CHARACTER 3: His Luna
2000 Words
The dungeon door had shut four hours ago.
Darius hadn’t slept.
He stood in the center of the ring, shirt off, scars gleaming in the grey light. Around him, ten warriors circled his best Gammas. Fresh, Ready.
“Again,” he ordered.
They hesitated. “Alpha, you’ve been going since midnight”
“I said again.”
The first Gamma lunged. Darius broke his arm in two moves. The second came from behind. Darius threw him into the dirt so hard the ground cracked.
He didn’t feel it. Didn’t feel anything.
Except the silence in his chest where his wolf used to be.
Since he locked Elara up, his beast had gone quiet. Not peaceful. Gone. Like it died when the dungeon door closed.
Kade watched from the edge, arms crossed, jaw tight. “This isn’t training,” he said when the tenth warrior hit the dirt. “This is punishment.”
Darius didn’t answer. He grabbed a practice sword and started on the dummies. Wood splintered. Crack. Crack. Crack.
He had to move. Had to hit something. Because if he stopped, he’d hear her.
“You were hurting. I didn’t want you to hurt.”
His swing went wide and took the top off a post.
“Alpha.” Kade stepped into the ring, risking claws. “The Northern Alliance envoy arrives at noon. You need to be”
“Ready,” Darius cut him off. “I know.”
The Northern Alliance. That was the goal. The thing he wanted besides his Luna.
For three years, the Northern packs had been raiding their borders. Taking land, Taking wolves. Two weeks ago, they took a pup.
Darius had been planning a war council. Not war peace. He wanted to unite the territories. One Alliance, one law. No more rogue packs, No more stolen pups.
His father called it weakness. “Alphas take. They don’t negotiate.”
Darius called it survival. Because he’d seen what happened when Alphas went feral without a Luna,they destroyed everything.
He needed the North to sign the treaty today. Needed to prove he could lead without his father’s claws.
Needed to prove he didn’t need...
His sword snapped in half.
Kade didn’t flinch. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You haven’t eaten. You haven’t slept. Your eyes are...”
“Red?” Darius bared his teeth. “Good. Let the Northern Alpha see it. Let him think I’ll rip his throat out if he doesn’t sign.”
“Is that the plan? Scare him into peace?”
It was a stupid plan. Darius knew it.
The obstacle was himself.
Without Elara, he couldn’t think. Strategy required calm. Negotiation required patience. Both left his body when he left her in that dungeon.
Now every thought circled back to one thing:
she’s underground. Bleeding. Because of me.
“Send Selene,” he said suddenly.
Kade blinked. “What?”
“To meet the envoy. She’s Luna. She can...” He stopped. The word tasted wrong, "Luna." He’d called her that yesterday. To her face. In front of the pack.While Elara bled in the square.
His stomach rolled.
“You can’t,” Kade said quietly. “Darius, if you put Selene in front of the North as Luna, and then you claim Elara later...”
“I’m not claiming Elara.” The lie ripped out of him. “She’s human. She’s...”
“Dangerous?” Kade stepped closer. “Is that why you locked her up? Because she threw Selene while half-dead? Or because you felt it?”
Darius went still.
“Felt what?”
“The bond. When you caught her. When your eyes went clear. Don’t lie to me. I saw it.”
Darius’s claws slid out. “You saw nothing.”
“I saw an Alpha choose politics over his mate. And now he can’t think straight enough to win the peace he wants.” Kade jerked his chin toward the main house. “The envoy’s here early. Selene’s already greeting them.”
Darius closed his eyes.
He needed to be calm, rational, strong to force the North into treaty. But without Elara, he was 4 days from feral. One wrong word and he’d challenge the Northern Alpha and start a war that killed hundreds.
Selene was down there, playing Luna, smiling at the Northern Alpha. Making promises Darius hadn’t approved.
And he couldn’t stop her. Because if he walked down there like this shaking, red-eyed, smelling like Elara’s blood the North would know he was weak.
They’d never sign.
They’d attack.
A messenger ran into the ring, panting. “Alpha! The Northern envoy requests your presence. Lady Selene says...” The boy swallowed. “She says you’re indisposed. That she speaks for the pack.”
The world went quiet.
Selene was staging a coup. Soft. Political. But a coup. And he’d handed her the knife by locking up Elara.
Because without Elara, he was indisposed.
Darius looked at his hands. They wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Kade,” he said, voice dead, “get the healer. Have her check the dungeon. Quietly.”
Kade’s eyes widened. “You’re......”
He dropped the broken sword.
“I need her alive. Even if I can’t have her.”
