Chapter 52: CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Just a single glance from her could cut through the soul of any Alpha and lay him bare. The figure standing ahead of him on Nightbloom Trail, cloaked in pale light and with her back turned, carried an aura no mortal could mistake. She was the moon goddess herself. Her voice, smooth and crystalline, drifted through the silence of the dead of night.

“Do you understand the weight of what you have done, Alpha Thorne?”

Her words struck like thunder, reverberating through the frostbitten forest. Even the shadows seemed to scatter—owls retreated deeper into the trees, and bats that had clung to branches scattered in panic. The atmosphere thickened as if the very air recoiled from her presence.

But Thorne did not flinch. He had not endured the agony of rejection, nor the torment of watching Celeste’s wolf fade, only to bow now. He stood his ground, his voice raw with defiance. “I don’t care about your consequences. You’ve never been just with me. Not once.”

A pause. Then her voice flowed again, calm but cutting, as though every syllable peeled back the layers of his soul. “I granted you strength beyond measure. I gave you the wisdom to lead when others would have fallen.”

Thorne’s jaw clenched. He could not restrain the fury rising within him. “And yet you paired her—my Celeste—with another. You handed Luna Celeste over to Alaric of Wolfsbane Pack as though her fate was yours to decide. Had I not been there that night, she would have been lost. She would have been slaughtered before the Hollow Moon Ritual ever dawned.”

The goddess did not turn. She remained poised, unyielding, her platinum hair shimmering faintly in the glow of her aura.

“You stole from me,” Thorne continued, his voice cracking with something darker than rage. “You stripped my world bare. You took Calla. You let Lyric fall. You allowed Kaelion to betray his oath. One by one, you ripped away those I loved and left me with ashes.”

Her tone softened, though it carried the weight of ages. “Much is demanded of those to whom much is given.”

He barked a bitter laugh, the sound hollow in the stillness. “So that’s it? Because you gave me strength, you believe you’re entitled to bleed me dry? To take everything I hold dear?”

“Finally,” she whispered, the faintest trace of satisfaction in her voice. “You begin to understand.”

A violent gust tore through Nightbloom Trail, shaking the ironbark trees. Thorne squared his stance, planting his boots firmly in the frost. He would not waver, not before her.

“Then hear me clearly,” he growled, his voice echoing like a vow etched into stone. “I will not leave without what I came for. Return her wolf to her. Return Celeste to me.”

“Rejection is final.” The goddess’s words were steady, merciless. “A bond, once severed, cannot be rewoven. Her Luna spirit is gone. What remains is human flesh. You have read the truth in the tomes of the Obsidian Archives. You know this.”

But Thorne only laughed again, harsher this time. “So you were watching, then? You saw me rage against the words inked in that book, saw me tear at its brittle pages like a madman. You saw the storm you created.”

“Your anger blinds you,” she replied, almost mournfully. “You claim to love her, yet your heart festers with resentment. You resent her for the rejection, even as you demand her return. That is why the bond remains broken.”

His hands shook at his sides, fists curling. “That is between me and her. My love for her burns through every scar you’ve inflicted. You say the bond is gone, but I feel her still. I will not rest until her wolf is restored.”

The goddess’s voice remained level. “It cannot be demanded. She must choose you—not as Luna wolf, but as woman. If she opens her heart to you as she is, then perhaps… her wolf may rise once more.”

Silence. For a moment, the forest seemed to hold its breath.

Thorne’s chest heaved, every word she spoke piercing him deeper. To win her heart again? To make Celeste love him after all the agony he had caused her? After Duskwatch City had whispered of his failures, after Navarro had stirred poison against him, after Malik Greene and others watched her with covetous eyes? It was nearly impossible.

“Is that all?” His voice was hoarse, nearly breaking.

“There is more.” For the first time, the goddess’s tone hardened again. “If she falls while you attempt to reclaim her, you will be doomed. Her death will sever your path to any heir. Your reign will wither, and your bloodline with it. You will walk this earth as Alpha of nothing.”

The words slashed deeper than claws. To lose Celeste as he had lost Calla? To fail her, to let history repeat? No. He would tear apart Ashfang Pack, burn Hollowspire Hall itself to rubble before he allowed it.

His voice steadied with grim resolve. “Thank you. I will find a way.”

But before he could turn, the air thickened with a blinding haze. The trees warped, the path blurred, and fog veiled his sight until even the goddess’s radiant form faded. His pulse pounded in his ears as he staggered. “What is this? What are you doing to me?”

Finally, she turned.

Her eyes, luminous and terrible, locked on his. For the first time, Thorne saw her face fully—the beauty of eternity sharpened with unrelenting wrath. Pain seared his mind like a blade plunged through his skull. He gasped, the world collapsing around him, and darkness swallowed him whole.

—

When consciousness returned, it came with the scent of moonfire candles and the warmth of ironbark walls. He stirred to find himself lying upon a bed in a small cottage, soft blankets pulled over his frame. Blue eyes met his, tender yet troubled.

“Thorne,” a voice whispered.

He blinked, forcing himself upright. Before him stood Luna Marcelline, worry carved into her expression.

“Where… where am I?” His voice was ragged.

“I found you collapsed in the woods,” she said gently. “You’ve been unconscious for two nights. Bryce drove me in the Obsidian Lynx Hypercar when Maeve came to tell me. Your phone has not stopped ringing.”

His thoughts snapped back instantly—not to himself, but to Celeste. “Did you answer it?”

Marcelline shook her head. “No.” She pressed a cup of water into his hands.

“Good.” He drained it in a single gulp. His eyes, however, remained shadowed.

“What happened out there?” she asked softly.

He tried to recall. The memory surged, only for searing pain to lance through his skull. His hands flew to his temples, groaning. “What did she do to me?”

Marcelline’s face paled. She took the glass back from him and steadied him against the pillows. “You called upon the moon goddess, didn’t you?”

“She… she said there was a way,” Thorne muttered through clenched teeth. His forehead glistened with sweat, the agony unrelenting.

“There is always a price,” Marcelline whispered. “Selene despises being disturbed from her silence. You should have known this.”

But Thorne only shook his head violently, fighting the haze clouding his mind. “I don’t care. I cannot lose her. Not Celeste. Not again.”