167

167

ALTHEA
Time did what nothing else could.
It didn’t erase the damage—but it softened the edges enough for life to grow around it again.
The Blood Moon pack rose slowly, like something wounded but unbroken. Training yards filled before dawn. Children ran through the courtyards again, their laughter threading through the stone halls. The patrols grew stronger, more coordinated. Fields were replanted. Borders reinforced.
The pack breathed.
And somehow—against every expectation, including my own—I became part of that breath.
At first, they only watched me.
I felt their eyes everywhere: on the training grounds, in the council hall, during patrol briefings. Curiosity. Suspicion. Careful measuring. I didn’t blame them. I was an outsider. A former Dark Moon wolf. Marked by an Alpha known for brutality.
But then they started remembering.
Remembering who had stood between the pack and destruction when their Alpha was down. Who had bled beside them despite having a wolf too weak to heal her own broken bone. Who had refused to run when running would have been easy—and justified.
“She fought like she was born Blood Moon.”
I heard it whispered once, when they thought I was out of earshot.
“She didn’t have to. She chose to.”
That was when things shifted.
They stopped looking through me and started looking to me.
Warriors began asking for my opinion during drills. Mothers nodded at me when I passed. Children waved—shy at first, then bold, calling my name like it belonged to them.
Luna.
The word settled on my shoulders slowly, carefully, like the pack itself was afraid to break me if they placed it too quickly.
I had never been given that kind of grace before.
Not in Dark Moon.
There, I had always been the reminder of someone else’s sins.
My parents’ betrayal. Their attempt to abduct Callista. The stain that never washed off. Luna Mira had made sure of that. Every mistake I made was magnified. Every success twisted into suspicion.
She smiled when she humiliated me.
And Alpha Damon—he let her.
Here, it was different.
Here, no one used my past to chain me.
Here, I was allowed to belong.
Sometimes, standing in the courtyard as the pack moved around me, I felt it settle deep in my chest—this quiet, terrifying truth.
This feels like home.
The realization scared me almost as much as it healed me.
Because home meant something worth losing.
And Alpha Collin was always there, at the center of it.
Watching.
Protecting.
Trying.
His anger still existed—I could sense it, coiled and dangerous—but he controlled it now with a discipline that cost him something every single day. When he trained, it was brutal. When he ruled, it was sharp and decisive.
When he was with me… it was restrained to the point of ache.
That frustrated me more than I was prepared for.
He teased me constantly—soft words, knowing looks, murmured comments that slid under my skin and stayed there. He would brush past me in the hall, fingers grazing my wrist just long enough to make my breath catch.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” he’d murmur.
Or—
“If you keep looking at me like that, people will start getting ideas.”
I would glare at him, cheeks burning, heart racing.
And when—rarely—he touched me openly, it was never where I wanted it.
His lips brushed my forehead when he thought I was tired.
My cheek when I was annoyed.
The corner of my mouth—but never my mouth itself.
Each time, my body reacted anyway. Heart slamming. Breath stuttering. Heat blooming under my skin like a betrayal.
“Why do you do that?” I finally snapped one evening when he kissed my temple instead of where I wanted him to.
His eyes darkened, but his voice stayed calm. “Because if I don’t stop myself, I won’t.”
The honesty hit harder than any touch.
“You don’t trust yourself,” I said quietly.
“I don’t trust what I want,” he corrected.
That made my chest ache in ways I didn’t have words for.
I hated how he could still unravel me without crossing a single line.
Hated how my body leaned into every near-miss.
Hated how my heart hammered like it recognized something my mind was still afraid to accept.
The pack called me Luna now.
They said it with pride.
With respect.
With certainty.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I had to earn my place by bleeding for it.
I already had.
Now, I was learning how to stay.
And somewhere between stolen glances, restrained kisses, and a pack that finally saw me as their own, I realized something terrifying and beautiful:
I wasn’t just surviving anymore.
I belonged here. I finally had a home in this big and cruel world.
Even if my heart wasn’t quite ready to admit who it was starting to belong to.