The Warrior Luna's New Bond After Divorce

Chapter 4

Ruby POV

I sigh at her arrogance, at my own blindness. My wolf is sealed, but the training isn’t. She never would have won against me.

I let the chain slip from my fingers and step to the side. Left foot plants as my hip turns and I drive a short cross up from the floor, knuckles stacked, wrist locked, elbow tight. My fist lands under her right cheekbone with a dull pop. Her teeth click, and spit escapes into the air. Her eyes go glassy.

I catch her by the back of her dress to control the fall and angle her weight to the stone so it doesn’t make a louder sound than it already has. I ease her down to the floor and ease her onto her side. Breath flutters against my wrist; shallow, fast. Her lashes tremble once and then settle. She’s out.

“Foolish,” I whisper. Not just for her coming here alone, but me for thinking I was safe or wanted here.

I used to mistake warmth for safety, a ring on my hand for a promise no one could break. Jake taught me that a house can be a trap if the door only opens one way. The dungeon just makes it honest. I am not his Luna here. I am what I've always been. A fighter with alpha blood who forgot to keep her guard up.

The knife lies near my foot, its silver ugly in the dim light; I kick it under the cot with the edge of my boot until it disappears into dust and shadow. The whistle has spun to rest by the wall. I scoop it, twist its chain through itself so that it can't sound by accident, and slip it over my head beneath my tunic where its chill presses against my sternum.

A shimmer of brass shines at her hip; two rings of keys, thick with teeth withered by years of use. I strip them free, flex my aching hand, and listen.

The hall hums with an electric buzz; the sour smell of damp stone and bleach fills the air. I slip through the door, pull it quietly shut, and turn the key back into the lock from the outside. The latch catches with a single, gentle, satisfied click that I feel more than I can hear. I stand a moment, arm on the wood, and let the silence spread. My first moment of peace in a while.

Heel to toe, I follow the shadow where the wall and floor meet. Far ahead, two voices rise and fall, a petty argument over rations; whose turn to take the good bread, who swapped the stew ladle with the mop bucket again. At the corner, I pause and count breaths. One, two, three, the way we were taught for timing. Then slip past while one guard turns aside to sneeze and curse the wind. Stairs lift up in a tight spiral; moisture slicks the edges, and my palm slides along the cold iron rail to steady myself.

At the top, the air thins and grows colder. I smell pine sap and old smoke, and the night feels sharp in my lungs. I slip through the scuffed service door into a yard cracked with frost. Beyond it, black trees ring the compound like a warning. I hug the wall, test the weight of the keys in my fist, and cross the open strip of ground at an angle, keeping low. The lights buzz loud enough to hide my steps.

No alarm yet. But silence is a liar. I’ve learned that. It waits until you believe it.

The forest swallows me. Needles soften my steps and bark snags at my sleeves. I find a faint game trail that zigzags around fallen logs and bends toward the ridge. I stick to the darker undergrowth where ferns and dead branches break a clear line of sight. I can't shift, and I won't outrun a patrol in the open, so I use what I have. Angles, cover, and quiet.

Behind me, the keep wakes up. Shouted names, the clank of a gate pin, boots falling into a rhythmic beat. The whistle at my chest taps my sternum. I almost blow it, then don’t. What if I blow it and those after me come instead?

The slope gets steeper. Cold air pools in the dips and curls around my ankles. I hear the river now, not singing but grinding at the rock far below. The ravine cuts a black mouth through the territory. I angle toward the sound; water slows chase, and the far bank means choices.

A heavy step snaps a branch behind me, too heavy for a guard. Another step follows, slow and sure, like the ground already belongs to them. The air tightens. I know the rhythm, I know that pull along my spine.

Jake.

The name hits like someone striking a bell. I remember the first night by the battlefield fire, the way he cupped my burned knuckles and called me brave. I held that version of him like a relic. Seeing him now, half-shifted, claws out, forces the two versions of him together until it hurts.

His scent threads through the pines: cedar, iron, something wild, and I don’t need to see him to be certain. I sink into a crouch, fingers brushing the needles, mapping exits. The brush stirs, and he slips into view between the trunks, gold bright in his eyes and claws half out.

