THE LUNA HE REFUSED TO CLAIM

CHAPTER 3 - THE WOLF THAT NEVER CAME

I couldn’t wait for my wolf to awaken.

It was the first time in a long while that I had felt this excited—this hopeful. I had turned eighteen a few months ago, and still… nothing. No shift. No voice in my head. No sense of belonging.

The Luna had told me it was normal.

Some wolves awakened late.

She had smiled when she said it, her hand warm against my shoulder, her eyes gentle. She always spoke to me like I mattered. Like I was hers.

She had been gone for two years now.

The pack mourned her as their Luna.

I mourned her as the only mother I had ever known.

Since her death, everything felt colder.

No one said it outright, but the way they looked at me had changed. Like whatever protection I once had died with her. Like I was only still here because no one had bothered to send me away.

Kade made sure I remembered that.

Every sharp look.

Every clipped order.

Every reminder that I wasn’t Nightclaw.

“You’re not one of us,” he liked to say—never loudly, never cruelly. Just enough to sting. Just enough to remind me where I stood.

An outsider.

All I had ever been told about my past was that I got separated during a war. That my pack never came looking. That Nightclaw took me in out of mercy.

But sometimes—late at night, when the moon was full and the pack howled—I felt something stir deep inside me.

Something restless.

Something waiting.

And I knew—

When my wolf finally awakened, everything would change.

Sometimes I wonder if my wolf is late because it doesn’t know where to go.

Maybe it’s confused.

Maybe it’s waiting for something I can’t give it.

Everyone else talks about the moment their wolf awakened like it was a celebration—heat, power, pride. For me, it feels like a countdown. Like I’m running out of time and no one has bothered to tell me what happens if it never comes.

The Luna used to tell me not to rush fate. That some things arrive only when we’re ready. I believed her then. I still want to. But believing is harder when the nights grow longer and the pack howls without you.

Since she died, the pack feels louder and lonelier at the same time. The halls echo. The glances linger. The kindness feels… careful. Measured. Like it can be taken back at any moment.

If she were still alive, she would have noticed the way my chest tightens during full moons. The way something restless stirs beneath my skin, desperate but silent. She would have told me what it meant.

Kade never does.

He doesn’t offer comfort. He offers reminders. Of rules. Of boundaries. Of where I stand.

Not Nightclaw.

Not claimed.

Not important.

And yet, whenever he’s near, my thoughts tangle. My pulse quickens for reasons I don’t understand. It’s infuriating. Embarrassing. I tell myself it’s just nerves—just resentment.

I don’t want to care what he thinks of me.

I don’t want to feel this strange awareness every time he enters a room, like the air shifts around him. Like my body knows something my mind refuses to name.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t sense him at first.

The air changed.

Heavier. Sharper.

I looked up—

And Kade was standing there.

Watching me like he was trying to decide something.

My chest tightened, my breath hitching for no reason I could explain.

And for the first time in my life…

I was afraid of what my wolf might do if it finally woke up.