The Wolf God's Unwanted Luna

Zaliver’s POV

"Sleep. Grieve. Forget," I whispered.

I watched her eyes flutter closed, her lashes brushing her cheeks as her body began to give way. Before she could hit the ground, I moved. One flash, and I was there, catching her.

She felt so small against my chest. My little mate. The thought settled over me the way grief does, quiet but total.

The pain that came after was immediate, sharp, and unforgiving. I hated what I’d done. What I’d had to do. But as I stared down at her face, some selfish part of me savored the quiet, the stillness on her features. I hadn’t seen her look like this in so long, not since before I dragged her into my world.

I pulled her closer and held her, uncaring of the pack members watching. Let them watch. Let them see the Lupus Deus made quiet by a woman. There were worse things for them to witness.

I inhaled slowly, deliberately, committing her scent to memory the way you memorize something you know you’re about to lose. Then I pressed a kiss to her forehead, her cheek, and finally her lips. The same lips that had been driving me to the edge all evening, and that would haunt me through whatever came next.

Albericus approached. His footsteps were hesitant. He laid a hand on my shoulder and I didn’t acknowledge him, not yet. Not while I was still holding what I couldn’t keep.

Finally I stood.

Still holding her, I signaled to her guards. They stepped forward. Johnson reached out, and I made myself transfer her into his arms, hating every moment of it.

"Guard her with your life," I said.

They nodded. Solemn. Silent. Then they carried her away into the forest shadows, and I kept watching until there was nothing left to watch. Until the silence was all that remained, and the echo of something that had been mine and wasn’t anymore.

Then I let the mask come back down.

The beast inside me rose, dark and vicious. With every step I took into the forest, the fury built. Albericus trailed behind me, quiet, probably trying to gauge which version of me he was dealing with.

"I’m sorry," he finally said. "If I’d known, I wouldn’t have mind-linked you. Maybe then you wouldn’t have had to lie to her. Or leave that kind of impression—"

A growl tore out of me, hard enough to scatter birds from the canopy.

"Enough."

It wasn’t his fault, and I knew that. But I wasn’t in the mood to soften anything right now.

"This is on me," I said, quieter. "I should’ve seen it coming. But there’s a reason you take a wound clean rather than let it fester. A clean break seals. If she’d felt something die without knowing why, it would have hollowed her out instead of just hurting her."

The bond between us twisted with agony as I said it. The distance was already stretching, growing colder. My beast was furious at being denied what was his.

Albericus tried again. "Still—"

I gave him a look that ended that sentence.

"Take me to Aurora," I said, voice flat with steel. "That witch has some explaining to do."

The forest felt darker as we moved. Heavier. When Vivian’s father had tried to drag her away from me, I’d held myself together for her sake. And then the mind-link had come, carrying everything Aurora had seen. A premonition. And I’d known immediately what had to be done.

I could protect her on this island from a great many things. But not from what was coming. Not from this particular storm, which had no clear shape yet and no clear origin, only Aurora’s certainty that it was real.

Even if it meant she hated me. Even if the distance became permanent. I’d take that over the alternative, every time.

"She might be lying," Albericus said carefully. "You know how she plays things."

"She might be many things," I said. "Scheming. Manipulative. An absolute pain to deal with. But Aurora Pattsen doesn’t lie when she sees something. And she’s never been wrong. I’d be an idiot to ignore it."

He didn’t argue. He walked quietly beside me as the full weight of the evening settled over my shoulders like something I’d earned.

I’d sent away the only thing that had made my existence bearable in centuries. I’d forced the distance myself, to shield her from a storm I couldn’t fully see yet. War was coming, and I could prepare for many contingencies, but not every one.

I hadn’t expected her to fight the way she did. Standing between me and her father like something made of fire, commanding him to stop, issuing orders that overrode mine. She was brave in the reckless, infuriating way that made it impossible not to respect her. I hadn’t been going to kill her father, just make a point that couldn’t be misread. I was furious, yes, genuinely furious, but not that far gone.

And then she kicked me in the groin.

That part still genuinely stunned me.

I’d thought she was about to throw herself at me. Not that. But I respected it. I respected her more for it than I probably should have.

My chest ached with everything I hadn’t said.

And then the building came into view, the one where we were keeping Aurora. Just looking at it pulled the words of her prophecy back through my head like something dragged across a wound.

Whatever lay ahead, I’d pull the full truth out of her with my bare hands if I had to, methodically and without remorse. Because no matter how far Vivian was from me right now, she was still mine.

And I was still hers.

"What you hold closest to the heart will not survive. War doesn’t follow rules or honor, and you know that better than anyone. But the final pieces are in place now, because you stayed the course. And in war, there’s only one rule, unspoken but always followed: go for the heart. And what does an immortal man hold close that he never could before? His mate."

"Me."

We moved past the guards in the corridor and made our way down into the holding chambers.

That was where she was waiting.

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