Perfect Luna, Double Crowned

Chapter 6 – Rules of War

By dawn my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Moonfang’s camp had slipped into that thin, frayed quiet that comes after too much blood. Pups snored in heaps. Warriors dropped wherever they stood. Even Rowan dozed upright against a tree, lips still moving.

I was almost through the medic‑tent flap, already half in love with the idea of sleep, when a hand closed on my elbow.

“We’re talking,” Caelan said. “Now.”

“Unless this talk involves a pillow and me unconscious, reschedule,” I muttered.

He didn’t. He steered me past the fires to the trees at the edge of camp. No one followed, but I felt eyes on us all the same.

He stopped by a fallen log. “Sit.”

“Bossy,” I said, but I sat. My knees creaked. He stayed standing, arms folded, jaw tight.

“You went to him,” he said.

Straight in, then.

“Yes,” I answered. “Stormclaw patrol almost got introduced to a truck grille. I preferred they didn’t.”

“And their Alpha?”

“Alive. Again. Trying very hard to undo my stitching.”

His gaze dipped, catching the faint Moonfang mark glowing at my throat. Under my shirt, Rylan’s fang lay warm against my skin.

“He called you,” Caelan said.

“So did you,” I said quietly. “You just sent Rowan to shout for you.”

“I sent Rowan,” he said, “because if I’d gone myself, I might have started a war in the middle of a triage tent.”

“That’s almost character development,” I said. “I’m proud.”

He didn’t smile.

“I know what you are to him,” he went on. “I can feel it. The way the forest shifts when Stormclaw howls your name. The way you flinch when I say ‘mine’ too hard.”

Something ugly twisted in my chest. “I never meant—”

“I know you didn’t choose it,” he cut in. “The Moon tied you to me. Then decided one bond wasn’t enough fun.”

He stepped closer, boots crunching in frost.

“If it were just you and me,” he said, “I’d drag you so deep into these trees the Moon would have to work to find you.”

“Romantic,” I muttered.

“Honest,” he said. “But it’s not just us. You’re my mate and this pack’s Luna. And apparently his, too.”

“Currently stopping his wolves from bleeding all over human asphalt,” I said. “That helps you as much as him.”

“I’m not arguing the logic,” he said. “I’m arguing the cost.”

Cold air bit my cheeks. The bonds under my skin thrummed—Moonfang hot and close, Stormclaw a steady pull farther off.

“So here’s what I can live with,” Caelan said. “Terms. Since fate didn’t bother asking.”

I swallowed. “Go on.”

“One: no more vanishing. If you’re going to Stormclaw, I hear it from you, not from the way the trees suddenly smell like them.”

“That’ll be a fun announcement at Council,” I said. “‘Excuse me, I have to go fix my other Alpha—’”

“Let them choke on it,” he said flatly. “If they want our Luna, they get all of her truth.”

The words hit harder than I liked.

“Two,” he went on. “You don’t walk into human guns alone again. I don’t care how clever your little smoke tricks are. You take backup. Me, Liora, someone who can throw you over a shoulder if it goes bad.”

“Authoritarian,” I muttered. But I didn’t say no.

“And three.” His eyes held mine. “When the forest isn’t on fire every other night, we tell Moonfang the truth. That the Moon marked you twice. I won’t build this pack on rumors and half‑truths and wait for it to explode.”

Ice slid down my spine. “That could crack them.”

“It’ll break them worse if they find out from an enemy mouth,” he said. “If they’re going to hate you, let it be for what’s real.”

“And if my choice, when I finally make it, isn’t you?” The question scraped my throat.

His jaw locked. For a second he didn’t answer.

“Then I’m still Alpha of Moonfang,” he said at last. “I still keep them fed and breathing. I just… learn how to do it with a hole where you sit.”

I stared at him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Probably.”

I stood because sitting still with that in my chest hurt worse. For one reckless second I stepped into him, resting my forehead against his chest. He froze, then his hands settled, careful, between my shoulder blades.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” I muttered.

“No,” he said into my hair. “But it stops us sharpening knives on each other while everything else burns.”

The two bonds inside me hummed together for one strange, balanced beat.

Then a tug brushed my senses—Stormclaw’s call, soft, questioning. Rylan reaching, not with pain this time. Just… checking.

I pulled back, meeting Caelan’s eyes.

“See?” I said. “Your terms are already under stress testing.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Answer him.”

“I’m exhausted,” I said. “And apparently under new management.”

“Tell him that,” Caelan said. “Word for word.”

Despite everything, a laugh slipped out. I closed my eyes, sent a single steady pulse along the Stormclaw bond: later, alive, not in danger.

It eased.

When I looked back at Caelan, something in his gaze had shifted. Less fury. More reluctant respect.

“My turn,” I said.

His brows rose. “You have terms too?”

“I’m not a trophy in a tug‑of‑war,” I said. “If either of you turns this into a contest, I walk. From both packs. From both of you.”

His nostrils flared. Then he nodded, once. “Fair.”

Wind moved through the pines, cold and clean.

“Go sleep, Kaela,” he said. “Before I decide the only way to keep you in one place is to sit on you.”

“Threats, threats,” I muttered, but my bones were already dragging me toward the medic tent.

Two packs. Two kings.

And for the first time, the rules for loving them both weren’t just chaos in my head.