Ch. 126..130: A Warrior Luna's Awakening Chapter 126-130
Chapter 125
My wolf bristled. This wasn’t just arrogance–it was desecration.
I opened my mouth to silence her when movement caught my eye.
Behind her.
A figure stepped from the shadowed hall.
Silas
The Ironclad Alpha himself, silent as death.
My stomach twisted. He had heard everything.
Finished
Jocelyn, drunk on her own gloating, didn’t notice. She kept on, her words sharpening like fangs. “He never told you how his mother died, did he? But I know. I was with him when-”
Her voice cut off.
Because his hand closed around her throat.
One moment she was smirking, the next her body jolted, lifted slightly as Silas’s long fingers locked tight. I felt the temperature of the room plummet. His hand looked deceptively slender, but I knew the truth–those fingers were steel, forged from years of command and fury,
Her breath hitched, strangled. Color drained from her face, her eyes widening in shock. She clawed at him, nails scraping his skin, but his grip didn’t falter.
His voice came low, cold, edged with a darkness that sent even my wolf rigid. “I wonder… how was I, back then? You seemed so eager to tell her. Say it again.”
The air itself vibrated with his menace.
I had seen Silas battle alphas, I had seen him bleed enemies dry. But this–this was worse. It wasn’t fury. It was ice, wrath restrained so tight it could shatter mountains when it broke.
Jocelyn trembled. Panic painted her pale. Her wolf instincts screamed against the brink of death closing around her throat. “Forgive… forgive me, Silas… I didn’t mean-”
Her words choked, thin, barely audible through the crushing force of his hand.
I should have moved, should have intervened. But for a long, terrible moment I couldn’t. Part of me was rooted in awe, in terror. Part of me knew: she had trespassed where she never should have.
Still, I forced myself to breathe, to steady. I was Freya Thorne, not a bystander. I was his protector, whether he asked for it or
not.
And I could not allow him to destroy himself through her.\
Chapter 126
Freya’s POV
Silas’s hand was an executioner’s vice.
Finished
I could see Jocelyn’s body buck beneath his grip, her throat locked inside his pale, merciless fingers. His eyes–those storm- forged, dead–quiet eyes–did not flinch. The strength of an Alpha who commanded the Ironclad Coalition wasn’t in his voice or posture, but in that unshakable certainty: if he chose, he could end her here.
Her face had already shifted from flushed red to ashen white. I watched, horror clawing up my chest, as her tongue lolled from her mouth, desperate for air. Her nails raked across his wrist, leaving thin red welts that healed as quickly as they came. He didn’t even blink.
“Does it matter if you meant it or not?” His voice was low, steady, colder than the northern winds that lashed the cliffs of Stormveil. His grip tightened. “I should’ve taken your tongue years ago, before you grew bold enough to poison the air with
it.”
The wolf in me flared, heart hammering, instincts surging between fight and submission. His dominance pressed like an Javalanche, but my blood screamed I could not stand aside.
If I let him follow through–Jocelyn would die.
And Silas would damn himself.
I moved before my mind caught up with my body, a single lunging step, my hand clamping over his, fingers curling against the icy ridges of his knuckles. “Silas, stop! Let her go–if you keep going, she won’t survive this!”
“I don’t care.” The words dropped like stones into the silence.
And gods help me, I believed him. Silas was not a wolf who clung to life, nor one who weighed the morality of killing. He’d grown up brutalized, abandoned, forced to bare his fangs to survive. Why would a man who didn’t even value his own breath care for hers?
But I cared. For him. For what this would do to him.
“Then care about this,” I snapped, digging my nails into his skin, willing him to feel me. “If you kill her, it won’t just be her blood on your hands–it’ll be shackles around your throat. Do you want to rot in a human cell while your enemies rip the Coalition apart? Is that how you’ll destroy yourself? There are other ways to fight her, legal ways, cleaner ways. This path only ruins you.”
For the first time, his eyes flickered. A tremor of life behind the void.
