Ch. 136..140: A Warrior Luna's Awakening Chapter 136-140
Chapter 136
Freya’s POV
“It’s nothing more than favors handed down from the Whitmor line,” I said, my tone deliberately flat, deliberately unflinching.
+8 Pearls
The words hit Jocelyn like claws across her pride. Her face cracked, the smug confidence shattering in front of Silas‘ gaze. She hadn’t expected me to speak so plainly–not here, not in front of him.
“But those favors,” I continued lazily, folding my arms, “are not yours. They can be given by others just as easily as they can be taken away. Best not to mistake borrowed power for your own strength.”
Jocelyn’s cheeks flushed crimson. Rage twisted her wolf’s scent, acrid and sharp in the air. She snapped, raising her hand toward me like she might dare strike.
I didn’t move. I didn’t need to.
Silas was faster. His hand clamped around her wrist with the cold precision of iron jaws. His voice spilled out, low and glacial, the kind of sound that made the wolf in my bones shiver.
“Do you no longer value this hand, Jocelyn?”
Her breath hitched. I saw the memory flash across her eyes–the time he’d had her throat pinned, his dominance pouring into her veins until she could barely breathe. She knew the risk of defying him. She knew he didn’t bluff.
“I was only “Jocelyn stammered, her voice high, brittle.“–only angered that Freya belittled the bond between us. As if it
nothing but… exchange.”
Silas’s gaze was a stormcloud before lightning. “Exchange?” he murmured, almost thoughtful. “That’s all it ever was. You bartered an eye and received Stormveil’s protection and the Whitmor’s patronage. A transaction, Nothing more.”
Her entire body went rigid. The weight of his words pressed her into silence.
Before I could decide whether to sneer or simply walk away, the rumble of engines filled the sky. The air shifted; the Iron Fang Recon training in me flared instinctively, cataloging sound, distance, threat. But this was not war–it was spectacle.
Aurora’s show had ended.
The Bluemoon Beta’s daughter climbed down from her cockpit, peeling off her helmet with the practiced grace of someone who knew how to court eyes and attention. A flock of journalists surged forward, flashing cameras and shouting questions. I could practically smell the money she’d funneled into their pockets–several of those voices were too eager, too rehearsed.
And behind her, shadowing like a misplaced sentinel, walked Caelum Grafton
My chest tightened for the briefest moment, but I refused to let it show.
“Miss Aurora, are you and Lord Grafton in a relationship?” one reporter asked.
Caelum stiffened. I knew that posture. He hadn’t expected the question.
But Aurora? Aurora was ready. She flashed the sweetest smile, leaned toward the microphones, and said, “Yes. Caelum and I are together now.”
Congratulatory shouts exploded from the press line.
Caelum’s lips pressed thin. His eyes flickered–past Aurora, past the crowd, straight toward me.
I gave him nothing. No blink, no flinch, not even a shift of scent. To anyone watching, I was stone. Either I hadn’t heard, or I didn’t care.
And maybe that was what infuriated him most–that I could look at him, my former mate, and give less than ash
The ache he carried rolled across the space between us like smoke, but I did not inhale it. I turned my head away
Then another voice rose, sharp and calculated. “Alpha Grafton only finalized his Lunar Severance Phase recently. Some
Chapter 136
might say it’s… quick… to already be courting again. Any comment?”
+8 Pearls
Aurora’s laugh rang false–sweet. “Caelum and I were friends long before. It was only after his severance that we realized how much we meant to each other. I thank the Fates every day that his ties were broken–otherwise, how could I have found the love of my life?”
And with those words, she turned, looking directly at me. Her eyes glimmered with mock gratitude, her voice dripping with poison disguised as silk.
“Freya, I should thank you. Without your severance, I never would have found Caelum.”
F
It wasn’t gratitude. It was declaration. It was a wolf’s challenge, dressed in mortal language.
Suddenly, every gaze in the courtyard swung to me. Reporters swarmed, closing in like vultures scenting carrion.
“Freya Thorne, what do you think about Aipha Grafton and Aurora’s relationship?”
I let out a single, sharp laugh. “No thoughts worth wasting.”
