His Luna His Mistake

4. His Luna

°KARA°

My hand is in his.

Warm. Rough. Familiar.

It shouldn't feel like home.

Not anymore.

But it does—and that terrifies me more than anything else in this room.

Ryder doesn't speak yet.

He just watches me.

His eyes, dark as a storm, rake over me slowly, memorizing, unblinking—as if this is war and I’m both his prize and his punishment.

He lifts his other hand slowly, deliberately.

Canines elongate behind parted lips. His jaw flexes. I see the exact second his fangs pierce skin—see the sharp wince in his eyes, the tremble in the tendons of his hand.

The scent of his blood—metallic, hot—mingles in the air, thick and nostalgic. It coils through me like memory I can’t outrun.

A drop of blood rolls down his wrist.

Then another.

His hand lowers to mine, red dripping like the moonlight pouring through the stained-glass ceiling above.

His palm presses to my bleeding one, and I flinch when his blood touches mine.

It sears like contact with a flame I once loved.

His heat sinks into me like wildfire through frozen ground. My palm is slick—our blood mixing, ancient and primal—binding fate and fury. My breath hitches, my spine tenses, and for a single moment, I am twenty again—reckless, real, and entirely hers.

Our blood mixes—his fire and my frost. His fury and my restraint. His grief and my guilt.

The elder approaches with the ceremonial cloth, but then—

The red light shifts.

It spills through the windows like smoke, thick and curling. It wraps around our hands, winding like silk from the Goddess herself. A glowing, molten rope tightens around our wrists, shimmering against skin slick with blood.

The power brushes across my skin like whispered memory—warm and chilling all at once.

Gasps echo like wind through the hall. No one dares move.

The power is ancient. Old as bone and moon and the first howl that ever carved its way into the sky.

My fingers tremble.

His don’t.

“I, Ryder Jake Williams,” he says, voice gravel and steel, “claim you under the Blood Moon… as my mate. And my Luna.”

It’s not loud. It doesn’t need to be.

It drops into the pit of my stomach like thunder, heavy and irreversible.

I try to swallow, but my throat is dry. Tight.

Everything in me screams to fight this. To forget the part of me that never stopped waiting for him to come back.

But I don’t.

Because part of me never stopped hoping he would.

“I, Kara Livingston…” My voice cracks, and I force it steady, “…accept you, Ryder Jake Williams, as my Alpha. And my mate.”

And then it happens.

The snap.

Not sound. Not visible. Just… a break—inside my bones, inside my bond, splitting clean down the soul.

Gone.

And in its place, a new presence surges through me.

Hot. Unforgiving. Possessive.

His.

My wolf lets out a breath I didn’t know she’d been holding.

Then, without resistance, without hesitation—she lunges forward.

And his meets her halfway.

They don’t speak. They don’t growl.

They just collide, and for a second, we’re both weightless.

The rope of light binding our hands fades into sparks, disappearing as if satisfied with the chaos it’s left behind.

The elder doesn’t even bother with the cloth anymore.

Because what’s forged under the Blood Moon cannot be undone.

I stumble back half a step, but I don’t let go.

I can’t breathe.

He’s my Alpha now.

The words echo like thunder in my skull.

He’s my Alpha.

And I’m his.

A moment passes in silence.

Then another.

And Ryder lets go of my hand slowly.

But I don’t move.

Not until he says, voice low and firm, “Come with me.”

I blink.

“What?”

He takes a step closer, eyes unreadable. “Come with me now, Kara. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving—?”

I don’t get to finish.

Because in the next heartbeat, my father grabs my other arm.

“She’s not going anywhere,” he snaps.

His grip bites into my skin like chains I forgot I’d never broken.

Ryder’s response is immediate.

“Get your hand off her.”

“She’s my daughter!”

“She’s my mate,” Ryder growls, stepping forward, voice dark with power. “Touch her again and I will rip your spine out in front of every elder in this room.”

“Do you think claiming her erases what she is?” my father hisses, ignoring him. “She’s a Livingston.”

“I’ll be back,” I say.

But I see it in his eyes. The distrust.

“Trust me. I will.” This time, I will, Ryder.

His mouth opens, then closes. He nods, clenching his jaw.

My father pulls me away from the dispersing crowd and toward a corner.

“You promised you would be married!” he snarls the moment we are out of hearing range.

“Yes, and I am,” I say.

“Don’t play with me, Kara!” he growls. “I promised you to Alpha Aleric.”

“And I promised I would walk down the aisle. But it was the Moon Goddess who interrupted.”

“Moon Goddess?” He snarls. “You knew. You knew he would come, and you planned this.”

Took him time.

