The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 46

It’s your choice

(Caius)

I stopped at Isla’s door and knocked.

“It’s Caius,” I said.

I waited.

+25 Points

There was a pause on the other side. No movement at first. Then her voice came through the

door.

“I know.”

A few seconds passed.

“You can come in,” she said.

I took the handle and opened the door. Not fast. Enough that she could stop me if she wanted to.

She didn’t.

I stepped inside and left the door open behind me.

She was by the window. Sitting with her legs drawn in, her ankle resting the way Sera had shown

her. A book rested in her lap but her eyes weren’t on it.

They were on me.

“You knocked,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And you waited outside.”

“Yes.”

She watched me for a moment. Something in her expression was working through something, not

suspicion exactly, more the careful process of someone fitting a new piece of information into a

picture they’d been building for a while.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said. “Wait outside like that. This pack house is yours. You can

come in whenever you want.”

I looked at her.

you

“Before arrived here,” I said, “every person who came through a door toward you came without warning and without asking. I didn’t want to be another person who did that. So I stayed outside

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and I knocked and I waited until you decided.”

She was quiet for a moment, taking that in.

“And now?” she said.

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“Now you’re telling me I don’t have to,” I said. “But I’ll still knock. And I’ll still wait. Not because I have to. Because I want you to know that what happens on the other side of that door is always

your decision. Every time. Without exception.”

She looked at me for a long time.

“That’s why you sat on the floor outside,” she said. “After the nightmare.”

“Yes.”

She nodded slowly. Something in her face shifted, not dramatically, just enough.

“Alright,” she said. “Knock. But you don’t have to stand there like you’re waiting for a verdict every

time.”

Something that was almost a response moved through me.

At least she was talking more, that’s all that matters.

“Noted,” I said.

I moved to the chair across from her and sat. I didn’t move closer than that. I didn’t reach for her.

The distance between us was comfortable now in a way it hadn’t been in the first days. Not

absence. Just space that neither of us needed to fill with anything.

The quiet settled between us and I let it sit for a while before I spoke.

“Tell me something about yourself,” I said.

Her gaze shifted slightly.

“What kind of thing?” she said.

“Something you like,” I said. “Not about before. Not about what was done to you. Something that

belongs to you.”

Her fingers rested on the book in her lap.

“That’s most of what there is,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “Tell me something else.”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes went to the window.

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I waited.

Minutes passed.

I didn’t fill the silence.

“I used to watch the rain,” she said.

I nodded once.

“From the door of the shack,” she said. “When it wasn’t coming through the roof.”

“Go on,” I said.

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“It didn’t happen often,” she said. “Most times it leaked. The floor would get wet. Everything would. But sometimes it held.” Her fingers shifted slightly against the cover of the book. “On those days would sit in the doorway and watch it. It made everything quiet. No one came by. No one wanted

to walk through the mud unless they had to.”

She paused.

“The sound on the roof was loud,” she said. “But it covered everything else. Like it pushed the rest

of it away for a while.”

“I liked that,” she said.

I nodded.

I didn’t answer right away. I let her words stay where she’d put them. There was something in the

way she’d said it, not with grief, not with bitterness, just plainly, like she was handing me something

she’d been keeping in a pocket for a long time and had decided it was safe to take out.

She glanced at me.

“That’s what I have,” she said.

“It’s enough,” I said.

Her gaze moved back to the window.

“Does it rain like that here?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you hear it from this room?”

“Yes.”

She nodded.

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“That would be good,” she said.

“You can sit by the window when it does,” I said. “Or the door if you prefer.”

She looked at me.

“No one will stop me,” she said.

“No.”

She held my gaze for a moment, then nodded.

“Alright.”

Her fingers rested again on the book.

“What do you like?” she said.

I didn’t answer immediately.

She watched me.

“You asked me,” she said.

“I did.”

“So it’s fair to ask back,” she said.

“It is,” I said. “I’m thinking.”

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