The Alpha's Contract Luna

Chapter 9

Remember.

Nadia gripped the edge of the council table.

The word had come from somewhere inside her. Not from the room, not from the people staring at her, and certainly not from her imagination.

It was there, beneath her thoughts, as clear as someone whispering directly into her ear.

Then the burning started.

She sucked in a breath and pulled her hand against her chest.

"Roman."

He was beside her before she could say anything else.

"What is it?"

"My hand. Something's wrong with my hand."

The silver mark had spread beyond the crescent. Fine lines curled around her wrist, shining beneath her skin like moonlight trapped under glass.

The council members rose from their seats.

One of them muttered a word Nadia didn't understand.

Alistair went pale.

"Everyone leave the room."

Nobody moved.

"Now!" he shouted.

That got their attention.

Chairs scraped against the floor. Two council members hurried toward the doors, while another stood frozen beside the table, staring at Nadia as though she had grown a second head.

Roman stepped between Nadia and the room.

"Stop staring at her."

The command came with a low growl that seemed to vibrate through the walls.

Nadia looked at him.

His eyes had changed. The grey was almost gone, replaced by a bright, unnatural silver.

"Roman?"

He turned toward her, and for a second, she saw something wild behind his expression.

Then he blinked.

"I'm here."

"Your eyes—"

"I know."

"That's not exactly reassuring."

"I'll work on that."

Under different circumstances, she might have laughed.

Instead, another wave of pain moved through her hand. She grabbed his sleeve.

The moment their skin touched, the mark flashed.

Every light in the room went out.

Someone screamed.

A heavy crash came from the far end of the chamber. Nadia heard footsteps, the scrape of furniture, and Roman shouting her name.

Then everything went silent.

Not ordinary silence.

This was the kind that came after a power outage in a building full of people, when even the smallest sound seemed to disappear.

Nadia couldn't see anything.

"Roman?"

"I'm here. Don't move."

"Wasn't planning to run a marathon in the dark."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh, though it was brief and strained.

A second later, emergency lights flickered on.

The council chamber returned in a dim red glow.

Nadia looked down at her hand.

The silver lines were gone.

Only the crescent remained, faint and ordinary-looking, as though nothing had happened.

Across the room, a council member lay beside an overturned chair. Darius was helping him sit up.

Alistair stood near the doors, his face drained of colour.

"What was that?" Nadia demanded.

Nobody answered.

She looked directly at Alistair.

"You keep doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Looking terrified and refusing to explain why."

His jaw tightened.

"Some things are better left undisturbed."

"Then why did you bring me here?"

Roman's expression hardened.

"Alistair. Enough."

The older man looked at Roman, then at Nadia's hand.

"The meeting is over."

"Not for me," Nadia said. "I'm not leaving until someone tells me what just happened."

Alistair hesitated.

For the first time since she had met him, he looked less like a man in control and more like someone watching an old nightmare return.

"The Mooncrest bloodline was never ordinary," he said. "Your ancestors were believed to have an unusual connection to the first wolves. They could sense things other wolves could not. Some records claim they could influence the bond between a wolf and its human."

Nadia stared at him.

"Influence it how?"

"We don't know the full extent of their abilities."

"You mean you don't know, or you won't tell me?"

"I mean the records are incomplete."

"Convenient."

Roman took her hand gently, checking the skin around the mark.

"Can we continue this somewhere private?" he asked.

Alistair nodded, though he looked as if he wanted to say more.

"Of course. But, Roman, you must understand the seriousness of what happened."

"I understand that you knew it could happen and didn't warn her."

Alistair said nothing.

That silence told Nadia more than any explanation could have.

They returned to the guest wing with Darius following close behind.

Nadia waited until they were inside the sitting room before turning on Roman.

"Don't tell me to calm down."

"I wasn't going to."

"Good. Because I'm doing a terrible job of it."

She paced toward the window and back.

"My hand lights up, the power goes out, and seven people who supposedly run an entire supernatural community look as if they've seen a ghost. Then Alistair gives me a history lesson with half the pages missing."

Roman leaned against the desk.

"I know."

"No, you don't. You grew up knowing werewolves existed. You knew what an Alpha was before you could probably tie your shoes. I found out because a man I agreed to marry had a wolf locked behind a reinforced door."

