Ch. 106..110: A Warrior Luna's Awakening Chapter 106-110
Chapter 106
Silas‘ POV
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Freya turned away from me in the car, eyes fixed on the blur of streets through the window. I should have looked elsewhere, but I couldn’t drag my gaze from her.
I hadn’t expected to overhear her exchange with Kade Blackridge at the registry today. His words still rang in my ears–calling the Whitmors mad, warning her that my bloodline was a nest of lunatics. He wasn’t wrong. That’s what the packs whispered. That’s what the world believed. And yet…
She hadn’t recoiled.
She hadn’t doubted me.
She’d simply said: Rumors aren’t truth. I believe what I see,
That was Freya Thorne. Too luminous, too unyielding. A woman who stood in sunlight without fear. Compared to her, I was every shadow people whispered I was. A creature too dark, too wrong, something that should be hidden away.
The words left my mouth before I could leash them.
“You really don’t want to know what they say about the Whitmors?”
Her answer was steady, unflinching. “No. I don’t care for rumors. And even if I did–who can say which are
true?”
Her refusal cut sharper than claws. Was she uninterested in the whispers–or simply uninterested in me?
I pushed further. “And if some of them were true?”
Her brow arched. “What do you mean?”
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I held her gaze. “They say every Whitmor is touched with madness. That even I’m not right in the head. What if I told you that part is true?”
–
“Do you have a mental disease?” she asked flatly.
Her reaction caught me off guard. No fear. No disgust. Just that clean, direct question. I had expected revulsion. Hesitation. But not this.
“No,” I said.
“Then you’re normal,” she replied. Her voice was iron. “People are different by nature. Others can say what they like–it’s their problem. The only real madness would be you believing it yourself.”
Her words hit me harder than any challenge. She’d looked at me with the same clear gaze she always had- no greed, no fear, no calculation. As if I were just… a man.
A low laugh escaped me, softer than I meant it to be. “You’re right. If I decide I’m not normal, then that’s when I truly lose. Freya… if you ever want to know the truth about me, or about the Whitmors–you come to me. Don’t listen to anyone else.”
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She gave me one of those looks, sharp and unreadable, like she couldn’t imagine why she’d ever care to ask. She didn’t answer, and I let the subject die.
By the time we reached Ashbourne, the car rolled to a stop before an exclusive styling house. Staff were already waiting at the entrance, their scents rich with perfume and polish. Freya followed me inside, soon swept away by attendants who brought her to the fitting rooms.
I sank onto a leather couch, flipping through the catalog of dresses they placed in my hands. Pages of painted women in glittering gowns. Beauty, polished and empty. I felt nothing.
There had never been a shortage of women circling me, flashing smiles, scenting for opportunity. Some thought my disinterest meant I desired men. The truth was simpler–I desired nothing. Until Freya Thorne.
The memory burned behind my eyes: her crossbow pressed to my temple when we first crossed paths. Her wolf–scent cutting through the cold air. Since then, every encounter had fed something in me I’d thought long dead. And it was no longer just interest. It was hunger.
She wasn’t striking in the way other women were. No lavish beauty, no painted perfection. But the clean lines of her face carried the steel of a soldier, and her lean frame radiated a kind of strength that made my wolf restless. She was smaller than me by far, yet standing near her felt like standing near the only steady ground in a storm.
The sound of footsteps made my head snap up. And then–her.
Freya stepped from the fitting room wearing a black gown that fell to her ankles, slit high on one side. It was plain, understated. Practical. But when my eyes landed on her, the world bled away.
The fabric clung to her frame in all the right ways, the split flashing glimpses of her long leg with every stride. She hadn’t dressed to impress–and yet I couldn’t look away.
Her voice broke the spell. “I’ll wear this one for the banquet tomorrow.”
The gown swayed around her as she approached, revealing and concealing in equal measure. My wolf bristled, a growl low in my chest before I smothered it. Tomorrow night, every eye in the room would be on her. Every wolf would see what I saw now. Her leg, her strength, her light.
