The Discarded Luna

Found dead

Rhydian's POV

I turned back to Kade, my patience already gone. "What do you mean?"

He saw it immediately, the way my question landed, it gave him exactly what he wanted. A slow smile crept across his face despite the fresh bruises forming on his throat.

"So you think we didn't know," he said, his voice rough but steady. "That you killed your mate."

The words hit somewhere deep, somewhere I had spent years trying to bury under work, duty, and silence.

"Careful," I said, my voice low.

"Why?" Kade tilted his head. "Am I wrong?"

I didn't answer him. I couldn't, not right away, because the memory he'd just dragged up was already clawing its way back to my heart, whether I wanted it or not.

Sara. My first mate. Marked, bonded and she was gone within six months. The pack healer at the time searched for a cause for weeks, months even, and never found one. No poison in her blood. No wound on her body. No explanation beyond a young Luna simply not waking up one morning, cold in our bed, while I slept beside her the entire night without ever sensing anything was wrong.

Since then, I hadn't looked for another mate. Not once. Every elder who tried to arrange a match, every whispered suggestion from the council about securing the bloodline, I turned away without a second thought. I told myself it was grief. Some days I believed that. Other days, quieter days, I wondered if it was fear instead, fear that whatever had taken Sara might still be waiting somewhere close by.

Then Elara happened. A chance meeting in Blackthorn's territory, days before the full moon deadline that would have stripped the throne from me if I hadn't claimed a mate in time. I offered her the bond without hesitation, without waiting for a proper courtship, without even the comfort of an actual completed mate bond between us yet. It wasn't romantic. It was survival, plain and desperate, dressed up as something gentler in front of the pack.

Kade's voice cut back through my thoughts. "Everyone knew," he said. "You killed your mate. You're cursed, and you know it."

Something inside me snapped.

I moved before I even decided to. The pen knife was already out of my pocket, already in my hand, and I closed the distance between us faster than his eyes could track.

He didn't even have time to flinch before the blade sliced across his face, clean and precise, like cutting through a loaf of bread left out too long.

Kade cried out, clutching the wound as blood welled up quickly between his fingers.

I grabbed the edge of his shirt and wiped the blade clean without looking away from his face.

"Say it again," I said quietly.

He was breathing hard now, sweat gathering at his temple, but the smirk hadn't fully left his lips. "Touch a nerve?"

"I asked you a question earlier," I said, ignoring his attempt to bait me further. "Where is the antidote? Now I have another one. What exactly do you know about how my mate died?"

"I don't know anything," Kade said, wincing as he pressed his hand harder against the cut. "I only know what everyone in the region has whispered about for years. A Luna dies with no wound, no poison, no explanation, six months after her mate bond completes. That's not bad luck, Rhydian. That's a curse."

"Careful," I said again, lower this time.

"You already cut me once," Kade said. "What else are you going to do, kill me in my own pack?"

I leaned down closer, close enough that he had nowhere left to look but directly at me. "If it means getting a real answer out of you, don't test me."

"I don't have a real answer," he said. "That's the truth, whether you like hearing it or not."

I studied his face for a long moment, searching for the lie I desperately wanted to find there. I didn't find one. Just fear, poorly hidden behind sarcasm, and a wound slowly soaking through his face.

"Then who does," I shouted, "What do you know about Sara."

"Ask your precious uncle and your pack council," Kade said. "Maybe. He'll open up to you"

My jaw tightened at the mention of uncle Killian name in his mouth again, but before I could respond, before I could decide whether another cut was in order, the office door burst open.

Corven stood in the doorway, breathing hard, his expression grim in a way that made my stomach drop before he even said a word.

"Rhydian," he said. "We found their healer."

"And?" I asked, straightening slowly, my hand still gripping the bloodied knife at my side.

Corven's eyes flicked briefly to Kade, then back to me.

"She's dead," he said. "We found her in her room. Looks like she's been dead for hours….maybe since this morning."

The room went silent except for Kade's ragged breathing beside me.

"Dead how," I asked, though some part of me already suspected I wasn't going to like the answer.

"We're not sure yet," Corven said. "No obvious wounds. No sign of a struggle in the room. It looks almost peaceful, actually, like she just went to sleep and never woke up."

The words landed heavier than Corven probably intended, echoing something far too close to the morning I found Sara.

I looked back at Kade, whose face had gone noticeably paler despite the blood still soaking through his face.

"That's impossible," I said quietly.

"I had nothing to do with that," Kade said quickly, all the earlier smugness gone from his voice now. "I swear it, Rhydian. I didn't even know she was dead until you just said it."

I stared at him for a long moment, weighing every flicker of fear crossing his face against everything he'd already admitted, and everything he clearly hadn't.

"Search the rest of the house," I said to Corven, without looking away from Kade.

"Every room. I want to know exactly how she died, and I want to know before we leave this pack tonight."

"Already on it," Corven said, already turning back toward the hallway.

"And Corven," I added.

He paused in the doorway. "Yes?"

"Bring me whatever they find on her body. Anything unusual. Anything at all."

Corven nodded once and disappeared back down the corridor, his footsteps fading quickly into the sound of the ongoing search echoing through the rest of the pack house.

I turned back to Kade, who was watching me now with something cl

oser to genuine fear than the mocking arrogance he'd worn when we first walked through that door.