Especially if he couldn’t have her.
Because without her, he couldn’t win the peace. Couldn’t win anything.
He was Alpha of nothing.
The glass shattered against the wall.
Darius didn’t remember throwing it. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Hadn’t stopped for 48 hours. Sleep was a memory. Food tasted like ash. Every breath dragged through his lungs like it owed him money.
“Alpha.” Kade stood in the doorway, not entering. Smart Last wolf who entered left with a broken arm. “You need to eat.”
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like blood. Because there was blood in his mouth.
He’d woken up choking on it an hour ago. Not his. He hadn’t been injured. But the back of his throat was raw, and when he coughed, the sink ran red.
Phantom pain. Lash wounds. On his back.
Impossible.
“You’re not fine,” Kade said quietly. “The healer’s waiting. She says it’s...”
“If you say bond withdrawal one more time, I’ll rip your tongue out.”
Kade flinched, but didn’t back down. “It’s bond withdrawal. Four days, Darius. Four days since you locked her up and your eyes haven’t been grey since. You’ve shredded two chairs....
Darius launched from the desk. He didn’t mean to. His body moved before his brain caught up, and suddenly Kade was against the wall, Darius’s claws at his throat.
“She’s human,” Darius snarled, but his voice cracked. “Humans don’t... I can’t...”
Pain ripped across his back.
White-hot. Visceral. Like a whip made of fire.
Darius screamed. It wasn’t Alpha, wasn’t wolf. It was pure agony. He fell to his knees, claws tearing into his own shoulders, trying to get the fire off.
“Darius.....”
“Not mine,” Darius gasped. He could feel them. Three lines. Then a fourth. Old wounds, reopened. But his skin was unmarked. “Not... mine...”
Realization hit like a truck.
The dungeon, The lashes, Four days ago.
She wasn’t healing, She was getting worse.
And he was feeling every strike.
His beast, silent since he locked her up, roared back to life.
"Mate, Hurt, Ours, DYING."
The red bled into his vision. Not rage, Panic, Feral, mindless,
*get-to-mate-or-everyone-dies_ panic.*
He was on his feet before Kade could stop him. The door didn’t open, It exploded off the hinges.
He arrived at the dungeon.
He could smell her,Vanilla and soap, And blood, So much blood.
Mine, his wolf chanted. Mine mine mine mine....
He hit the bottom of the stairs and nearly went to his knees again.
I was curled on the stone, not even on the cot. my shift was stuck to my back with dried blood. The bandages from four days ago were gone, I’d torn them off. Three lash wounds were open, weeping. The fourth looked infected.
I was not moving.
“Elara.” His voice broke.
my eyes fluttered. Not brown. Silver, for one second, bright as moonlight. Then dull again.
I saw him. And I smiled.
Tiny. Broken.
“You... came,” i whispered. “Knew you... would.”
That did it.
The feral snapped, Not into violence, Into agony.
Darius was through the bars before he realized there was a lock. He didn’t use a key. His claws went through iron like paper. He dropped to his knees beside me, hands hovering, terrified to touch.
“I’m sorry,” it tore out of him. He didn’t know he was going to say it. Didn’t plan it.
my breath hitched. “Hurts.”
“I know.” He did know. His own back was on fire, echoing hers, pain sharing, Marked mates only.
He wasn’t supposed to be marked. I was human. I couldn’t
Unless I was not his.
Darius did the only thing his wolf would let him do.
He gathered me into his arms. I weighed nothing, Too light, Too cold. But the second I was against his chest, his wolf went quiet.
Peace, Absolute, blessed peace. For the first time in four days.
His eyes cleared. Grey again.
And he felt it,The thread. Gold and bright and tied from his chest to mine. A mate bond, Real, Complete. Already there.
He’d felt it in the war room. He’d felt it when she touched him. He’d felt it when he locked her up and his soul started dying.
“I’m an i***t,” he whispered into her hair.
“Get the healer. Now. If she dies....”
His voice broke." if she dies, I die."
The truth of it settled in his bones.
Selene appeared at the top of the stairs, drawn by the noise. She saw Darius on the floor, holding the human. Saw his eyes clear. Saw the way his whole body curved around Elara like she was the only thing keeping him alive.
She understood, He’d chosen,And it wasn’t her.
“Guards,” Selene hissed to the two wolves behind her. “The Alpha is feral. He’s been bewitched. Take the human...”
Darius looked up,Slow,And smiled.It was all teeth, All Alpha.
“Touch her,” he said, voice soft. “and I will show you what feral really means.”
Selene ran.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD