The Broken Luna, Now His Regret novel Chapter 25

25 Chapter 25 WHAT WAS NEVER YOURS

25 Chapter 25 WHAT WAS NEVER YOURS

Mira’s POVO

Thursday came and went like a slow exhale.

Kieran arrived at Callum Mansion at exactly 4:00 PM – not a minute early, not a minute late. He wore a dark coat over a plain black shirt, no pack insignia, nothing that declared him Alpha or demanded deference. He looked like any other father picking up his child for an afternoon visit. Garrett opened the door. Neither man smiled, but neither drew blood either. Something silent passed between them – an

understanding, maybe, or simply the shared exhaustion of men navigating a situation neither had chosen.

Brielle heard footsteps on the porch and came barreling down the hallway, her small feet slapping the hardwood. She launched herself at Kieran with the full force of a four–year–old who’d been counting the days. He caught her mid–flight, his arms swallowing her whole, and for a moment – just a moment — the devastation on his face softened into something that looked dangerously close to peace.

Mira watched from the kitchen doorway. She didn’t go to him. Didn’t intercept. Didn’t ask Brielle to say goodbye properly or remind her about manners or any of the thousand small motherly interventions she might have made a year ago. She simply let it happen.

Kieran met her eyes over Brielle’s head. *Thank you*, the look said. Mira gave a single, tight nod. Then she turned back into the kitchen and closed the door behind her.

She spent the two hours alone.

Not productively. Not planning. She sat at the kitchen island with a cup of tea she never drank, staring at Valeblack’s last message on her phone. *Everything I feel for you is real.* Seven words she’d read forty times since he’d sent them. Seven words she didn’t know whether to believe.

Estelle found her there an hour in, still in the same position, the tea cold.

“Sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice was careful, the way you’d approach a wounded animal. Estelle sat down across from her and said nothing else. Just waited.

25 Chapter 25 WHAT WAS NEVER YOURS

Mira’s throat tightened. She opened her mouth to say she was fine- the automatic response, the one she’d perfected over five years of marriage, the one that kept everyone from asking questions she couldn’t answer. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, what came was a sound she barely recognized as her own: a ragged, ugly sob that broke free without permission and kept coming, wave after wave, until her shoulders shook and her face was wet and her mother’s arms were around her.

“I’m so tired, Mom.” Mira pressed her face into Estelle’s shoulder, gripping her cardigan like a lifeline. “I’m so tired of being the person everyone needs something from.”

Estelle held her tighter. Said nothing. Let her cry.

“Kieran needs me to co–parent without conflict. Brielle needs me to be whole when I’m falling apart. Valeblack needs me to be brilliant and ready and *grateful*.” The words tumbled out between sobs, raw and unedited. “And Dr. Hartley needs me to be present in therapy. And Patricia needs me to stay calm for the divorce. And everyone – *everyone* – has an opinion about what I should do with my life, and I—”

She couldn’t finish. Estelle stroked her hair in slow, rhythmic passes. The same gesture she’d used when Mira was five, six, seven years old. Before Kieran. Before everything.

“Then stop,” Estelle said simply.

Mira pulled back, wiping her face with the heel of her hand. “Stop what?”

“Asking permission.” Estelle’s dark eyes so like Mira’s own – held steady. “You’ve been asking everyone else what your life should look like. Kieran. Valeblack. The therapist. Even me.” A gentle pause. “When was the last time you asked yourself?”

The question landed like a stone dropped into still water. Mira stared at her mother, and the honest answer terrified her: *I don’t know. Maybe never.*

Kieran brought Brielle back at 6:00 PM on the dot, Right on schedule. No conflict. No questions about Valeblack. No lingering at the door.

He’d kept his promise.

Brielle was quieter than she’d been in weeks – not the brittle, explosive quiet of a child about to shatter, but something softer. She let Mira carry her inside without protest, rested her head against her mother’s neck, and fell asleep before dinner was even on the table.

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Mira tucked her in. Sat on the edge of the small bed in the guest room that had become Brielle’s room, watching her daughter’s chest rise and fall. In sleep, Brielle’s face smoothed out – the furrow between her brows that had become permanent these past weeks disappeared entirely. She looked her age again. Four. Just four.

Mira’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from Kieran, sent two minutes ago:

*She told me about the sandbox today. About being the figure in the middle. I don’t know if Hartley told you what she said during our session – but Brielle moved the figurines closer together. Both of them. I think that means something.*

Mira read it twice. Then typed back: *It does.*

A long pause. Then: *I’m going to NYC tomorrow. Council business.* A lie, probably. Or half a truth. Mira didn’t press it. *I’ll be back by Friday evening. I’ll text you when I land.*

She set the phone down and looked at her sleeping daughter.

Council business. Right.

**Kieran’s POV – JFK Airport, Friday Morning**

The flight to New York was three hours of white–knuckle silence.

–

Kieran sat in first class with his jaw locked and his wolf pacing behind his ribs. Every mile between him and Mira made the mate bond pull tighter – a dull ache that sharpened every time he thought about Valeblack’s offer. Every time he imagined Mira signing the Council contract and disappearing into a life that didn’t include him at all.

*What’s one more secret, if it saves her?*

–

The question had kept him awake all night. He’d packed mechanically – clothes for one night, the hotel reservation Astrid had texted, Peninsula Hotel. 3 PM. Come alone.