My jaw tightened. The thought sat wrong in me, sharp as a blade.
Chapter 107
Third Person’s POV
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The word “good” had caught in Silas Whitmor’s throat. He forced it back down, his voice rougher than he intended when he spoke again.
“How about another dress instead?”
“Another one?” Freya blinked at him in surprise.
He didn’t answer at once, just flipped the catalog at his side and pulled out a page–one featuring a gown that covered a woman from throat to ankle, concealing every line of her form. He held it out to her.
“This one. What do y
think?”
Freya stared at him in silence. If she wore such a suffocating garment, she might as well let the damned fabric trip her to death in the middle of a fight.
“Is there something wrong with the one I picked?” she asked, frowning.
Nothing was wrong with it. The black slit gown she had chosen suited her too well. And maybe that was the problem. The thought of other men seeing her that way–catching the strength and quiet fire in her beauty -sent something jagged through his chest.
Silas fell silent, shaken by his own reaction.
He had never cared what a woman wore before. Never given a damn about whether another wolf’s eyes lingered on her. But now, with Freya, unease coiled through him like a snare. The fear that another man would look at her too long. That her eyes would linger elsewhere. That she might not look back at him at all.
“If there’s nothing inappropriate about it,” Freya said, her voice steady, “then I’ll wear what I’ve chosen.”
She turned, ready to retreat into the fitting rooms. But his voice stopped her cold.
“Freya…” His tone was low, almost a growl. “Seems I care about you more than I thought.”
She froze, glancing back in confusion. “What?”
“Nothing,” Silas replied with a faint smile. It softened the hard edges of his face, though the truth of what he’d confessed lingered like smoke between them.
The following night, Freya accompanied Silas to the banquet.
It was hosted by the Ashbourne Trade Council, gathering government officials, tycoons, and the great names tied to the new island development. The Whitmors had a direct stake in the project, so Silas’s invitation had been inevitable.
Freya’s arm was looped through his, steady and composed, as they moved among the elite of Ashbourne. Silas exchanged the usual pleasantries, but his wolf never stopped tracking the weight of her presence beside him.
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They were halfway toward the banquet hall’s center when a voice cut across the hum of conversation. A voice Freya hadn’t heard in far too long.
“Freya!”
She stilled, pulse faltering. That voice…
Turning, she found herself face–to–face with Caelum, and by his side stood Aurora.
“You… what are you doing here?” Caelum’s expression darkened, gaze flicking between Freya and Silas with something that almost looked like disbelief.
He had never seen her like this before. The simple black gown should have been unremarkable, but on her, it carried an air of quiet command, a stark elegance touched with something rare and dangerous. Her hair was pinned high, exposing the long line of her throat and the proud, sharp beauty of her face.
It stunned him. But the real blow came when he saw whose arm she held. Silas Whitmor. The Ironclad Alpha.
She had come to Ashbourne to bury her parents‘ ashes–yet here she was, beside Whitmor himself. A dark thought flickered through him. Had her cold resolve during their severance been because she had already chosen another? Because she had climbed toward a higher, stronger branch?
His chest tightened with discomfort he couldn’t name.
Aurora’s sneer cut through the tension.
“So that’s it. You cast off Caelum during the Lunar Severance Phase because you had a better prospect waiting. I thought you had spine, Thorne. I thought being the daughter of Ashbourne’s fallen warriors gave you some honor. But clearly, I was wrong. You’re nothing more than another wolf chasing power.”
The words hadn’t finished leaving her mouth before the crack of flesh rang through the hall.
Smack.
Aurora staggered back, eyes wide in shock, her hand flying to her cheek.
Silas Whitmor calmly folded away his handkerchief after wiping his fingers, his gaze sharp as a blade.
“Seems the Bluemoon pup has quite the tongue on her,” he drawled. “Would you like to try again?”
The entire hall went still. Conversations died. Every head turned toward the scene.