The man blinked, thrown by the sharpness. Still, he pressed again, his voice eager, overeager–the cadence of someone already bought.
“Aurora is the first female pilot of the Bluemoon Wing. Do you feel… uncomfortable.. seeing your former mate with someone so accomplished?”
Uncomfortable? The word was meant to cut. Instead, it almost made me smile.
“No,” I answered bluntly. “Not in the least.”
The reporter’s jaw worked, desperate. “But surely you have an opinion on Aurora’s aerial performance today. After all, she has skills you simply do not.”
I turned my eyes on him–slowly, deliberately. A soldier’s stare. The kind that made lesser wolyes swallow back their tongues. “Since you’re asking for critique,” I said, “then I’ll give it to you. Her performance was sloppy. She overpowered the throttle, couldn’t hold her speed steady, and needed the others to adjust around her mistakes. Worst of all, her approach speed on landing was reckless. If luck hadn’t favored her, she might’ve overshot the strip entirely.”
The man froze. His recorder trembled in his hand. The trap he had laid for me had become a noose for Aurora instead.
Aurora’s face blanched, then hardened. “You’re just trying to discredit me!” she snapped, her wolf–scent sour with anger.
“Exactly,” the reporter chimed in, scrambling to save her. “Miss Aurora is a co–pilot of high standing. Years of flight experience. You cannot dismiss that so easily. Besides, do you even know how to fly?”
Jocelyn pounced then, her voice sharp with mockery. “Ha! She probably hasn’t even touched a cockpit. Freya can’t fly. She’s nothing more than fists and scars.”
The words hung in the air–until Silas Whitmor’s voice sliced through them.
“She was commander of the Iron Fang Recon Unit,” he said, his tone colder than winter steel. His eyes swept over Jocelyn like she was an insect pinned to glass. “Do you truly believe a commander of that caliber wouldn’t know her way around an aircraft?”
Jocelyn’s laugh died in her throat. Her smirk collapsed into silence.
And I stood there, calm and still, though inside, my wolf stretched, prowling beneath my skin. Because in that moment, it wasn’t Aurora’s performance or Caelum’s betrayal that filled me with fire–it was the knowledge that Silas Whitmor, Alpha of the Ironclad Coalition, had spoken for me.
And in the world of wolves, that meant more than any headline.
Chapter 137
Third Person’s POV
T +8 Pearls
“Even if she once knew how to fly,” Jocelyn snapped, her chin lifted in stubborn defiance, “she’s been out of service for Skills fade. She’s nowhere near as sharp as Aurora. For her to nitpick like that–what else could it be but malice?”
years.
Silas‘ laugh was a cold blade, scraping against the air. “Malice?” His silver eyes cut into her, making Jocelyn’s wolf flinch back though her lips tried to hold the sneer. “We have others here who fly, don’t we? Ask them whether her words were malice–or fact.”
The pilots who had shared the sky during Aurora’s performance exchanged uneasy looks. Silence stretched, taut as a bowstring, before one finally stepped forward. His voice was steady, but there was a tremor under the weight of Whitmor’s
gaze.
“She’s right. Thorne’s assessment was accurate. Aurora’s descent was unstable, her throttle uneven. If luck hadn’t held, she might have overshot the strip.”
The others nodded, reluctant but unable to contradict the truth. The performance had been recorded. To defend Aurora now would be to damn themselves later, once footage was replayed and dissected by sharper eyes. No pilot could afford to mark themselves a liar.,
Aurora’s face darkened, her wolf’s pride bristling beneath her skin. “How much did she pay you to side with her?” she spat, her voice trembling with rage.
“Nothing,” the pilot said firmly. “We speak truth. If you doubt it, release the footage and let experts in aerial combat weigh their judgment.”
Aurora faltered, her lips parting, then snapping shut. For once, she had no answer.
Freya stood silent, her gaze hard, her voice colder than the wind off the northern cliffs. “Your skill is poor. You’d do better to spend your time training than parading before cameras. If you take a cockpit unprepared, every soul strapped behind you is at risk of death. Do not mistake spectacle for mastery.”