Cassian had called twice before boarding. Kieran hadn’t answered. He knew what Cassian would say. All true. All irrelevant, if what Astrid had was real.

If the pack law provisions were genuine – ancient mechanisms that predated the modern divorce system, the kind of thing Caspian had exploited – it could mean the divorce couldn’t proceed without a ritual dissolution requiring both parties‘ willing participation. Either way, it meant Mira couldn’t simply leave.

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25 Chapter 25 WHAT WAS NEVER YOURS

The thought should have thrilled him. Instead, it tasted like ash.

Because forcing Mira to stay wasn’t love. It was exactly what he’d done for five years.

He closed his eyes. The mate bond pulsed – warm, suddenly. Mira. Somewhere three hours away, feeling something that bled through the bond: not pain. Something quieter. Something like clarity.

*When was the last time you asked yourself?*

He didn’t know where the thought came from. It arrived through the bond like an echo

–

– Estelle’s voice, maybe, or Mira’s own internal monologue drifting across the supernatural connection.

Kieran opened his eyes. The plane banked over Manhattan. Somewhere down there, Astrid waited with a flash drive and a smile that had never been entirely for him.

He thought about Mira’s face in the kitchen doorway on Thursday. The way she’d watched him take their daughter without reaching for either of them. Not cold – just

*done*.

*What’s one more secret?*

For the first time, he didn’t have an answer.

**Mira’s POV – Callum Mansion, Friday Afternoon**

The call from Zara came at 2:15 PM.

“I need you to come to the clinic,” Zara said, her voice carrying that particular edge it got when she was trying not to sound alarmed. “There’s a patient. A shifter. Female, mid–twenties. She came in about an hour ago with facial lacerations and a broken orbital bone.”

Mira straightened in her chair. “How bad?”

“Bad enough. But that’s not why I’m calling.” A pause. “Mira, she’s from the Sinclair line. One of Astrid’s cousins. And she’s asking for you specifically.”

The name landed like a slap. *Sinclair.*

“What does she want?”

“She won’t say. But she’s terrified, and she keeps saying the same thing over and over:

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*He did this. He always does this. And nobody ever stops him.*”

Mira was already reaching for her jacket. “I’m on my way.”

The woman’s name was Sera Sinclair. Twenty–six, slight–boned, with Astrid’s same sharp jaw and pale coloring. Her left eye was swollen shut. Three parallel cuts ran from her temple to her chin – shifter claws, not human nails.

Mira worked in silence, cleaning and closing the lacerations. Sera sat perfectly still on the examination table, staring at the wall. Not crying. Past crying.

“Who did this?” Mira asked.

“Marcus. My mate.” Sera’s voice was barely a whisper. “He says it’s the bond. That he

can’t control it.”

Mira’s hands didn’t falter. “How long?”

“Three years.”

Mira set down the forceps and turned to face Sera fully. Something in her expression must have shifted – something raw and recognizable – because Sera’s composure finally cracked.

“Everyone says I should leave,” Sera whispered. “But if I leave, he’ll find me. He’s an enforcer. Where would I even go?”

Mira looked at this woman – frightened, broken, with a mate who hurt her and called it destiny – and saw herself. Not a mirror. A window into what she might have become if she’d stayed.

“Somewhere outside pack jurisdiction entirely,” Mira said quietly.

Sera looked up. “Is that even possible?”

Mira thought of Valeblack. Of Crystalfall. Of the Council position that existed precisely because some women needed to disappear into a system no Alpha could touch.

“Yes,” Mira said. “And I know someone who can help.”

She typed to Valeblack: *I need to talk to you. Tonight. Not about me. About someone who needs the kind of help only the Council can provide.*

The response came in seconds: *Name the time and place. I’ll be there.*

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Mira set the phone down and turned back to her patient. Outside, the afternoon sun was shifting toward gold, casting long shadows across the clinic floor. Somewhere across the country, Kieran was walking into a trap he didn’t fully understand.

It was past seven when she got home.

Freya was waiting in the front hall – not waiting, exactly. Sitting cross–legged on the floor with a coloring book, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. But the moment she heard the door, she looked up. The look on her small face was so carefully, deliberately casual that Mira almost smiled.

“Aunt Mira!” Freya scrambled up and wrapped both arms around Mira’s waist. “You

look tired.”

“A little,” Mira admitted, crouching down.

Freya studied her face with the frank appraisal only small children could manage. “Your eyes are puffy. Mom says that means you’ve been crying.” Then, with enormous solemnity: “Have you?”

“Maybe a little.”

Freya nodded as if this confirmed something she’d already suspected. She took Mira’s hand – both of hers wrapped around one finger, holding tight. “Violet said I should wait here for you. She said you might need someone.”

The simplicity of it undid something. Mira pulled Freya close and breathed in the smell of crayons and strawberry shampoo.

“Do you want to color with me?” Freya asked. “I’m doing butterflies.”

“Yes,” Mira said. “I’d like that very much.”

They sat on the hall floor for twenty minutes, coloring butterflies in reds and golds. Violet appeared once in the doorway, caught Mira’s eye, and smiled – the kind of smile that said *I saw you needed this* – before disappearing without a word.

And for the first time in years, the mate bond didn’t burn.

It ached – steady, persistent, like an old scar in cold weather. But it didn’t consume her.

She could breathe around it now.

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That, she thought, was something.

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