Aurora stood frozen, her pride warring with humiliation, while Caelum caught her arm, shielding her as he rounded on Silas.
“Alpha Whitmor, you’ve crossed the line! Even if she spoke out of turn, that doesn’t give you the right to strike her in public!”
“Oh?” Silas’s brow arched, his tone dripping with mockery.
“So when this same she–wolf tried to desecrate the Legion’s ashes at Ashbourne’s gates–when she rallied guards to hound Freya Thorne while she carried her family’s honor–you thought that was acceptable? And now you dare lecture me about lines?”
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Caelum’s face flushed hot, then pale, shame colliding with anger. The memory of that day at the airport gnawed at him still, a wound he had never managed to close.
Send Gifts
Chapter 108
Freya’s POV
If Caelum had stopped Aurora back then… would things have spiraled this far?
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Aurora’s voice broke the hum of the banquet. Her cheek was already red from Silas’s first slap, but she bit back the pain and spat venom.
“It was Freya’s fault! If she’d said her parents were honored dead, I would never have done it. I only wanted. to keep the plane safe! She set me up-”
Crack.
The sound of another slap echoed through the hall, sharp as a whip. Aurora reeled, and if Caelum hadn’t caught her, she would’ve crashed to the floor.
“Alpha Silas!” Caelum’s growl rattled in his chest. “How dare you strike her again?”
But Silas didn’t even glance at him. His eyes–cold, merciless–pinned Aurora in place.
“You think me a fool, little wolf? That I would believe such drivel?”
Her face burned, both cheeks swollen now, her pride bleeding out in front of the entire hall. I knew why she’d come–dragging Caelum here to parade her usefulness before him. But instead of triumph, she’d been humiliated twice by the Ironclad Alpha himself.
“You’re only shielding her,” Aurora hissed, her voice trembling. “I said nothing wrong! If I had known those ashes belonged to honored warriors, of course I would have respected them. But Freya hid it on purpose, just to trap me!”
My blood went cold, then hot with fury. I stepped forward.
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“So if they had been ordinary ashes, not warriors, you think you had the right to paw through them?”
She froze, her lips parting, but no words came.
I let my voice cut through her like a blade.
“Aurora, you love to ensnare others–but not everyone is as rotten as you.”
Her face twisted, shame and rage warring, and as the circle of eyes pressed closer, she bolted, shoving her way past the crowd. Caelum followed her quickly, shame written across his features.
I turned back toward Silas. “Thank you.”
He looked surprised. “I thought you’d blame me for laying hands on her.”
“I’m not so much of a saint. I know who stands at my side.”
Two months of knowing Silas, and he’d defended me more fiercely than Caelum had in three years of marriage. My so–called mate–my ex–Alpha–hadn’t spoken a word when Aurora slandered me. The irony cut sharper than claws.
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The crowd soon dispersed, the air of spectacle fading. The banquet resumed as if nothing had happened. But I caught sight of familiar faces–Thorne blood among the guests. Of course. The Stormveil Primals were one of Ashbourne’s old founding families, and major stakeholders in the island project.
“Freya.” My uncle Abel Thorne’s voice carried warmth as he greeted me.
“Uncle,” I replied with a nod.
“You’re here as Whitmor’s companion?” he asked, curious. “You and the Ironclad Alpha…?”
“It’s business.” I kept my voice firm. For now, my contract was simple: I’d been placed by command to guard him. Nothing more.
Silas shot me a glance at that, unreadable, but said nothing.
“Freya, I’d like a word in private.” Abel’s eyes softened.
I hesitated, glancing toward Silas. My task was his safety, and my instincts told me not to leave him exposed.
“Go,” Silas murmured. “The Coalition’s security here is tight. I’ll manage.”
I inclined my head. “I won’t be long.”
Abel led me to the balcony at the edge of the hall, the night air cool against my skin.
“Your great–grandfather, Ken Thorne… his health falters,” Abel said.
