Chapter Ninety-four

Chapter Ninety-four

Chapter 94

Lia’s POV

I woke to silence that felt wrong.

I tried to move.

Fire exploded through my side, down my leg, across my ribs. A sound tore out of my throat before I could stop it. Immediately, hands were on me, steady, familiar, trembling just enough to betray fear.

Edgar.

His face hovered above mine, pale, drawn, eyes too sharp with worry. Relief crashed through me so hard it made my vision swim.

“You’re awake,” he said, voice hoarse. “Don’t move. Please.”

I swallowed. My throat burned. “Connor?”

The way Edgar’s jaw tightened told me everything before he answered.

“He’s gone.”

I closed my eyes. Not in grief. Not in relief. Just… finality. The knowledge settled somewhere deep inside me, heavy and irreversible.

When I tried again to move, this time reaching inward, instinctively, the way I always did, something was wrong.

There was no response.

No answering heat beneath my skin. No familiar pull, no echo of fur and fang and moonlight waiting just beneath the surface.

Panic shot through me.

I reached again, harder this time, pushing past the pain, past the haze of injury, searching for my wolf the way I had a thousand times before.

Nothing.

My breath hitched. “Edgar.”

He stilled instantly. “What is it?”

“I can’t feel her,” I whispered. “My wolf. She’s—she’s not answering.”

The words tasted unreal. Impossible.

Edgar didn’t speak right away. His silence stretched, taut and dangerous. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful, controlled in the way he got when he was trying not to break something fragile.

“Elena said it might happen.”

I opened my eyes, heart pounding. “What do you mean might happen?”

He exhaled slowly, like each breath hurt. “The healer warned me before you woke. The injuries you took… the strain of the bond, the fight, the way you pushed past your limits. Your body chose survival.”

“And my wolf?” I asked, already knowing the answer, already hating it.

“She took the damage you couldn’t,” he said softly. “She burned herself out to keep you alive.”

The room tilted.

I laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “That’s not how it works. Wolves don’t just disappear.”

“No,” Edgar said. “They don’t.”

The finality in his tone scared me more than the pain.

I tried again, one last desperate reach inward, ignoring the agony screaming through my body.

There was only emptiness.

Not death. Not grief. Just… absence.

Something in my chest cracked.

Tears came before I realized I was crying, hot and silent, sliding into my hair. My wolf had been with me longer than Edgar. Longer than the pack. She was instinct, protection, rage, comfort. She was the part of me that never doubted.

And she was gone.

“I’m human,” I said numbly.

Edgar’s hands tightened around mine. “You’re alive.”

“But I’m human,” I repeated, the word heavy, wrong in my mouth. “What am I supposed to be now?”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against mine. His breath trembled. “Mine.”

That should have made me smile.

Instead, fear coiled in my stomach.

Days passed, measured in pain, in careful movements, in the slow realization that my body no longer healed the way it used to. Bruises lingered. Cuts closed sluggishly. The strength I had taken for granted was gone, replaced by something fragile and unfamiliar.

Human weakness.

The pack noticed.

They tried not to stare. They tried not to whisper. But I felt it in the way their gazes lingered too long, in the way some of them shifted uncomfortably when I passed. A Luna without a wolf was an anomaly. A vulnerability.

A liability.

Edgar never let me face it alone.

He walked with me everywhere, slower now, matching my pace. When I was tired, he stopped. When pain overwhelmed me, he steadied me. When doubt crept in, he burned it away with sheer presence.

But at night, when they kept sleeping, fear found me anyway.

I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening to Edgar’s breathing beside me. His heartbeat was steady, strong, unmistakable. I could feel it, feel him, the bond between us still thrumming, warm and alive.

That was the strangest part.

The bond hadn’t faded.

I still felt him when he moved too far away. Still knew when his mood shifted. Still sensed his anger, his protectiveness, his love. The thread between us remained unbroken, glowing quietly beneath my skin.

I pressed my palm to my chest, right over my heart.

“I’m still yours,” I whispered into the dark, unsure whether I was convincing myself or the universe.

Edgar stirred. “You always will be.”

I turned toward him. “What if the pack doesn’t accept me anymore?”

His eyes opened, sharp even in the dim light. “Then the pack will learn.”

“What if they see me as weak?”

“Then they’ll be wrong.”

I hesitated. “What if I can’t protect myself?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he shifted closer, wrapping his arm around me carefully, reverently.

“Then I will,” he said simply. “Until you learn how again.”

The next morning, I stood before the mirror and barely recognized myself.

Same face. Same eyes. But something primal was missing, like a shadow that no longer followed me. I touched my reflection, half-expecting it to feel unfamiliar.

It didn’t.

I was still Lia.

Still stubborn. Still fierce. Still alive.

Human don't mean helpless.

Human meant choice.

When I stepped into the courtyard later that day, the pack went quiet. Every eye turned toward me. I felt their questions like weight on my shoulders.

I lifted my chin.

I might have lost my wolf, but I hadn’t lost my spine.

Edgar took his place beside me, solid, unyielding. His presence radiated a clear, undeniable truth: I was not lesser. I was not temporary. I was not replaceable.

I was still Luna.

Connor had taken my wolf.

But he hadn’t taken my power.

That would be a different kind of fight.

And I was still very much in it.