The Alpha's Mafia Luna novel Chapter 75

Chapter 75

The woods were quiet except for the echo of wood striking wood – sharp, consistent, rhythmic.

My muscles screamed.

Sweat poured down. my back.

Kael’s strikes came fast today faster than yesterday. He wasn’t holding back. I wasn’t either.

“You’re still too slow,” he barked.

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” I hissed, parrying the blow.

“Your ‘fast‘ isn’t enough to kill Taurus.”

He jabbed again – this time, I didn’t dodge in time.

The staff hit my ribs, and I stumbled back with a sharp grunt.

Pain. Always pain.

But I wasn’t the same girl who cried herself to sleep in Damian’s mansion. That girl was dead.

I caught my balance, tightened my grip, and lunged forward with every ounce of rage I had.

Kael didn’t expect it. I slammed the staff across his shoulder, hard enough to make him grunt and take a step back.

He looked at me approval. not with anger – but with something like

“Good,” he said. “You’re learning.”

I dropped the staff and fell to my knees, breathing heavy, my throat burning. “I can’t feel my arms.”

“Means they’re still there,” Kael said dryly.

I glared at him. “Do you ever take a break?”

“I don’t have time for breaks.”

“Neither do I,” I muttered.

A long silence passed between us. For once, he didn’t bark a new command.

Instead, he sat on a rock nearby and reached for a water bottle. He tossed me one. I barely caught it.

“Sit,” he ordered.

I sat. Not because he told me to, but because my legs were going to give out anyway.

We sat there for a while, the woods quiet around us. The sun had started to dip into a coppery haze, and fireflies began to blink in the distance.

And for the first time… Kael didn’t look like a warrior.

He looked like a man carrying too much.

I glanced over at him. His face was still, unreadable. But his jaw was tight. His fingers flexed around the edge of the bench.

I found myself asking, “Have you always lived alone out here?”

Kael didn’t answer at first.

Then: “No.”

His tone was distant.

“What happened?”

He didn’t look at me. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“I just hit you with a staff. I feel like I earned one answer.”

A beat of silence. Then two.

“My wife died,” Kael finally said.

I blinked.

“You were married?”

He nodded slowly. “Her name was Aelira.”

The way he said her name soft, like it still hurt to speak it — made something twist in my chest.

“What happened to her?” I asked gently.

“She was taken. During the Cleansing War.”

That war. The one the Elders pretended was for balance. It wiped out entire bloodlines.

“She was a healer,” Kael added. “Never fought. Didn’t believe in violence,”

He finally turned to look at me, and I froze.

There was a storm in his golden eyes. Something raw. Something broken.

“They thought I was home. That I’d protect her. But I was too late.”

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