“You don’t want me ruined?” His voice was quieter now, but dangerous still–like a blade sheathed, sharp edge hidden but not dulled.
“No,” I answered without hesitation. My grip tightened over his. “I don’t want to see you destroy yourself, Silas. So let go.
Now.”
Something in my tone, in the steel of it, must have reached him. Wolves responded to command, not pleading–and I gave him command.
Slowly, impossibly slowly, his fingers loosened.
Jocelyn collapsed to the floor in a heap, hacking, retching, clutching her throat like a fragile thing. Her once–proud stance had
shattered; she was a pile of limbs and labored breaths.
“Get out” Silas’s voice was venom, his gaze a blade.
She staggered, barely able to stand, yet even broken, she found venom for me. “Don’t think I’ll thank you, Freya. If not for you, he would never—”
I didn’t let her finish. My wolf surged hot and fast. I grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her down the hall, her feet stumbling across the polished floor.
“What–what are you doing? Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to wrench free.
608 AM P. P.
Chapter 126
The front door loomed. I yanked it open, shoving her into the cold night air. With one clean motion, I hurled her threshold
She hit the ground with a heavy thud.
From the doorway, I stared down at her, the night wind whipping
Finished
past
the
saved Silas. He’s worth more than throwing his life away on you.” “my hair. “Make no mistake, Jocelyn. I didn’t save you. I
Her face blazed red with fury and humiliation. “You-”
I cut her off again, voice a growl in my throat. “And another thing. You have no right to spit his past like it’s gossip. His scars aren’t trophies for you to flaunt. They are his. Not yours.”
Her lips parted, ready to fire back, but then her gaze slid past me.
To him.
Silas stood behind me, shadows clinging to his frame, his stare colder than steel fresh from the forge. One glance from him silenced her tongue. The wolf in her cowered, though she fought to hide it. She didn’t dare speak another word.
The iron gate creaked closed between us, sealing her out.
I turned. He was still there, his eyes fixed on me, unreadable.
“You’re not going to ask?” His voice was low, sharp with some strange mixture of challenge and weariness.
“Ask what?” I met his gaze head–on.
“About what she said. About my past.”
My pulse thudded in my ears, but I held steady. “I’ll treat everything Jocelyn said as if I never heard it.”
His eyes flickered again, down to his hand–the same hand that had nearly taken a life tonight. I could feel the battle inside him. For all his power, for all the dread he inspired, he still doubted his own control.
And gods forgive me, I realized something as my chest tightened: my voice had been enough to bring him back. My words, my presence, had reached him when nothing else could. That truth unsettled me more than his violence ever had.
Night fell heavy on the Whitmor estate.
Silas kept his silence after Jocelyn’s departure. Brooding, still as carved stone, lost to storms I couldn’t see. The weight of it gnawed at me until I could no longer sit idle. I crossed the hall and knocked on the door to his chamber.
No answer.
“Silas?” I tried again. Nothing.
A knot of unease twisted deep in my gut. My wolf bristled. Something was wrong.
I pushed open the door. The bed was empty, untouched. His WolfComm lay abandoned on the nightstand. Silas never left himself unarmed–not his blade, not his comm, not his guard.
That left only one conclusion. He was still here. Somewhere inside these walls.
I rushed to the security console, pulled up the feeds. No breaches, no exits. He hadn’t left the estate.
My throat went dry. That meant…
“Silas!” I called, racing through the halls. The house swallowed my voice, long corridors echoing back faint fragments.
Then I froze.
From the far end of the third floor–the place he’d forbidden me from stepping near–I heard it.
A sound like pain, muffled but raw. A broken, shuddering groan.
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608 AM
Chapter 126
The forbidden room.
Finished
I stood before its door, heart pounding, my hand hovering above the wood. The wolf in me screamed to protect, to break through. But I remembered his command, his warning: Never enter this room.
And yet-
I pressed my palm to the door, knuckles knocking lightly. “Silas? Are you in there? What’s happening?”