My heart tightened. “What’s wrong?”
“Age, mostly. But after your parents‘ interment at the Hall of Martyrs, he’s been… heavy with grief. He hasn’t been the same since.”
“I’ll go to him as soon as I can,” I promised.
Abel nodded, then studied me more closely. “And Freya… if you’ve no stable work now, the Thorne Group always has a place for you. You are the last of the Fifth Branch. The line must endure.”
“There is still Eric,” I said sharply. “My brother lives. He is not gone. I will find him, and I will bring him. back to stand before our parents‘ graves.”
Abel’s gaze deepened. I saw it there–the respect. Among our generation of Stormveil wolves, few carried the same fire in their eyes.
“Of course,” he murmured. “Yes. Eric must be alive.”
Then, after a pause, his voice dropped.
“And you and Alpha Silas… is it truly just business?”
Chapter 109
Freya’s POV
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“For now,” I said evenly. In three months, when this so–called protection duty ended, I would be free again.
But Abel Thorne clearly misunderstood my words.
“Jocelyn and Alpha Silas share a bond deeper than you imagine. I don’t want to see you cousins tearing each other apart for the same male.”
My jaw tightened. “Whatever connection Jocelyn Thorne has with Silas Whitmor, it has nothing to do with me.”
Abel’s lips pressed thin, his eyes weighing me with that patriarchal caution all Stormveil wolves seemed to carry. At last, he only managed, “Silas is not a man to take lightly. His mind runs dark and deep. Don’t let yourself fall too far to climb out.”
Once he left, I turned toward the balcony doors, intending to head back to Silas‘ side.
But before I could step past the threshold, he was already there–Caelum, cutting across the moonlit terrace with that domineering presence that once made me both safe and caged.
“Freya, we need to talk.”
I froze, then fixed him with a cold, unflinching stare.
“Alpha Caelum,” I corrected sharply. “Between us, that familiar name no longer fits. You’ll call me Freya Thorne.”
Something in my tone made his confidence falter. I saw it in the way his mouth pressed tight, the flicker of unease behind his silver eyes. Still, he steadied himself.
“I wanted to apologize,” he said, voice low, as if confessing some forbidden weakness. “I didn’t know your parents died as martyrs of the Iron Fang Recon Unit. I thought they were just ordinary logistics. If I had known, I would’ve stood beside you when their ashes were returned to Ashbourne. I would’ve stopped Aurora at the WolfPort gates that day.”
His words only carved the ice deeper in my chest.
“So that’s it?” My voice was razor–sharp. “If they hadn’t been martyrs, if they’d simply been ordinary wolves. who gave their lives–then it would’ve been fine for you to ignore me? To let Aurora humiliate me in front of half the Capital?”
His lips parted, but no answer came.
“Enough.” I moved to leave, but he blocked my path in an instant, his scent heavy with storm and steel.
“Tell me, Freya,” he demanded, his voice edged with something desperate. “At the airfield, you said those words–about dragging me from the river, about pulling me out while I was bleeding from eight wounds. What did you mean? How could you possibly know that?” His gaze locked onto mine, unyielding.
I raised my chin, meeting that piercing look without flinching.
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“What, am I not allowed to call you out for what you are? If I hadn’t pulled you out of that river that night, Caelum, you’d be nothing but a ghost still drifting beneath the current.”
His expression shifted, shadows hardening across his face.
“Where did you hear that?” he snapped. “That fall into the Blackwater was buried. No one beyond the Silverfang Council knows. You’re saying this to make me believe you were my savior? To manipulate my guilt?”
The breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t expected that. Of all the sins he could carry, I never thought he would twist this into an accusation–that I would fabricate a rescue.
If I’d ever wanted to bind him with debt, I could have spoken of it years ago. I didn’t. I never intended to chain him with gratitude. It was only that Aurora’s cruelty at the WolfPort burned me so raw I let the truth slip out.
And now–he looked at me as if I were nothing more than a schemer.
“You think I lied?” A bitter laugh broke from my lips.
Caelum’s brows drew low. “Who else could it be? Aurora was there. She told me. You-”
He stopped, but his eyes revealed everything. He wanted me to admit it. He wanted me to nod, to say yes, it was a lie. To let him walk away clean.
“Caelum…” My voice dropped, sharp as a blade across the throat. “You don’t want your savior to be me, do you?”
For a heartbeat, guilt flashed in his face, quickly smothered by that Alpha’s mask of pride. “I only want the truth.”
“The truth?” My laugh was hollow. “What you mean is, you want me to take it all back. To claim I never pulled your half–dead body from the current, never bound your wounds, never watched your eyes close and prayed you’d live. That way, when our three–year bond ended in the Lunar Severance Phase, you could look at me with no guilt at all.”
His silence told me I had struck home.
“Too bad,” I whispered, stepping past him, eyes colder than the night wind. “I never wanted your guilt. Not then, not now. Your guilt is worth less than ash to me.”
Something flickered in his expression–pain, anger, confusion. His hand trembled at his side, as if he wanted to seize me, shake me, force me to take it back.
But he didn’t.
Instead, his voice broke with restrained fury.
“So that’s it? You expect me to believe you? That you were the one who dragged me from the river? Don’t delude yourself, Freya. My savior was Aurora. It has always been her.”
And with that, I realized: worse than his forgetfulness, worse than his betrayal, was this-
That even faced with truth, Caelum Grafton would choose a lie more comfortable to him.
Chapter 110
Freya’s POV
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“I came to ask you for one thing, Freya.” Caelum Grafton’s voice was low, but beneath it pulsed the authority of an Alpha used to obedience. His silver–gray eyes locked on mine, demanding an answer. “The truth. I only want the truth from your lips. Stop twisting something as sacred as a life–debt into a weapon.”
The words stung, but I didn’t let it show. Instead, I tilted my head, narrowing my gaze. My wolf stirred uneasily under my skin, claws scratching against bone. “You’re saying… the one who pulled you out of the Blackwater River was Aurora?”
His jaw tightened. “Yes.”
it
The single syllable hit harder than a strike. He delivered it with certainty, without hesitation, as though the truth had always belonged to her.
Caelum’s eyes flickered, his shoulders straight with conviction. “You didn’t expect that, did you? I’ve known all along who saved me. Aurora was the one who pulled me out. So don’t degrade yourself further with these ridiculous lies.”
Lies. He dared to call it that.
A laugh burst from my chest, harsh and hollow. It spilled out of me uncontrollably, cutting through the night air. “Ridiculous? Lies? Oh, Caelum… tell me, which of us is the fool here?”
Because I remembered every moment.
The cold claws of the river dragging us both under.
The metallic tang of blood clouding the water.
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The desperate fight to keep his half–dead weight afloat while waves tried to break me apart.
The hours afterward, when I had to bind wounds with shaking hands, praying he’d breathe again.
And now, the wolf I saved called me a liar.
The balcony door creaked, and another voice cut through like a blade. “How shameless you are, Freya Thorne. To claim someone else’s deed–someone else’s bond–as your own. I never thought you could fall
this low.”
I turned sharply. Standing just inside the moonlight was Jocelyn Thorne, my oh–so–perfect cousin from the Metropolitan Pack, first branch of Stormveil. At her side, with her cheek still swollen from Silas‘ earlier strike, was Aurora.
They arrived together, circling like vultures, feeding off each other’s venom.
My eyes didn’t linger on Jocelyn. She was a fly buzzing against glass. Instead, my focus burned into Aurora. “So it was you. You’re the one who told him the lie–that you were the one who saved him in the river.”
Aurora’s lips parted, but she didn’t flinch. She had prepared herself for this, I could see it in the steadiness of her gaze. She must have known the moment she followed Caelum here that she’d be confronted. Her
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wolf bristled under her skin, posturing, as if daring me to challenge her.