“I planned nothing,” I say. “He still hates me.”

And it hurts. To even look at him.

“Hate you? Let’s see. But this is not the end, Kara,” he warns.

“You can’t stop me from leaving,” I challenge.

My father’s jaw ticks. His eyes blaze—not with love, not even anger. Just pride. Possessive, bitter pride.

“You’re my daughter,” he repeats, like it’s some kind of leash.

I straighten my shoulders. “And I’m Ryder’s Luna now. That leash? You burned it the moment you sold me off to save your name.”

His eyes narrow. “You ungrateful little—”

“I gave you everything,” I snap. “My name. My title. My future. I gave you everything you asked, and you turned me into a bargaining chip.”

He stares at me—like he doesn’t recognize the woman standing before him. Maybe he doesn’t.

Good.

“I loved him,” I whisper, and it cuts sharper than any shout.

His face falters, just for a second. But I don’t let him speak.

“Now the Moon Goddess has spoken. And this time, I’m not walking away.”

“You owe me more than you can repay,” he says lowly, his voice suddenly calm. Colder. “You forget the leverage I still hold, Kara. Do you think I raised you just to let you ruin me now?”

My stomach turns to ice.

There it is.

The threat beneath every command. The invisible dagger he’s held to my throat since I was a child.

So I stay quiet.

I don't beg.

I don’t flinch.

But I don’t lie to myself either.

My father won’t hesitate to destroy us both.

And it’ll be Ryder who burns first.

“Don’t forget what’s at stake here,” my father warns.

“I won’t.”

His expression darkens—but he lets me go.

He always did know how to play the long game.

I turn from him.

And I don’t look back.

Not even once.

But I can feel his eyes burning into my spine as I walk away from him… from everything I was molded to be.

Every step I take toward Ryder is heavier and lighter all at once. The weight of blood. The ache of want. The scent of something too close to hope.

My skin prickles with cold sweat. My heart’s still a warzone between fear and want.

But I don’t hesitate.

Not this time.

The ceremonial hall is mostly cleared. Alphas and elders trickle out, their eyes bouncing between me and Ryder like they’ve just witnessed something blasphemous. Or holy.

Or both.

I scan the crowd.

He’s already at the door. Waiting.

Just standing there in the half-shadow, broad shoulders tense, head lowered slightly, like he’s not sure I’ll follow through.

But I see the muscle ticking in his jaw. The quiet storm behind his eyes when he finally spots me.

We lock eyes across the hall.

Something shifts.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak.

But I do.

I walk.

Straight to him.

And when I reach him—still breathless from everything—I stop just close enough that our arms brush.

He looks down at me. “You came.”

“I said I would.”

His eyes linger on mine for a moment longer than they should. He studies me like he’s searching for something—confirmation, regret, maybe a lie.

“Shall we?” he asks, raising his hand.

My breath catches. A tremor flickers through my fingers before I can stop it.

His gaze shifts—sharp, almost too fast—catching the flicker, the stutter in my chest.

His jaw clenches.

Then, without a word, he pulls his hand back like he touched fire—

And storms out.

I force myself not to react, but the air in my lungs grows colder. Sharper.

Outside, the air is sharp with midnight. Cold and clean after the blood and heat of the ceremony. The sky is still red-tinged, the moon bleeding light over the trees, over us.

A sleek black car waits just beyond the steps. One of Ryder’s.

I walk toward it slowly. Gravel crunching beneath my heels.

I place my hand on the door handle.

The metal is cool. Firm. Familiar in a way it shouldn’t be.

Then I open it.

And slide inside.

The leather sighs under my weight. The scent—leather, pine, smoke—wraps around me like unfinished sentences. Like questions we never stopped asking.

The front seats are already filled. A driver waits quietly, eyes ahead, back straight. Trained not to look. Trained not to speak.

I don’t look out the window.

I don’t look ahead.

I just sit in the shadows, back straight, breath shallow.

Until I hear it—

A second door opens behind me.

Then closes with a soft, final click.

Ryder slides into the seat beside me.

He doesn’t speak.

Neither do I.

We just sit there, a foot of leather and memory between us.

The silence is thick. Not empty—charged.

He doesn’t look at me.

But I feel him.

The weight of him. The heat radiating off his body. The storm behind his stillness.

It should scare me.

But it doesn’t.

It just hurts.

My hand curls slightly in my lap. Yet, I force it still.

I don’t know what I expected. A touch? A word? A reminder that he still remembers how I used to breathe his name like a promise?

Then, without a word, the driver turns the key.

The engine hums.

And the car begins to move forward.

Two hearts towards a future, carrying the wound of what we were.