Another sound answered, jagged and inhuman. My chest clenched.
He was in there. And he was hurting.
Chapter 127
Silas POV
The dark always comes back for me.
Finished
No matter how many chains I break, no matter how many enemies I slaughter on the battlefield, when the night grows still, it finds me. The past. The pain. The voice that was carved into my bones long before I ever became Alpha of the Ironclad Coalition.
I’d locked myself inside the forbidden chamber again–my den of punishment, the place no one was meant to enter. Whips hung from the walls like specters, each one a memory, each one a mark burned into my skin. Their shadows stretched long in the dim light, curling like snakes, whispering to me that I would never be free.
My body convulsed, hands twisting at unnatural angles, claws nearly breaking skin as I dug into my own flesh. My throat ached with strangled sounds I could not hold back–half growl, half broken plea.
“I’ll be good…” The words tore out, fractured. “I’ll be good. I’ll keep her. I’ll keep Mother…”
The mantra. The lie. The only thing that ever bought me one more breath when my father’s whip came down.
Pain throbbed through every nerve, memories bleeding into reality. My father’s voice thundered over me again–Useless. Weak. You’re nothing but a leash around her neck.
Each lash fell in my mind, over and over, and I could smell the iron tang of blood, feel it slick on my back. Even now, years later, the agony was real. My wolf clawed inside my chest, wild with the need to break free, to destroy, to end everything–yet all I could do was curl tighter, fingers digging deeper into my skin, desperate to quiet the storm.
I didn’t hear her at first.
The pounding at the door. The voice calling my name. I thought it was another hallucination, another phantom from the endless dark. But then the door creaked open–unlocked, though I had sworn I’d sealed it.
And she was there.
Freya. My so–called bodyguard, though I had never asked for her, never wanted anyone near this ruin of a man. Yet here she was, rushing toward me, the sharp scent of steel and gunpowder clinging to her skin.
“Silas, what’s happening to you?”
Her voice cut through me like light through fog, but I couldn’t answer. The world was gone, replaced by the weight of chains and the hiss of leather. I tore at myself, claws raking against my chest, wanting to bury the memories in flesh and bone.
Her hands caught mine. Stronger than I expected, stubborn as only a Thorne could be. “Stop–stop hurting yourself!”
I fought her grip, strength surging with the raw frenzy of a wolf in a trap. My body wanted to break her hold, to snap free and return to the rhythm of destruction. But she didn’t let go.
Her voice rose, firm and steady, like a command across a battlefield. “Silas! Look at me!”
The name anchored me, heavy and sharp.
I wanted to sink further, drown in the torment. That would’ve been easier. But then she was on me–her weight pressing me down, pinning me to the floor. Her fingers wove through mine, ten against ten, unyielding.
Her wolf growled through her throat when she shouted, “No one is hitting you now. Do you hear me? No one! As long as I’m here, I won’t let them. You’re safe. With me.”
Safe.
The word was foreign. Alien. It rattled against the cage of my ribs. My father’s voice fought to crush it: Worthless. Even as a tool, you fail. You couldn’t keep her. You’ll never be enough.
The lashes struck again, blistering, burning.
But Freya’s voice rose higher, fiercer. “Silas, wake up! I said you’re safe!”
1/2
6:08 AM
Chapter 127
Finished
Her scent filled the air–pine and storm–wind, touched with the faint metallic edge of the Iron Fang Recon Unit she once trained with. It pushed against the darkness, broke through the haze of blood and memory.
I clung to her voice, the heat of her body pinning mine, her hands locked with mine so tightly I couldn’t tear away. Her eyes burned into me, steady, unflinching.
The whip faded. The walls blurred. My father’s voice echoed, weaker now, drowned by hers.
And slowly, painfully, clarity bled back into my vision.
The room came into focus–the whips on the walls, the shadows stretching across the floor. But instead of torment, there was her. Freya, above me, breath ragged, hair falling around her face, eyes alight with fury and something else I dared not name!
