THE LUNA WHO WALKED AWAY

Judith's POV Morning comes too early and brings Benjamin with him. I woke to a pounding on the cottage door and dragged myself off the couch where I fell asleep still dressed in yesterday's clothes, every muscle aching and my wolf barely stirring. The pounding continues, and I recognize the particular rhythm of an impatient alpha who is used to immediate obedience, so I pull open the door to find Benjamin standing on the porch with two cups of coffee and an expression that promises nothing good. "We need to talk," he says, pushing past me into the cottage without waiting for an invitation, and he sets both coffees on the small kitchen table before turning to face me with arms crossed. "Now." I closed the door and leaned against it for support, buying myself a few seconds to gather thoughts that scattered the moment his scent filled the small space, and he looked every bit the powerful alpha except for the tension in his shoulders that tells me he did not sleep any better than I did. "You said I had thirty days," I remind him, wrapping my arms around myself and trying not to notice how the mate bond pulls harder with him standing so close. "I thought I would have time to prepare what to say." "You have had seven years to prepare," Benjamin shoots back, and there is that cold fury again, ice over deep water. "You do not get more time to craft pretty lies, so you tell me the truth right now, all of it, or I withdraw my permission for you to stay, and you can die somewhere else." The threat lands like a physical blow and I see him register my flinch with grim satisfaction, wanting me to hurt the way he hurt, and I cannot blame him for it even though my chest feels like it is splitting open. I move to the table and wrap my hands around one of the coffee cups for warmth I do not really feel, staring into the dark liquid while trying to find words for something I never wanted to explain. "There is something wrong with my bloodline," I begin quietly, and Benjamin goes very still in a way that makes my wolf whimper. "Something that has killed the women in my family for generations, and I found out about it two weeks before our mating ceremony." "What kind of something?" Benjamin asks, his voice dropping to that dangerous tone that makes pack members back away but only draws me closer because some broken part of me still responds to his alpha presence. "A curse," I whisper, and the word feels as heavy as stones dropping into water. "It activates in women who mate with alphas and bear their children, turning us into creatures on blood moons that lose all humanity and kill without mercy or control." The silence stretches between us while Benjamin processes this information and I watch emotions flicker across his face, disbelief and horror and anger and something that might be grief for the choice I thought I had to make. "My grandmother killed twelve pack members before they put her down and my mother died before I understood what was happening to her," I continued, needing him to understand the weight of what I was protecting him from. "I left because I loved you too much to let that happen, too much to risk becoming something that would destroy you and everything you built." Benjamin moves suddenly, and I flinch, but he only crosses to the window to stare out at the forest with his back rigid and his hands clenched at his sides. "You could have told me," he finally says, but his voice lacks conviction and we both know it. "There was no other way, and you would have insisted we try to fight it," I say, standing on shaking legs because sitting feels wrong when everything is falling apart. "I could not watch you die trying to save me from something that has no cure." He spins around, and his eyes flash with alpha power that makes my weak wolf press low in submission. "You do not get to decide what I am willing to die for, Judith, that is my choice to make, not yours, and you stole it from me." The accusation hits hard because he is right, and I have no defense except fear and love twisted together until I could not tell them apart, so I force myself to stand even though my legs barely hold me. "You are right," I admit simply, letting him see the desperation that drove me away. "I was wrong to run without telling you and wrong to let you think it was your fault, and I am sorry for every night you spent hurting because of my choices." Benjamin crosses the room in three long strides, and suddenly he is right in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body and see the gold flecks in his green eyes, and the mate bond surges between us so strongly that I gasp at the intensity. "Do not call me Ben," he growls, but there is less ice in his voice now and more heat that makes my skin flush. "That name belongs to someone who does not exist anymore, someone you killed when you walked away." Before I can respond, before I can apologize again or beg for forgiveness I do not deserve, his phone buzzes with a message that makes his whole body go rigid, and when he reads it, his expression shifts from anger to something colder and more dangerous. "Get dressed properly," he orders, stepping back and severing the connection between us that was just starting to feel like breathing again. "We have a packed dinner tonight, and you are coming with me, and after that, we are going to discuss exactly what this curse does and how we are going to handle it." He leaves before I can agree or protest, and I stand alone in the cottage with my heart racing because I had just told him the beginning of the truth, but the worst parts are still hiding in the shadows, and somehow I have to survive a pack dinner knowing that everyone will be watching the bond-breaker who came back to die. My phone buzzes with a message from an unknown number and the words make my blood run cold. "He knows you are back, does he know what you really are?”