Chapter 75

Chapter 75
Evelyn’s POV

The door closes behind me with a finality that feels like a prison gate.
I sink against it, pressing my back to the wood as though I can hold it shut against the world. My chest heaves, each breath sharp and jagged, my palms still trembling with the residue of power that refuses to fade. Even now, hours after the blast, faint sparks flicker between my fingers, tiny threads of light too stubborn to die.
I curl my hands into fists and force them against my skirts, but the trembling won’t stop. It feels as though the power has lodged inside me, coiled like a serpent that has tasted blood and will not retreat to its cage.
The chamber is quiet, but the silence is not peace. It thrums with the echoes of what I did. Of Elder Rhovan’s scream. Of the way his body hit stone. Of the horrified faces of the pack as they watched their Luna their Luna unleash something none of them had ever seen.
I close my eyes, but the memory plays again and again. The smell of smoke. The look in his eyes before the blast struck. He hadn’t bowed. He hadn’t feared. He had defied me. And I… I had destroyed him.
The bond stirs in my chest, tugging like a hook buried too deep. Kael. His presence presses against me, stronger now, hotter, as though distance means nothing. I feel his fury sparking across the bond, sharp enough to cut. But beneath it beneath the anger is something else.
Satisfaction.Possession.
The faint curl of a thought that is not mine at all: Mine did this. Mine showed them.
The realization makes my stomach lurch. He knows. Maybe not every detail, but enough. Enough to sense what I unleashed, enough to feel it in his blood through the bond. And he is pleased.
I stagger to the bed and sink down, clutching the blankets in my fists. My hands still burn. My heart still pounds. Every inch of me feels like glass on the verge of shattering. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to stop being the weak Luna whispered about behind closed doors. And now? Now they will never call me weak again. But not because they respect me.
Because they fear me The hours crawl. I do not leave my chamber. I cannot. Outside, footsteps echo faintly in the halls, but no one comes to my door. Meals are left on a tray, untouched. I hear them set down the plates, then retreat without knocking, without a word. When I finally gather the courage to peek into the corridor, the tray is gone, replaced by another, as though I am some beast to be fed behind bars. No one will meet my eyes. No one will speak my name.
Luna. The title once carried expectation, sometimes even reverence. Now it hangs in the air like a curse.
The whispers seep under the door at night. I hear them when the fortress quiets, voices low and urgent.
“She struck him down.”
“With no claws, no shift just light. Like a sorceress.”
“Not a sorceress. A demon.”
“The Alpha will return and see what she has become.”
“If he does not kill her first.”
Their words crawl across my skin, burrow into my chest, gnawing until I can’t tell if the trembling is rage or terror.
I bury my face in the pillows and scream until my throat aches, but the silence swallows it whole.
On the third day, the bond tightens so sharply I gasp. It coils around my lungs, my heart, pulsing with Kael’s emotions bleeding through like poison through cloth.
He is coming back.
I feel it with a certainty that steals my breath. He is on his way, the distance closing, every step sharpening the bond’s pressure. And when he returns. I curl my knees to my chest, clutching the blankets tighter. When he returns, what will he see? A Luna who finally commanded fear? Or a monster he must chain before she burns his entire pack to ash? At night Sleep refuses me. Every time my eyes close, I see Elder Rhovan’s body crumpling against the wall. His eyes, wide with pain. His blood on the floor.
And then, worse I see the others watching. Warriors who once obeyed me out of duty, maids who once bowed with forced politeness, all of them staring as their Luna became something unnatural.
I see their fear and I hear their whispers.
And I wake drenched in sweat, my hands smoking against the sheets. Twice now, the blankets have smoldered where my fingers gripped too hard. I’ve doused them with water, praying no one smells the charred wool.
The power is restless, hungrier than before. It thrums like a second heartbeat, louder every day. Once I feared it would consume me. Now I fear it already has.
On the fifth day, voices rise outside my chamber, sharper than whispers.
“unfit to lead us.”
“She is Luna by bond only. Not by strength, not by honor.”
“She struck down an elder! Who will be next?”
“Careful. The Alpha will not forgive insult to his mate.”
“Then let the Alpha control her before she destroys us all.”
My hands shake as I press them to the door, straining to hear. The footsteps retreat, but the words linger like a stain I cannot scrub away.
Unfit. Not by strength, not by honor. I sink back onto the bed, the words pounding in my skull until I cannot breathe. I thought I had silenced their doubts. Instead, I have birthed new ones, sharper, more dangerous.
And yet a part of me remembers the way the chamber fell silent after I struck Rhovan down. The way every eye lowered. The way they parted for me when I left, too afraid to touch me.
It was not respect. But it was power.
The bond pulses again that night, strong enough to arch my back against the mattress. I bite back a cry, clutching the sheets as Kael’s presence floods me. Closer now.
So close I can almost hear his voice, feel his hands on my skin. His emotions are a storm anger, hunger, dark satisfaction. I hear his thought again, curling through me like smoke: Mine did this. Mine showed them.
I shudder, tears pricking my eyes.
Yes. I am his Luna. Bound by the Moon, chained by the bond. Even when I strike down an elder, even when the pack trembles, even when I become something not quite wolf at all I am his.
But am I anything else?
The silence does not answer.
On the seventh day, I rise from bed and catch sight of myself in the mirror.
I freeze. The woman staring back is not the one who first entered this fortress. Not the timid bride dragged before a merciless Alpha. Not the fragile Luna mocked in whispers. Her eyes are too bright, lit from within, dangerous. Her skin glows faintly, as though fire lives beneath it. Even her posture straight, unyielding feels like a stranger’s.
I lift a hand. The reflection lifts hers. Sparks dance across my fingertips, eager, insistent.
The crown on my head feels heavier than ever.
Luna. Monster. Perhaps they are the same.
I do not leave my room. I cannot. But I hear them moving beyond the door, voices hushed, steps hesitant. Sometimes I catch them staring when the door cracks open to slide in a tray. They bow lower now, but their eyes dart away too quickly. Not respect but always fear.
And yet a part of me begins to savor it.
No one dares to speak against me. No one dares to test me. No one dares to meet my eyes for long.
For the first time, I am untouchable. The thought terrifies me. The thought thrills me.
The bond is a drumbeat now, constant and merciless. Kael draws nearer with every hour, his emotions wrapping tighter around me until I can hardly breathe. I feel his fury like fire in my veins. I feel his hunger like claws on my skin.
And I know when he returns, there will be no hiding what I have become.
The pack fears me. The bond chains me. And the Alpha my Alpha will claim me in ways I am not ready to face.
I clutch the blankets to my chest and whisper into the empty chamber, though the bond will carry it to him if he listens.
“I didn’t want this. I only wanted strength.” But the silence answers with truth I cannot deny.
Strength always has a price.
And I have already paid in blood.