The pain didn’t vanish. It never would. But it dulled, as if her voice had pushed it back into the pit it crawled from.
My chest rose and fell, sharp with uneven breaths. My fingers, still tangled in hers, trembled. And for the first time in years, I felt something other than agony clawing through me.
I felt her.
Ju Freya…
“Freya…” My voice rasped, broken. The name felt dangerous on my tongue, too intimate, too raw.
Her grip didn’t ease. She only leaned closer, her forehead nearly brushing mine, and growled softly, “Good. Stay with me. You’re not alone anymore.”
Alone.
That was all I’d ever been.
Yet in that moment, with her scent in my lungs, her strength holding me steady, I almost believed her.
Chapter 128
Silas‘ POV
C
さ
Finished
I blinked, disoriented, as the haze of pain and memory slowly receded. The dark whirlpool in my mind, the screams I’d been drowning in, softened, replaced by something warmer, sharper… alive.
Freya was there, standing in the dim light, her presence cutting through the storm in my chest. Not a step back, not a flicker of disgust, not the faintest hesitation. She hadn’t run, hadn’t recoiled, hadn’t abandoned me.
“You… you came.” My voice barely rose above a whisper, cracked and dry.
“Yes, I came.” Her tone was firm, commanding, and somehow gentle all at once. “Are you feeling a little more… clear–headed now? Do you know who I am? Where you are?”
I swallowed, lips parched, tasting nothing but iron. “You’re… Freya. And this… this is a room in my villa.”
The sight of the whips on the walls, their cruel silhouettes sharp in the low light, forced my memories to the surface. The room–I had sealed it away, yet here it was, still intact, the place where my father had drilled his lessons of pain and Jobedience into me. My personal nightmare, preserved to remind me that weakness only invites control. I had told myself I
would never let anyone touch me like that again. I had to grow stronger. Stronger than him. Stronger than anyone.
And yet, here I was, trembling, fingers twitching involuntarily, reliving every lash, every curse, every humiliation.
/Freya’s voice cut through my fog again. “How do you feel now? Should I take you to a hospital?”
I shook my head, bitterly aware of the absurdity. “I don’t need a hospital.” My voice was hoarse, but steady enough. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. Ordinary medicine… doesn’t work on this.”
She said nothing further, but I noticed her hands still held mine, fingers entwined in that silent insistence, a tether to the world.
“Relax your hand.” Her words broke my trance, and I let my left hand loosen its grip. One side released, but as she attempted to free the other, my hand moved instinctively–grasping her waist, pulling her into me.
She went down hard, and for a heartbeat, I felt her weight against me.
Her eyes met mine. Freya’s eyes–bold, unflinching, alive–pierced through the darkness I had wrapped around myself.
“Even now,” I murmured, voice rough and dangerous, “with you pressed against me like this… you don’t want me?”
Her gaze was steady, fierce, her wolf–fire evident beneath the calm. “If I were ever to want a man,” she said, voice unwavering, “it would only be because I loved him… and I would want him because of love.”
Her words hit me with the force of a gale, and I felt my pulse slow, the coil in my chest unwinding slightly. She moved back, separating from me, and our other hands released from their binding.
I stared at the empty space between our hands, a hollow ache settling in my chest. Loss, maybe, or the weight of connection I didn’t know I craved.
“Let’s leave this room.” Her voice was firm but patient.
I rose slowly, still haunted by the relics on the walls. “How… how did you get in here?”
“I heard you. The sounds you made. I knocked, called your name, and there was no answer. I was worried you might hurt yourself, so I came in.” Her voice carried no shame, only concern, yet I felt the unspoken reprimand. She had entered my sacred chamber, my forbidden sanctuary.
I wanted to say something, to remind her, to enforce the rules I had lived by for decades, but her next words froze me.
“Besides all this… don’t you have anything else to say?” Her eyes, fierce and unwavering, searched mine. “This room, these whips, this darkness–it shouldn’t control you anymore.”
1 stared at her, surprised. Not shocked, not angry, just… caught off guard. That someone could confront me with such audacity, such innocence wrapped in fire.
Chapter 128
Finished
“And…” she paused, a hint of mischief slipping into her tone. “Next time I see your father… I think I want to punch him. Your lawyers… can they keep me out of trouble?”
I blinked. Did I just hear that correctly?
“You want… to strike my father?” My voice was low, incredulous, edged with disbelief.
“Yes,” she said plainly. “I want to punch him. So… can your lawyers cover me?”
I stared at her, stunned. Silence stretched between us, the shadows of the whips flickering across the room like ghosts. For years, no one had dared speak of striking him, dared to defy the legacy of fear my father cast over all of us. I had only believed in my own power, in controlling the narrative of my life to keep his shadow at bay.
And yet here she was. This woman, audacious, fearless, standing boldly in my presence and daring to confront him.
The room felt smaller somehow, my chest tight. The fear, the rage, the memory–they were still here, coiled like a predator- but Freya’s audacity, her presence, challenged it. She was alive, fierce, unbroken. And in the depths of my chest, the wolf surred, sensing something unfamiliar yet undeniably right.
The storm in me, the one I had lived with all my life, began to shift–not entirely dissipated, but for the first time, softened by something human, something tethered to life and care.
I swallowed, voice still ragged but steadier “You… you actually want to fight him?”
She nodded, a gleam of determination in her eyes that threatened to outshine the room’s shadows. “Yes. And I won’t apologize for it.”
I let out a long, low breath, partly incredulous, partly… awed. No one had ever dared. Not anyone, not in all my years of control, terror, and survival. Yet here she was–challenging the Alpha, challenging my father.
And somehow… it felt right.
Chapter 129
Finished
Third Person’s POV
Silas‘ lips curved faintly, an expression rare as starlight on his otherwise storm–hardened face. “Good,” he murmured, voice low but steady, “I’ll protect you. No matter what happens, Freya, I’ll protect you.”
His vow lingered in the air, a wolf’s promise etched into bone and blood.
Across the sprawling halls of the Stormveil estate, Jocelyn stood before a mirror in the guest wing, her breath uneven, her gaze fixed on the reflection staring back at her. Around her pale throat, bruises bloomed–angry red imprints that told a brutal truth.
She touched them with trembling fingers, teeth sinking into her lower lip until she tasted copper. Silas’s hand had been there His claws, his strength, his wrath. He hadn’t simply wanted to silence her–he had wanted her dead.
All because she had spoken of what should never have been spoken. She had pressed against his scars, against the shadows that writhed in the Ironclad Alpha’s chest, and he had nearly ended her.
Jocelyn’s nostrils flared. No. It wasn’t just that.
It was Freya Thorne.
Ever since Freya had returned, ever since she had stepped into Silas Whitmor’s orbit, nothing had been the same. Silas had shifted–slightly, but enough for those with eyes to see. He had appeared at Arthur Thorne and Myra Brown’s funeral rites, had lingered near Freya with a protectiveness none had expected. Whispers had spread like wildfire through the Stormveil Pack’s branches. And the whispers carried teeth.
Now, even among Jocelyn’s peers–wolves of the Metropolitan Pack, heirs of the Stormveil’s first branch–there were glances. Glances sharp with judgment, pity, mockery. As though she were already a discarded she–wolf, clinging to a future that no longer wanted her.
She wanted to snarl, to bare her teeth at them all.
Pathetic? they thought her pathetic?
Had they all forgotten? It was her sacrifice–her eye–forged in pain, that bound Whitmor and Thorne together all these years. It was her blood that bought the Whitmor Alpha’s cooperation. Without her, the Thorne name would never have enjoyed the Ironclad Coalition’s shelter.
And yet Freya, with her untouched skin, with no sacrifice carved into her flesh, was coddled by Ken Thorne, respected by elders, and–worst of all–set apart in Silas’s gaze.
