The Luna they threw away

Chapter 5

Kade POV

The first year after Hart left was chaos. Not for the pack — for me. For Axton. For whatever was left between us.

People think the Alpha controls the wolf.That’s a lie.

For the first time in my life, Axton didn’t listen. He didn’t follow. He didn’t even look in my direction for approval.

He was a beast. A feral, wounded animal that wanted one thing — the mate he lost.

Year One was destruction.

Axton hunted like he wanted to tear the earth open and find her hiding inside it. If I tried to talk to him, he ignored me. If I tried to shift back, he fought me. If warriors got too close, he snapped at them.

He didn’t sleep.Didn’t eat.Didn’t stop.

He chased shadows like they were real threats. He attacked rogues with a kind of violence that made even my Beta step back.

Every night he howled for her. Loud. Long. Broken.

No Alpha wants to admit it, but heartache changes the wolf more than the man.

When Axton howled, the pack felt it in their bones. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t dare.

But everyone knew:The Alpha was no longer whole.

And I hated how right they were.Year Two wasn’t better.

If anything, Axton was worse.

He searched every border, every mountain pass, every rogue territory we never dared to step into before. He pushed our body until I thought something would snap.

Claws torn.Paws bleeding.Fur matted with dirt and blood — sometimes ours, sometimes from whatever crossed his path.

He didn’t care.

Axton didn’t want revenge.He didn’t want answers.He wanted to FEEL her. Just one more time.

And every time we found nothing, he grew more violent.More unpredictable.More dangerous.

I handled the Alpha responsibilities with half my mind because the other half was drowning under Axton’s grief and rage.

By then I was already known as the Alpha who fought too hard, trained too long, and didn’t sleep enough.

I didn’t correct the rumors.

Let them think I was building strength.

I was really just trying not to break.Year Three broke the beast in slow motion.

Axton didn’t run as far anymore.He didn’t drag us across territories until dawn.He didn’t snap at warriors for looking at us too long.

He just… slowed.

Some days he’d lift his head like he remembered something — her voice, her scent, her laugh — then he’d lay it back down like even the memory hurt too much.

He didn’t howl anymore.

That was the worst part.

A wolf can rage, fight, hunt — but once he stops howling?

He’s losing hope.

I felt him fading in places I didn’t even know he lived.

My Beta tried to pull me back, tried to make me rest, eat, breathe — I didn’t listen. The pack felt like a weight I didn’t ask for, but someone had to run it. Someone had to keep us alive.

Axton stopped helping. He only came forward when blood was in the air or the pack was under threat.

He went from unstoppable beast…to a wounded shadow.

And that scared me more than his rage ever did.Year Four was the silence.

Axton stopped speaking.

Stopped pushing.

Stopped fighting me.

He curled deep inside me like a wolf hiding in a cave during winter — waiting for something that might never come.

The only time he came out was during battle or patrol. His movements were sharp, efficient, deadly — but empty. No instinct. No fire. Just duty.

Just survival.

And me?

I became what the elders called a Rootless Alpha.

I rebuilt the pack in those years, brick by brick, bone by bone. I didn’t do it for pride. I did it because the pack needed someone strong, and strength was the only thing I had left.

I expanded our land.Claimed territory after territory.Started businesses with humans — shipping, construction, real estate — whatever put power in my hands.

We became the Silver Moon Pack — a name I chose because Water Hope didn’t fit anymore. There was no “hope” in me left.

Alphas from Seattle to the mountains wanted alliances.Wanted trade.Wanted partnerships.

And worst of all?

They wanted their daughters to mate with me.

Every year, another meeting.Another list of offers.Another parade of daughters with pretty smiles and intentions I didn’t care to learn.

And every year I told them the same thing:

“No.”

They didn’t understand it.They thought it was arrogance.Or strategy.Or grief I’d eventually grow out of.

They didn’t get that Axton wouldn’t tolerate another female’s scent. He wouldn’t even lift his head for anyone else.

I didn’t tell them that part.

Some truths are too raw even for politics.

The elders pushed harder that fourth year.Tried to corner me.Tried to force some ancient rule about leadership and Luna responsibilities.

I shut them down so fast the room went silent.

“You want a Luna for the pack?” I told them.“You find one yourself. But I won’t take a mate to cure your discomfort.”

They complained that alliances mattered.That stability mattered.That a Luna was tradition.

I stared each one down and said:

“Tradition can kneel.”

I will never choose a woman to replace the one my wolf still bleeds for.

Not now.Not ever.

If Axton doesn’t want another mate, then neither do I.

If my wolf went quiet for the rest of my life, I’d still carry him.

And if the entire Alpha world hates me for refusing their daughters?

Let them.

I’m not the Alpha with a broken heart.

I’m the Alpha with a silenced wolf and that is far more dangerous.Some nights, I still shift and walk the borders alone not to search, not to hope, just to remind myself of who I became without her. The wind hits my fur, the moon hits my back, and Axton stays buried deep, refusing to rise. And that silence?It’s the loudest damn thing I’ve ever lived with.

And every sunrise after, I wake up knowing the one thing Axton and I still share—we’re not done breaking.