Aurora flushed crimson, the shame scorching her cheeks as cameras flashed and microphones thrust closer. She had wanted to break Freya before the crowd, to paint her as bitter and obsolete. Instead, it was Aurora herself who staggered beneath the glare of flashing lights.
The Bluemoon Beta’s daughter clutched at Caelum’s arm, dragging him from the press. Her wolf–tail of pride hung limp, her eyes too bright with fury. The spectacle had reversed on her, and every lens had caught it.
“She’s malicious,” Aurora hissed once clear of the crowd. Her nails dug crescents into Caelum’s sleeve. “So what if she flew before? It’s been years. Her edge is gone, her instincts dulled. Skills like that decay. She only spoke to humiliate me!”
Caelum said nothing. Her words struck against the silence inside his chest, but did not stick. Because memory rose— unbidden, unrelenting.
The last airshow before their Lunar Severance Phase. He had stood in the crowd, an outsider to the art of flight, and yet even he could see the difference. Freya, high above the earth, moving like stormwind made flesh. The iron bird obeyed her hands with terrifying grace–dives sharper, rolls cleaner, landings smooth as a hawk striking stone. No hesitation, no falter. She had been magnificent.
Not dulled. Not diminished. Certainly not clumsy.
Even he had seen it. And he was no pilot.
But with Aurora’s fingers clamped hard around his wrist, her wolf radiating humiliation and anger, the truth stayed locked behind his teeth.
He swallowed it.
And then-
A scream cut through the noise of the gathered crowd. A high, piercing cry that sent every wolf’s ears twitching, every instinct on edge.
123
Chapter 137
+8 Pearls
“Child overboard! The sea’s taken a child!”
The gathering had drawn orphans from Ashbourne’s home, paraded here for the charity drive tied to the foundation ceremony. Now one of them had been swallowed by the tide, a small figure tossed like driftwood in the surf.
Waves smashed against the stone edge, pulling, dragging, hungry. The boy’s head vanished beneath the foam, reappeared with a shriek, then was dragged further out.
Caelum’s wolf surged forward inside him. His body tensed, ready to leap into the water. But before he could, Aurora’s grip tightened, sharp as a trap around his hand.
“Don’t,” she hissed. Her eyes were wide, not with fear for the child, but fear for him. Fear of risk. Fear of what it might mean if he went under.
For a moment he thought he’d misheard. This was Aurora–daughter of Bluemoon’s Beta, a woman who had fought so hard to shine. Yet she would hold him back? While a child drowned?
The memory hit him like a blow. A different river, swollen with storm. His body limp, consciousness slipping, lungs filling with water-
and the woman who had plunged in without hesitation. The woman who had hauled him back from death with her own torn lungs, her own blood in the water. Freya.
And now, as if summoned by the Fates, another figure leapt.
Freya’s body cut through the surf in a blur of strength. She hit the water, head vanishing beneath a wave, then breaking through again as she swam hard, each stroke ripping her closer to the child.
Caelum’s eyes widened. His breath stilled. For a heartbeat, the two moments became one–his past and this present layered together. Her figure blurred, doubling: the wolf who had once saved him, and the wolf who now raced to save another.
The storm inside his chest cracked open.
Freya was a soldier still. A commander still. Her instincts had never dulled.
And gods, how he had forgotten the sight of her wolf when it burned brightest.
Cameras swung from Aurora to the water, capturing the Iron Fang veteran’s form as she surged against the current. Every wave smashed against her shoulders, every pull of the sea dragged her deeper, but she fought, teeth bared, eyes locked on the child.
Silas watched too. The Ironclad Alpha’s tall frame stood rigid, his face stone–but his scent betrayed the crack in his composure. His wolf stood frozen, blood cold, as he stared at the woman in the sea.
Waves crashed over her head. She vanished, reappeared, dove again. She was going deeper, not retreating. For a terrible heartbeat, it looked as though the ocean might take her.
Silas’s blood iced. Breath halted in his chest. His mind screamed of loss–of his mother, of the woman gone beneath waves never to surface again. Would Freya be taken too? Would she vanish, swallowed in the same merciless maw?
He felt his body move before his mind decided. His feet struck stone, muscles coiled. And then he was running, the spray of the surf in his face, his body throwing itself toward the sea after her.
He could not watch her drown.
Not her.
Never her.
Chapter 138
Silas‘ POV
She cannot be harmed.
+8 Pearls
The thought rips through me like a command from the marrow of my bones, more primal than the voice of any Alpha before me.
“Alpha Whitmor!” My guards burst from the shadows, loyal wolves of the Ironclad Coalition who have followed me through blood and steel. Their instincts are correct–they move to block me, to preserve the Alpha’s safety. My life is their mission, their oath.
But they do not understand.
I twist away from one, body fueled by the raw surge of my wolf. Another lunges, hand outstretched to restrain me, and I strike–shoulder low, momentum high–sending him crashing over my hip in a brutal throw that cracks against stone. The others hesitate, uncertain if they should pursue, and in that breath of hesitation I am free.
My eyes find her.
Only her.
Freya’s body cleaves through the sea, the Bloodmoon Pack’s flame drowning itself in dark waves for the sake of a child not her own. Each time the surf crashes down, my chest constricts until I think I’ll split open. I do not see the child. I do not see the crowd. I see only her–small against the vast fury of the tide, but unyielding.
And then I am running.
Running like a wolf with death at its heels.
Gasps erupt around me as I hurl myself into the ocean’s maw. The water is a black beast, teeth of foam biting, claws of current dragging me down. The salt stings my eyes, fills my mouth. But my body fights–every muscle, every ounce of strength honed from years of battle–and I cut through toward her.
They will call it madness. The Alpha of the Ironclad Coalition, risking his life in a storm for a child. No- for her. They will whisper, speculate, dissect my motives. But none of that matters. The truth beats louder than the waves: my wolf would not let me stand idle while Freya faced the abyss alone.
I catch her at last. Her hair, dark and plastered to her cheeks, her arms straining as she hauls the limp child against her. Her breath is ragged, every stroke slower than the last. She is faltering. And if she falters now-
I surge beside her, my hand finding the boy’s frail arm. I take the burden, feel the weight drag at me, and with that she gasps, freed enough to breathe, to keep swimming. She looks at me, startled, saltwater clinging to her lashes. But there’s no time for words. We push, side by side, wolves against the sea.
Together, we reach the shore.
Hands drag the child from us, medics already descending like hawks, pounding on the small chest, forcing air back into drowning lungs. I hear the cough, the sputter, the fragile heartbeat returning, but it is all far away.
Because Freya stumbles.
Her strength is spent, her body trembling with the aftermath of the ocean’s rage. She sways, and before she can fall I am there, my arm sliding around her waist. The contact sears me–skin against damp fabric, her body weak yet alive beneath iny touch.
“Steady,” I murmur, but my voice is rougher than I intended, torn raw by fear.
She thanks me–always so composed, even now, even when the sea has nearly devoured her. She speaks as if I am only a support, as if she can dismiss me the moment she finds her footing.
But she cannot. Not this time.
Before she can pull away, I crush her against me. My arms lock around her, desperate, unrelenting. The embrace is tight, but gods, I force my strength to bend, terrified of hurting her Terrified of losing her.
11:30 AM P
Chapter 138
Her voice brushes against my ear, soft, bewildered. “Silas?”
C
處
+2 Pearls
I bury my face into the curve of her neck, inhaling salt and wolf–scent, the sharp tang of adrenaline mixed with the warmth that is wholly hers. I do not answer, because I cannot. Words are too weak. Only this–her pulse beneath my lips, the reality of her body held in my arms–can quiet the storm in me.
She lives. She is here.
I had thought myself beyond fear. I had buried too many–warriors, kin, even my mother beneath the cruel tides. I had promised myself never again to tremble for another life. But here I am, my hands shaking as if I were a boy, my chest shuddering with something I cannot name.
I do not want to imagine the sea swallowing her. I do not want to imagine the world where Freya Thorne vanishes beneath waves, her fire extinguished.
She asks me what is wrong. Her voice is calm, but I can hear her wolf’s curiosity beneath it, the edge of concern. She tests the hold, but I do not release her. I cannot. The tremor betrays me–the quiver of my fingers against her back, the violent shiver of my frame.
Yes, I am trembling. Like prey, not predator. Like a pup, not Alpha.