Jocelyn’s hands tightened on the washbasin, porcelain creaking beneath her grip. It should have been mine. His eyes, his vow, his protection–all of it should have been mine.
She tugged her collar higher to mask the bruises, straightened her spine, and stepped out of the washroom. The corridors of Stormveil manor stretched wide, echoing with faint voices. Jocelyn moved quietly, her wolf–senses alert, when a familiar voice drifted through the stone–arched halls.
“Caelum… tell me truthfully, do you still carry Freya in your heart?”
Aurora.
Jocelyn froze mid–step, her blood running cold. She tilted her head, wolf–keen ears straining, then edged closer to the corner of the corridor. Peering past the carved wooden pillars, she caught sight of two figures.
Aurora, the Bluemoon Pack’s Beta’s daughter, stood poised, her flight leathers unzipped at the collar, her posture taut with barely restrained emotion. Facing her was Caelum, Freya’s former mate.
“I have already severed my bond with Freya Thorne,” Caelum said, voice clipped, almost cold. “How could she still linger in my heart?”
“Then why,” Aurora pressed, eyes narrowing, “did you search for those rings?”
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Chapter 129
The words hit like claws. Jocelyn’s pulse quickened. Rings?
Finished
Aurora’s explanation followed swiftly, her voice rising with hurt. She had brought Caelum here today to secure Silverfang’s share in the island development project blessed by the Capital. Yet in the midst of negotiation, Caelum had abruptly left the chamber, his composure fractured. She had followed, only to find him searching the shadowed halls for two small bands of metal.
His and Freya’s wedding rings.
“They are nothing more than reminders,” Caelum muttered, jaw tight, eyes dark. “Reminders of mistakes made. So that my next bond, my next marriage, does not repeat the same failures.”
His words rang with truth and self–condemnation, as though spoken not only to Aurora but to himself.
Aurora’s lips curved bitterly. “And if I were to promise you that your next bond would not fall to ruin, that your future will never echo what you and Freya had… would you cast them aside then?”
Her hand unfurled, and Jocelyn caught the gleam. Two rings–simple, unadorned, yet heavy with history–lay in Aurora’s palm.
Caelum’s head snapped up. “How-”
“I found them when you were searching” Aurora’s tone softened, but the undercurrent of challenge remained.
He reached instinctively to take them, but Aurora closed her fist around the rings, drawing her hand back. “Three years have passed. I won’t waste more time. I won’t stand by while you cling to ghosts. With me, Caelum, you won’t know such an ending.”
He hesitated. Conflict rippled across his features, a war between wolf and man.
“Give me the rings,” he said, rough, almost pleading
“And if I cast them away?” Aurora countered.
“What?” His eyes widened as she lifted her hand, tilting it toward the trash bin by the corridor wall. The gleam of metal caught the light, poised to fall into shadow.
Caelum’s hand shot out, gripping her wrist. “Don’t.” His voice cracked like a whip.
Aurora’s eyes flared. “You claim you feel nothing for Freya, yet you can’t even watch her rings be discarded?”
“It isn’t that!” Caelum growled, his wolf’s authority rumbling beneath his tone. “If they are to be destroyed, then let it be by my hand–and in front of Freya herself. Only then will the tether be severed. Only then will the past truly die.”
“Spoken well.”
The sound of hands clapping echoed sharply in the hall. Both Aurora and Caelum turned, startled, to see Jocelyn step from the shadows.
Her smile was bright, almost mocking, eyes glittering with satisfaction.
“Jocelyn,” Aurora muttered, lips thinning. The realization hit her instantly: Jocelyn had heard everything.
The she–wolf from Stormveil’s first branch lifted her chin, all traces of the bruises on her throat hidden beneath her collar. “It seems fate enjoys weaving threads. In a few days, the government will hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the island project. Caelum, Aurora–you should both attend. Alpha Silas will certainly be there, and…” She let her smile sharpen. “Where Silas goes, Freya follows.”
