, she probably would.

One thing I’d learned about Isla was that she rarely pretended to be something she wasn’t. If she disagreed with someone, she usually said so. If she wanted an answer, she asked for it.

That wasn’t weakness.

That was confidence.

The realization would’ve surprised her.

For years she’d been taught the opposite.

Ashcrest had spent a long time trying to convince her she had no value. Rodan had spent years trying to make her smaller. So had everyone who stood beside him and allowed it to happen.

They’d failed.

Not completely.

They’d left scars.

They’d left fears.

What she doet ees

They’d left inemories she would probably carry for a long time.

But they’d failed.

Because the woman sitting beside me wasn’t small.

She never had been.

I thought about the first day I’d found her.

The chain.

The wolfsbane.

The way she’d looked at me when I removed it.

At the time she’d seemed breakable.

Now I knew better.

Clam

A breakable wolf wouldn’t have survived what she survived. A breakable wolf wouldn’t have stood in front of Ashcrest and faced the people responsible for it.

A breakable wolf wouldn’t have walked back into that territory at all.

Isla had.

She’d done it while afraid.

She’d done it while angry.

She’d done it anyway.

That mattered.

Most wolves thought courage meant fear wasn’t present.

They were wrong.

Courage existed because fear was present.

Without it there was nothing to overcome.

I looked down at her again.

Tomorrow Alpha Voss would arrive.

Soon after that the High Council would arrive too.

Questions would follow.

Opinions would follow.

Some of them would support her.

Some wouldn’t.

What she doesh-see

That part didn’t concern me

The High Council wasn’t the problem people imagined it was. They could ask questions. They could debate. They could argue among themselves for days if they wished.

The facts wouldn’t change.

Isla was my mate.

Isla was Celestial.

Neither of those things required permission.

I already knew Sorin would have opinions.

That wasn’t surprising.

Sorin had opinions about everything.

Voss would probably arrive with questions of his own. That was expected too. Alpha Voss rarely accepted information without examining it himself.

I preferred that.

Suspicion was easier to deal with than blind acceptance.

Blind acceptance usually disappeared the moment something became inconvenient.

At least with suspicion everyone knew where they stood.

The High Council would see her eventually.

They’d meet the woman sitting beside me.

They’d see the wolf Ashcrest tried to bury.

They’d see the Celestial wolf standing in front of them.

Then they’d decide what they thought.

The decision wouldn’t matter nearly as much as they believed.

My attention shifted again.

This time my thoughts landed on another part of our conversation.

My family.

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I hadn’t expected to spend part of the afternoon talking about my father. I definitely hadn’t expected to tell stories about climbing roofs and falling off horses.

Now Isia knew them.

At least a little.

The thought was strange.

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What she does see

Not unpleasant.

Just strange.

Claim

For most of my life those memories belonged to a different version of me. They belonged to a time before councils, disputes, and responsibilities. They belonged to a life that seemed very far away now.

Today she’d listened to them.

She’d laughed at them.

Repeatedly.

I wasn’t going to forget that anytime soon.

The thought made me smile.

Then my attention shifted to my sister.

Not often enough.

The answer I’d given Isla earlier was true.