Is it weakness? Perhaps. But it is also truth.
I am Silas Whitmor, Alpha of the Ironclad Coalition. To most, I am steel incarnate, unbreakable, untouchable. But in this moment, wrapped around the woman who flung herself into death’s jaws, I am only a wolf clinging to the one thing that matters more than duty, more than legacy, more than survival itself.
She whispers, “Don’t be afraid. It’s over. We’re safe.”
Her words should soothe. But they don’t. Because even safe, even here in my arms, the tremors don’t stop. The fear still coils in my gut like a living thing.
It isn’t the sea I fear. It isn’t death.
It is the realization of how much she matters.
And how easily she could be gone.
Chapter 139
Third Person’s POV
The fear lingering in Silas‘ body did not fade.
It clung to him, bone–deep, muscle–deep–a primal, choking terror.
+8 Pearls
His arms tightened around her as if the storm itself might rip her away again. Salt water dripped from his hair, slid across the sharp lines of his face, but he did not care. His wolf thrashed inside him, clawing, howling, demanding he hold her tighter.
“Freya…” His voice broke low against her ear, roughened by sea and truth. “I’ve realized–I truly love you.”
Freya stiffened in his embrace. Her breath hitched, her eyes widening in disbelief.
Had she heard him wrong? Love? He said he loved her?
610
But then Silas’s next words cut through the crash of the tide and the murmurs of the crowd, a vow clear and undeniable.
“More than I thought possible,” he whispered hoarsely. “More than I believed myself capable of. Don’t make me feel this fear again, Freya. Don’t throw yourself into the jaws of death like that.”
Her lips parted, her voice a stunned murmur. “What?”
Silas finally lifted his head. His black eyes locked onto hers, sharp as a blade yet trembling with vulnerability. His entire body was drenched, water coursing from his hair and jaw, his skin pale from cold and exhaustion. But it wasn’t the ocean that had shaken him–it was her.
Unlike the calm, icy facade the Alpha of the Ironclad Coalition usually wore, tonight his gaze was fractured, unsteady, filled with raw terror and an ache so deep it threatened to undo him.
“From now on,” Silas vowed, his voice a low growl, “the ones you want to save, I’ll save with you. The dangers you want to face, I’ll face at your side. Whatever you want to achieve, I will move the mountains and carve the rivers until you have it. You don’t need to throw yourself to the wolves of fate. You don’t need to risk your life alone.”
Every word was drenched with the weight of his wolf’s oath. He would not break it.
Freya could only stare, her pulse hammering in her throat. He was serious. The man she had untouchable–here he was, trembling, breaking, confessing.
once
thought cold, distant,
Then Silas lowered his head further. His lips brushed the back of her hand, reverent, as though she were something sacred, untouchable by the filth of the world. His kiss was not one of dominance, but of supplication, a vow pressed against her skin.
“Don’t leave me, Freya,” he breathed. His words were fragile as ash, fierce as fire. “Not in any form. Not for anyone. Not for death itself.”
The whisper drifted into the night air, but it struck like thunder in the hearts of those who watched.
Not far away, Caelum’s blood drained from his face. His wolf snarled silently inside, rage and loss clawing through his ribs. The sight before him was unbearable–Silas Whitmor clutching Freya like she was his mate, his entire being collapsing into her presence. It was a picture that seared into Caelum’s vision, a wound deeper than any blade.
For a moment, he nearly lunged forward, ready to rip her from Silas’s arms, to remind the Ironclad Alpha that Freya was not his to claim.
“Caelum!”
The sharp voice cut through his haze. Aurora was watching him with narrowed eyes.
Caelum blinked, the storm inside him barely leashed, and turned toward her.
Aurora’s lips curled into a disdainful smirk. “It seems Freya has more cunning than I gave her credit for. Imagine–she leaps into the ocean before all these witnesses, Silas follows, and now look at the scene they’ve created. Cameras everywhere Do you not see? She wanted the attention. The headlines will sing of her heroics. It’s nothing but a staged display,”
Her words dripped with scorn, but Caelum remained silent.
11:30 AM P P ·
Chapter 139
“Showboating.” Aurora continued, arms folded across her chest. “That’s all it is.”
+8 Pearls
But Caelum’s wolf surged violently at that claim. Showboating? No. He had seen Freya’s face as she dove. There had been no calculation there, no performance. Only ferocity, only resolve. She hadn’t hesitated. She had gone after the drowning child when no one else did.
That wasn’t theater. That was truth.
He remembered the feel of river water years ago, when he had nearly drowned, when a hand had pulled him back from the brink. He remembered Aurora’s face above him, remembered believing her courage, her sacrifice. And now–he heard her words, dismissing Freya’s act of pure instinct, pure wolf–spirit, as nothing but vanity.
Something twisted in him.
“That’s enough, Aurora,” Caelum snapped, his Alpha voice rising, sharp as a whip. “Freya was saving a child. Don’t you dare cheapen that. Just as you once pulled me from the river–what? Was that for attention too? Was that for an audience?”
Aurora’s expression faltered, color draining from her cheeks. “You can’t compare the two! When I saved you, there were no reporters, no crowd to witness-”
“Then why didn’t you move tonight?” Caelum pressed, eyes burning into hers. “So many stood on that shore. Why was Freya the first? Why was she the only one who didn’t hesitate?”
Aurora stiffened, her voice sharp. “You’re defending her.”
22
“I’m stating the truth.” Caelum’s tone was iron, though his lips trembled. His eyes softened with conflict, with pain. “Aurora, once, I remembered you as someone who would leap into the water without fear, someone who risked herself to save me. That memory…” He shook his head, his voice low. “That memory is what made me believe in you. But tonight, with a child drowning, you stood still. You stopped me from going after him. And I can’t reconcile that with the woman I thought you were.”
Aurora’s breath hitched, and for a moment, panic flickered in her eyes. “I stopped you because I care too much for you! I couldn’t let you risk yourself. If Freya hadn’t leapt, I would have gone. Do you not understand?”
Caelum’s gaze lingered on her, heavy, searching. “Would you?” he asked quietly.
Her jaw tightened. “Do you doubt me?”
“Not doubt,” he said slowly, though the words tasted like ash. “But something feels… different. As if the woman who once pulled me from the river is not the one standing here before me.”
Aurora’s mask cracked, and fear flitted across her expression. She reached for anger instead. “If you can’t trust me, if you’d rather believe in her, then perhaps we should end this charade. I’ll tell the press myself that you and I share no bond.”
Caelum flinched, his wolf recoiling. “Aurora, no. That’s not what I meant. I never said I don’t trust you.” His voice dropped, weary. “I just… don’t understand you anymore.”
And as the waves hissed against the shore, as Silas still clung to Freya with trembling arms, Caelum’s heart clenched. Because deep down, he knew–he was already losing something, someone, that mattered more than he dared admit.
Chapter 140
Third Person’s POV
+8 Pear’s
Aurora’s voice cut sharp through the salt–washed air, her expression taut, her eyes flicking toward the distance where Freya stood with Silas.
“Then let us never speak of this again,” Aurora said, her voice edged with frost. She turned her face toward the she–wolf in question, her jaw tightening.
She would not–could not–allow Freya to unravel the carefully woven bonds she had secured. Aurora had built her place beside Caelum with precision and calculation. She would not see it undone. Caelum could never learn who his true savior had been years ago. That secret had to remain buried, for if the truth clawed its way out, everything she had worked for would collapse.
And Aurora was not the only one staring daggers into Freya.
From the cluster of Stormveil wolves nearby, Jocelyn’s gaze was like fire. Her lips parted in disbelief as she took in the sight of Silas–cold, ruthless Silas–plunging into the raging sea with Freya at his side.
Silas Whitmor. The Ironclad Alpha. A wolf who had never spared mercy, never offered kindness, a man who had watched death before and had not blinked. Jocelyn knew him better than most, had shadowed his movements, learned his rhythms. He was iron, forged without softness, incapable of bending for sentiment.
And yet tonight, he had leapt into the water. Not merely leapt he had clung to Freya before the eyes of countless witnesses, cameras flashing, recorders humming. His body wrapped around her as though she was already his chosen mate.
Why?
Her claws bit into her palms as jealousy frothed within her. That should have been her place, at his side, his arm anchoring her against the storm. Not Freya’s. Never Freya’s.
The journalists circling with lenses raised only worsened the torment. Every captured image, every recorded frame would show Silas and Freya -together, side by side, bound by something Jocelyn had long craved but never secured.
The child who had fallen into the waves was saved at last, dragged back from the edge of death by healers waiting on the shore. Relief rippled through the gathered wolves. Freya herself exhaled a breath of fragile ease.
Later, once the frenzy had ebbed, Freya and Silas made their way to the only hotel on the island. The sea–bound outpost was still in its early days of construction, the bones of new structures half–finished, scaffolding reaching skyward like the ribs of some fallen beast. Facilities were scarce. This single hotel was all the island could provide.
Inside the modest chamber, Freya accepted the clothes handed to her by the staff, then glanced toward Silas. He loomed beside her still, his presence filling the room like shadow and storm.
“All right,” she said, voice tired but steady. “I’ll wash up and change. You should take the guest room next door and do the
same.”
His gaze fastened on her, unblinking, “I’ll wait here until you’re finished.”
A sigh slipped from her lips. The way he looked at her–it was as if he feared she might vanish into mist the moment he looked away.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she reminded him gently. “But you need to shower. If you fall ill, this island has little in the way of healers or supplies. And the investment conference isn’t finished yet. If you get sick, we’ll have to cut everything short.”
Still, Silas did not move. His eyes lingered, heavy and watchful.
At last, Freya raised her hand, extending her smallest finger toward him. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” She caught his hand and hooked his finger with hers. “A promise. I’ll be here when you return.”
Silas’s breath stilled, his black eyes narrowing on the sight of their joined fingers. For a long, long moment he said nothing. Then his voice emerged low and rough.
“Very well,” he murmured. “I’ll go. But you’ll be here”
11:30 AM P
Chapter 140
+8 Pearls
“I’ll be here.”
Only then did he leave, and Freya at last retreated into the bathing chamber.
The water that cascaded over her was a balm, warm where the sea had been cold, steady where the waves had been brutal. The chill that had sunk into her bones slowly eased. Her body softened, uncoiling from the tension that had gripped her since the child’s cry had first split the air.
The boy had lived. That thought steadied her heart. He had lived because of Silas too. Without his strength beside her, dragging them both through the current, she might have taken too long. Minutes lost could have been life lost. She could not deny him that.
And yet… she had not expected Silas Whitmor, of all wolves, to plunge after her. To confess what he had confessed.
Love.
The word coiled through her chest like smoke.
She had thought she knew what love was once. She had believed it looked like her parents‘ bond–Arthur Thorne and Myra Brown–wolf and mate, steady and whole. Love was sacrifice, care, loyalty until the last breath.
Caelum Grafton, on their wedding day, had sworn the same. He had told her he would love her, told her he would guard her always. And for three years she had believed it, had bent herself into that vow.
But she had received only betrayal in return. His heart had belonged to Aurora, not her.
And now Silas–Silas of all men–was saying he loved her.
How could she believe it? He was steel, not flesh. The Ironclad Alpha. Could such a wolf truly love? Or was this something else -possession, obsession, something darker?
When at last she stepped out from the bath, towel draped across her shoulders as she dried her hair, she found him again.
Silas was waiting.
He had changed clothes, though his hair still hung wet, droplets trailing from the dark strands onto his collar.
“You showered,” she observed, “but didn’t dry your hair?”
“Didn’t want to waste time.” His tone was simple, as though that explained everything.
Exasperation flared, though faintly softened by something she refused to name. “Bend down,” she ordered.
For a heartbeat his eyes flickered, but he obeyed. Slowly, the Ironclad Alpha inclined his head toward her.
Freya raised the towel and began to rub gently at his wet hair. The intimacy of the act startled even her. It was so… so unlike the storm they had just survived, so unlike the weight of his earlier words.
Yet her hands kept moving, warm against his scalp.
mundane,
“Silas,” she asked suddenly, her voice slipping past her lips before she could stop it. “When you said you loved me… did you mean it?”
The question hung between them like lightning waiting for the thunder.