He roars, a raw sound that tears through the quiet of the forest and charges straight at me. I bolt for the spruce whose branches sweep the ground and scramble up into its cover, hauling myself hand over hand. I spread my weight along the trunk and press my forearms to the bark until it bites and holds. The lowest limb sits a man’s height off the ground; I’m tucked about eight feet up now, the trunk thick as both my thighs together. The clearing runs twenty strides across, and beyond it, the tree line breaks toward the ravine.

Below, Jake hits the clearing hard, claws scoring the needles as he spins, hunting for me in the shadows. He stops under the spruce, nostrils flaring, head tilted like he's listening for my heartbeat. His gaze lifts and his eyes meet mine.

“There you are,” Jake says, almost too calm. “Get down.”

The word tugs under my skin, a thin hook of Alpha command. I grind my teeth and press my forearms harder into the trunk until the sting clears my head.

“You used to ask,” I say, voice low. “Back when you remembered I was a person.”

His jaw tightens. “Back when you remembered you had a duty.”

“No,” I say. My voice shakes, but I stand my ground.

His mouth curls. “Don’t make me drag you. You’re done with this tantrum. Come down and walk back with me, or I’ll make you.”

“You married a warrior,” I tell him.

“I married a bloodline,” he answers, like it’s kinder to say it plain.

“You married a womb,” I say, and the truth lands between us with a more complex sound than any branch he’s broken tonight.

I shift my weight along the limb and glance past him. Through the break in the trees, I can see it now. The edge where the ground drops away. It’s close. From this branch to the needles, three strides to the brush, three more to the edge if I don’t trip. The river flows far below, fast enough to carry me if I can slide to it.

“Last time,” he says. “Down.”

I don’t give him time for any more words. I swing, drop from the branch, and hit the needles in a crouch. My knees jar; pain jumps up my legs, but I’m already moving. I cut left around scrub grass, push through the brush, and run for the open where the earth simply ends.

“Ruby!” His shout breaks into a snarl, and the ground thunders behind me.

I don’t look back. I count: one, two. Then throw myself forward on three. For a blink, I’m flying, nothing under me but cold air and moonlight, then my boots slam a narrow bed of rock. The impact bursts sparks behind my eyes. I catch myself on hands and toes and start to slide, little stones hissing under me toward the drop.

He lands almost on top of me.

Claws rip across my back, hot and fast. The pain is white and everywhere. Air leaves my chest in a hard grunt. I taste iron. My palms skid; the rock gnaws skin from my hands. I pitch onto my side and the world tilts, the river opening its mouth below.

I spit blood and crawl. Not fast, not strong, just stubborn. Elbows, heels, elbows again, dragging myself toward the rock face where the rock rises an inch and might keep me from rolling clean off. Every breath scrapes. Every heartbeat is a hammer.

“Give up,” Jake says from above, voice steady like we’re discussing dinner and not my life.

He always sounds reasonable when he wants something. It’s the tone that convinced me to step back from the unit, the one that turned a warrior’s life into a Luna’s calendar. I thought compromise would make room for both of us. Turns out there was only ever room for him.

He paces along the lip ten feet above me, his shadow moving with him. “Stop struggling and come back. You know what you’re for. Bear my child and be done playing soldier.”

I look up at him. For the first time, I see him without the soft edges I kept giving him. His eyes are bright and cold. My blood is on his claws. The hate that rushes in isn't loud, it's heavy.

“No,” I say. It comes out quiet, but clear enough.

The wind off the ravine slips over my skin and into the torn places on my back. My fingers find a thin crack in the stone and hook in. It runs six inches, just enough for two knuckles. The rock around it is flaked, but I hang on. It trembles under me. Jake crouches, ready to jump down to finish whatever this is.

A sound lifts through the trees. Far off at first, then threading closer. Three short calls, a pause, then two long. My code.

Someone heard me.

Hope flares so sharp it almost hurts. I drag air into my raw throat and try to answer. The howl scrapes like glass on the way out, but it still carries.

Jake's head snaps toward the sound. His lips peel back from his teeth. “Enough,” he growls, and the command swells again, heavy as a hand on the back of my neck. My grip slips. My arms shake. The edges of the world blur.

Hold, I tell myself. Just one more breath. One more second.

My body doesn’t listen. It goes loose all at once, like a knot coming undone. The rock slides out from under my fingers. The sky narrows to a thin strip of silver between the trees. I hear the answering roar again, closer now. Many voices layered together, and I try to call back, but my mouth won’t shape the sound.

Come on! Please!