The Unclaimed Luna

Chapter 2: The Alpha's Arrival

The wolves hit her from both sides.

Sera went down hard, the platform's wooden edge slamming into her spine. Pain exploded through her ribs. She twisted, bringing the silver knife up blindly, and felt it connect with flesh. One of the wolves howled and jerked back, but the other's jaws clamped around her forearm.

She screamed.

The pressure was immense, teeth grinding against bone. Her blood ran hot down her arm, soaking into her ceremonial dress. The wolf shook its head, trying to tear, and Sera's vision went white at the edges.

The mate bond was a living thing in her chest now, pulling so hard she thought it might rip her apart from the inside. She could feel Matthias, actually feel him, running toward her with every ounce of speed his wolf form possessed. Feel his rage, his fear, emotions so strong they burned through the walls he'd spent seven years building.

But he was too far away.

The gray wolf that had lunged first circled back, favoring its wounded shoulder but still deadly. Its eyes locked on her throat. Sera kicked at the wolf holding her arm, connected with its ribs, and bought herself nothing. The gray wolf crouched, muscles bunching.

"Enough." The scarred man's voice cut through the snarling. "We need her alive for now."

The wolf on her arm released with a wet sound that made Sera's stomach turn. She scrambled backward, clutching her mangled forearm to her chest. Blood poured between her fingers. The healing magic that should have risen instinctively to close the wound stuttered and failed; her wolf was too weak, too damaged by seven years of bond neglect.

"On your feet, Luna." The man watched her with clinical interest. "Unless you'd prefer, I let them finish."

Sera's legs shook as she stood. The clearing spun. She'd lost too much blood too quickly, and her body was going into shock. She tried to focus on the bond, on the feel of Matthias getting closer, but everything was getting fuzzy around the edges.

"Why?" Her voice came out hoarse. "What do you want with an unclaimed Luna?"

"Leverage." The man smiled. "Your Alpha made himself vulnerable when he rejected you. Left a crack in the pack's foundation. We're simply exploiting it."

"Matthias won't negotiate for me." The words tasted like ash, but they were true. Seven years had taught her exactly how little she meant to him. "I'm nothing to him."

"No?" The man tilted his head. "Then why does his howl sound like a wolf who's lost his mate?"

Sera's heart stuttered. She pushed through the pain and blood loss, reaching for the bond. Matthias was close now, maybe a mile away, maybe less. And underneath his rage and fear was something else, something she'd never felt from him before.

Desperation.

The bond pulled tighter, and for the first time in seven years, she felt him pull back. Not pushing her away. Not walling her off. Actually reaching for her through the connection they'd never completed.

It hurts worse than a wolf bite.

"He's coming," the scared man observed calmly. "Faster than I expected. Interesting." He gestured to the wolves. "Take her. We are moving now."

The gray wolf lunged for her again, but this time Sera was ready. She threw herself sideways, her boots finding purchase on the platform's edge. The knife was still in her good hand, slick with her own blood, but sharp. She slashed at the wolf's face as it passed, opening a line across its muzzle.

It yelped and recoiled.

"Stubborn," the man said. "I can appreciate that. But you're bleeding out, and you can't shift to heal. How long do you think you can fight?"

Not long. Sera's vision was graying at the edges. Her arm hung useless at her side, still pouring blood. She needed to shift, needed her wolf to heal the damage, but every time she reached for that part of herself, she found only weakness and pain.

The incomplete bond had been killing her slowly for seven years. Tonight it might finally finish the job.

The three wolves began to close in, moving in perfect coordination. Pack tactics, which meant these rogues hadn't been alone as long as their appearance suggested. They'd been trained. Organized.

This was planned.

The realization cut through Sera's pain-fogged mind. These weren't random rogues driven mad by isolation. This was an attack. Calculated. Timed to the full moon hunt when the Alpha would be distracted and Luna would be alone.

They'd been watching Silverpine. Studying them. Waiting for exactly this moment.

"Who sent you?" Sera demanded, backing up until her shoulders hit the ceremonial post at the platform's center. Nowhere left to go.

The man's smile widened. "Someone who believes incomplete bonds are a weakness that needs to be eliminated. You're proof of that, Luna. Seven years of slow death because your Alpha was too afraid to claim you."

The words shouldn't have hurt. Sera had taught them herself a thousand times. But hearing them speak aloud, with her blood pooling on the ceremonial platform and Matthias still too far away to help, they hit like physical blows.

"He wasn't afraid," she said, though she wasn't sure who she was defending anymore. "He made a choice."

"A choice that leaves you vulnerable. That left your pack vulnerable." The man took another step forward. "That's what we're counting on."

The bond flared again, so bright and hot that Sera gasped. Matthias was close, close enough that she could feel his wolf's presence like thunder in her bones. Close enough that his emotions were flooding through the connection: rage, fear, and underneath it all, something that felt dangerously close to grief.

She didn't understand it. Didn't understand any of this.

The tree line exploded.

Matthias's wolf was a force of nature, massive and dark and moving with the kind of speed that shouldn't be possible for something his size. He hit the gray wolf mid-leap, jaws closing around its throat. The sound of bones cracking echoed across the clearing.

The other two wolves turned to face him, but they were already too late.