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“I didn’t have to tell him,” she replied coolly. “Caelum and others saw it with their own eyes. I dragged him from the water, stayed with him as the medics carried him into the ambulance, followed him to the clinic. and visited him while he healed. That’s the truth. Everyone knows it.”
Half of that was true, and she knew it. That’s what made the lie so dangerous–it was wrapped in reality.
scraps of
I stepped closer, my eyes narrowing to slits. My wolf surged forward, my aura pressing against hers. “I asked you a simple question, Aurora. Were you the one who pulled him from the river’s jaws?”
For a moment, her mask cracked. Her pupils dilated, her scent spiked with unease. I could feel her heartbeat accelerate even across the short distance. She hadn’t expected me to push back this directly.
“Or was it me?” My voice sharpened, cutting the air like a claw.
Before Aurora could answer, Jocelyn cut in, her tone dripping with mockery. “Why are you pressing her like this? What, if Aurora wasn’t the one, you expect us to believe you saved him?”
I turned my glare on Jocelyn. “I wasn’t speaking to you.” My words were ice, sharp enough to still her smirk for half a breath. “Stay out of what doesn’t concern you.”
“It does concern me,” she snapped back, lifting her chin in defiance. “Aurora is family. Her mother carries the Thorne bloodline. She’s my cousin–my elder cousin. And I’ll defend her.”
That revelation struck me like a slap. “Her mother… was Thorne–born?”
Jocelyn’s smirk returned, crueler now that she’d drawn blood. “That’s right. Aurora’s mother is a Thorne by blood, just as your father was. Which makes Aurora your kin, Freya.”
The words tasted bitter. Fate had a twisted way of binding us, threading our bloodlines together whether I wished it or not.
Jocelyn stepped closer, her gaze dripping disdain. I could see the satisfaction lighting her eyes as she continued. “Do you know what she told me? That you’ve already been through the Lunar Severance Phase. You’re divorced. A discarded she–wolf. Tell me, cousin, is this why you cling to Caelum still? Fabricating tales to crawl your way back to him?”
Her laugh grated, and Aurora joined in, her voice deceptively sweet. “Freya, you and Caelum are finished. Why waste your dignity? Do you think if you convince him you were his savior, he’ll take you back? That he’ll feel so guilty he’ll grovel for forgiveness?”
Their words pressed in, suffocating, sharp as teeth at my throat.
I turned back to Caelum. “So this is what you believe?” My voice was steady, but the rage in my chest burned hot enough to sear bone. “That she saved you?”
His eyes wavered, just for a moment, uncertainty flashing like lightning behind storm clouds. But then Aurora’s hand brushed his sleeve, her eyes pleading silently for his faith. And as always–always–he chose
her.
“I believe her,” Caelum said. His voice was firm, but his scent betrayed the crack in his conviction.
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Of course. When given a choice, he had never chosen me.
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My wolf snarled inside me, grief and fury colliding. But I forced my voice to stay even, laced with venom. “Caelum Grafton. Look at her. Look at Aurora.” I stepped closer, eyes locked on his. “Do you really believe she has the strength to haul your half–dead body out of a raging river? Against waves that nearly dragged me under even as I fought with every breath I had?”
Images surged through me–the endless black current, his blood clouding the water, my own lungs screaming for air as I clung to him with teeth and claws, refusing to let go.
“You think she could have done that?” My voice rose, fierce enough that even Jocelyn flinched. “She couldn’t have lasted two minutes in that current. Do you really believe Aurora’s dainty hands bore your weight while eight blades had already torn you apart?”
Silence crashed over us like a breaking wave. The night wind howled through the terrace, carrying the tension with it.
Caelum’s gaze hardened, but I saw the flicker in his eyes–the doubt he fought to suppress.
But instead of admitting it, he clung tighter to the lie.
And in that moment, I realized: it wasn’t that he truly believed Aurora’s story. It was that he couldn’t stomach the truth being mine.