The weight of her words dropped like a stone into the silence. Aurora and Caelum exchanged glances, their thoughts laid bare. The groundbreaking would be a place of power, of alliances, of opportunity. But now, Jocelyn had baited it with something more personal–an arena for closure.
“If you truly wish to end this,” Jocelyn continued, her voice like silk lined with fangs, “then there is no better time. No better place to throw those rings before Freya’s eyes… and let the past burn.”
Chapter 130
Finished
Third Person’s POV
Caelum hesitated, his wolf restless beneath his skin. His jaw tightened, his eyes darting between Aurora and Jocelyn. The two women’s gazes weighed heavily upon him, demanding, cornering, pressing him to an answer he could not freely give.
The truth was simple: he could not truly discard the rings. Those two simple bands of silver still carried Freya’s scent, still reminded him of the vows he had once broken. They were anchors of his guilt, reminders of debts he could never repay. To let them go would be to sever the last tie of conscience he still clung to.
But now, under the scrutiny of Aurora’s sharp eyes and Jocelyn’s sly, venomous smile, denial caught in his throat. The words would not form.
“What’s this, Alpha Grafton?” Jocelyn asked, voice dripping with mockery. “You don’t want to?”
Aurora’s brows pinched, her voice edged with demand. “Caelum!”
He bared his teeth slightly, a wolf’s grimace disguised as a smile. “Of course I want to. More than that–attending the island’s groundbreaking ceremony is a chance I’ve long awaited.”
Aurora’s expression softened, if only a fraction. Jocelyn’s lips curved upward, satisfaction gleaming in her eyes.
“Good.” Jocelyn said smoothly. “I’ll secure two more invitations from my uncle James. Then, we’ll go together.”
Inside, her wolf purred with dark amusement. She could already picture it: Freya standing beside Silas Whitmor like some sheltered ward, only to watch her former mate throw their rings away in front of the entire assembly. An abandoned she- wolf, marked by failure and shame, on display for all the packs to witness.
And more than that–the whispers would spread. Whitmor’s prized companion, revealed as nothing more than a discarded mate, a woman left behind. Even if Silas did not care now, the constant murmurs, the rising tide of disdain, would corrode him. Perhaps, eventually, he would cast Freya aside too.
The thought sent heat coursing through Jocelyn’s veins. She could almost taste the triumph.
Since that night when Silas had been pulled from the forbidden chamber by Freya, the Bloodmoon she–wolf had rarely left his side. Days blurred together with her presence at his shoulder, nights spent within the confines of his chamber.
At first, her vigilance had been born of necessity. She had not trusted that the Ironclad Alpha would not be consumed again by the shadows that clawed at him. So that night, she had stood guard in his room, curled upon the sofa, alert to every shift in his breathing.
But the following evening, Silas had looked up from the long oak dining table, his voice carrying the calm authority of one who expected obedience. “Stay again tonight. In my chambers.”
Across the table, Wren, Silas’s loyal secretary, nearly choked on his wine. His eyes darted from Alpha to she–wolf, disbelief and suppressed laughter warring in his expression.
Freya rubbed at her temple, flustered. “You’re fine now. There’s no need for me to stay in your room another night.”
Silas’s gaze held hers, dark as midnight steel. “And yet only with you there can I rest. You are my guard now, are you not? Protect me.”
Her mouth parted, words failing. Against the iron logic of his command, she could not argue.
So once more, she gathered her bedding and pillow, returning to his chamber.
Miss T
Wren intercepted her in the hall, eyes wide, his voice hushed as though confessing a scandal. “Miss Thorne… you do realize- alone, with an Alpha, in one chamber–sometimes instincts cannot be… controlled. If things go too far, you’ll need protection.”
Freya blinked, frowning. “Protection?”
Before she could piece together his meaning, Wren shoved a small box into her hands. “Alpha Whitmor won’t refuse you. He