The rest of the Silverpine pack poured from the forest, dozens of wolves, warriors and hunters and anyone strong enough to fight. They'd all come. Abandoned the hunt, abandoned the ceremony's tradition, came running because their Alpha had called, and the bond had screamed danger.

They'd come for their Luna.

Sera's legs gave out. She slid down the post, leaving a smear of blood on the wood. Her vision was tunneling, darkness creeping in from the edges. She could hear fighting, snarls and howls and the wet sounds of teeth meeting flesh, but it seemed very far away.

The bond pulsed, and suddenly Matthias was there.

Human again. Kneeling in front of her. His hands, warm and large and surprisingly gentle, cupped her face, tilting her head up so he could look into her eyes.

"Sera." His voice was rough, his pupils still blown wide from the wolf. "Stay with me. Don't you dare,"

"I'm fine," she tried to say, but the words wouldn't come out right. Everything was spinning.

"You're not fine. You're bleeding out." His gaze dropped onto his mangled arm, and something dark and terrible moved across his face. "Who did this? Which one?"

"Does it matter?" The question came out bitterly. She was dying, and he'd barely spoken to her in seven years, and now he was acting like her pain was his pain. Like he actually cared.

The bond said he did. The bond was screaming it, actually, emotions pouring through so fast and strong that Sera couldn't process them all. But the bond was a liar. It had been lying to her for seven years, making her want someone who'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

"It matters." Matthias's hands moved into her arms, and she hissed in pain. "It all matters. I need,Jorah! I need a healer!"

"I am the healer," Sera reminded him. The irony was sharp enough to cut. "But I can't shift. My wolf won't come."

Something broke in his expression. "Because of me. Because I,"

"Don't." She couldn't hear him apologize. Couldn't hear him admit guilt when she was bleeding out on the platform where he'd rejected her seven years ago. "Just don't."

Footsteps pounded on the wood. Jorah appeared, still in wolf form, with a leather pack clamped in his jaws. He shifted, quick and efficient, and started pulling out supplies. "The rogues?"

"Dead or running." Matthias didn't take his eyes off Sera. "How bad is it?"

Jorah examined her arm, and his silence was answer enough. "She needs to shift to heal this. The damage is too extensive for field medicine."

"She can't shift."

"Then we need to get her to the healing wards. Now," Jorah was already wrapping a tourniquet around her upper arm, his movements quick and competent. "She'd lost a lot of blood. If her wolf doesn't heal her,"

"She'll die." Matthias finished the sentence, and his voice was so hollow that Sera almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"I've been dying for seven years," she heard herself say. "This is just faster."

Matthias's hands tightened on her face. "No. That's not,I won't let you."

"You don't get to decide that." The words came out sharp despite the blood loss, despite the pain. "You gave up the right to decide anything about me when you rejected the bond."

The fighting had stopped. Sera could feel wolves gathering around the platform, Silverpine pack, watching their Alpha and unclaimed Luna, probably wondering why Matthias looked like his heart was being carved out of his chest when he'd spent seven years pretending she didn't exist.

"I made a mistake." Matthias's voice was low, meant only for her, and the raw honesty in it made her chest ache. "I made a mistake, and you've been paying for it, and I,"

"Stop." Sera tried to pull away, but her body wasn't listening anymore. "Don't do this. Don't pretend you care just because guilt feels bad."

"It's not guilt." His thumb brushed her cheekbone, and the tenderness of it was devastating. "Sera, it was never,I never meant for this. For any of this."

"Then what did you mean?" She shouldn't ask. Shouldn't give him the opening. But she was bleeding out on the platform where their bond had died before it ever lived, and she thought maybe she'd earned the right to one honest answer. "What were you trying to do?"

Matthias looked at her, and something in his expression shifted. The walls he'd built between them through the bond, walls she'd been crashing against for seven years, cracked.

Everything poured through.

Pain. Longing. Regret so deep it felt like drowning. And underneath it all, threading through everything else, was wanted. Raw and desperate and completely overwhelming.

He'd wanted her. This entire time, through every day of rejection and distance and careful neutrality, he'd wanted her so badly it had nearly destroyed him.

"I was trying to protect you," he said, and his voice broke with words. "I watched my mother die because my father's mate's bond made him weak. Made him hesitate. I thought if I never claimed you, if I kept the bond incomplete, I could keep you safe from that. From me."

The confession hung in the air between them.

Sera stared at him, at the man who'd spent seven years making her feel worthless because he thought he was protecting her. The anger should have come first, but what rose up instead was grief, for all the time they'd lost, for all the pain they'd both endured, for the mate bond that had been slowly killing them both.

"You're an i***t," she whispered.

"I know."

"Protecting me by destroying me. That's," Her vision blurred. Not from blood loss this time. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I know," he said again, and his hand was in her hair now, cradling her head like she was something precious. "I'm sorry. Sera, I'm so sorry."

The darkness at the edges of her vision was closing in fast. Jorah was saying something about getting her to the wards, about time running out, but Sera couldn't focus on anything except Matthias's face and the bond between them that was finally, after seven years, telling her the truth.

"If I die," she managed, "you don't get to feel guilty about it."

"You're not going to die." Matthias's voice was pure Alpha command, like he could order himself to back down. "I won't

Allow it."

"Not your choice," Sera said, and then the darkness swallowed her whole.

The last thing she felt was the mates bond blazing between them like a star.