Darius cleared his throat.

Nadia glanced at him.

"Sorry. No offence."

"None taken," he said. "For what it's worth, Roman was a difficult child."

Roman gave him a flat look.

"You're enjoying this."

"A little."

Despite herself, Nadia smiled.

It lasted only a moment, but the room felt less suffocating afterward.

Darius moved toward the door.

"I'll check the records again. There may be something about the mark in the old archives."

"Don't tell the council," Roman said.

"I wasn't planning to."

Once Darius had left, Nadia sat on the sofa and studied her hand.

"Do you think I caused the blackout?"

"I think your mark reacted to something."

"Something inside me?"

"Possibly."

She looked up.

"You're being careful with your words."

"I'm trying not to give you an answer I can't prove."

That was fair. Annoyingly fair.

Nadia leaned back.

"When the lights went out, I heard something."

Roman straightened.

"What did you hear?"

"A voice. It told me to remember."

He said nothing.

"Does that mean anything to you?"

"Not yet."

"Roman."

He met her eyes.

"I believe you. I'm not hiding an explanation from you. I genuinely don't know what it means."

She watched him for a long moment.

"All right."

He seemed surprised that she accepted his answer.

"But if you find out, you tell me."

"I will."

She looked down again.

"Do you think my mother had this ability?"

"I think she knew more about your bloodline than she was able to tell you."

Nadia swallowed.

For years, she had imagined ordinary explanations for her mother's absence. A bad relationship. A desperate decision. Something painful but understandable.

Now she had to consider the possibility that Elena had been running from people who would do almost anything to find her.

"Did she leave me because of this?" Nadia asked quietly.

Roman crossed the room, then stopped a short distance away.

"I don't know."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"Because I won't lie to make you feel better."

She let out a slow breath.

"That's one thing I appreciate about you."

He hadn't expected that.

Nadia glanced at him, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then she looked away.

"Don't make it a big deal."

"I wouldn't dare."

"Good."

But when Roman returned to his room later that evening, the sound of her voice followed him.

So did the image of her hand glowing beneath the council chamber lights.

Ares was unusually quiet.

That worried him more than the growling.

At 11:40 that night, Darius knocked on Roman's door.

Roman was still awake, reading through the documents recovered from the estate archives.

"Come in."

Darius entered carrying a thin folder and a tablet.

"I found something."

Roman set the papers aside.

"Tell me."

"The council records from twenty-eight years ago refer to a gathering at the Mooncrest sanctuary. The entry is incomplete, but there's a note about an event called the First Silence."

Roman frowned.

"What was it?"

"I don't know. The page after the entry has been torn out."

"Of course it has."

"I found this in a separate file."

Darius handed him a photograph.

It showed a stone structure surrounded by trees. The roof had partially collapsed, and vines covered the walls. At the centre of the structure was a carved crescent, surrounded by symbols that looked remarkably similar to the lines that had appeared on Nadia's hand.

Roman turned the photograph over.

A date had been written on the back.

Twenty-eight years earlier.

Below it were two names.

ELENA MOONCREST.

VICTOR VEYNE.

Roman's father.

For several seconds, he couldn't speak.

Darius watched him carefully.

"You knew they had met?"

"No."

"There's more."

Roman looked up.

"The location appears to be somewhere in the northern part of the state. The exact coordinates were removed from the archive, but I may be able to recover them from an older map."

"Do it."

"Roman, if your father was involved in whatever happened at that sanctuary, we need to consider that he may not have been telling you the whole truth."

Roman stared at the photograph.

His father had warned him to protect Nadia from the council.

He had also known Elena.

Perhaps those facts were connected. Perhaps his father had helped Elena disappear. Or perhaps he had played a part in whatever the council was so afraid of.

Roman didn't know which possibility troubled him more.

"Find the sanctuary," he said. "Quietly."

Darius nodded.

As he turned to leave, Roman stopped him.

"One more thing. Keep someone near Nadia's suite, but don't let her feel watched. No one enters her room without permission."

"Understood."

"And Darius?"

"Yes?"

"If the council tries to remove her from the estate, I want to know before they reach her."

Darius's expression turned serious.

"They won't get that far."

After he left, Roman placed the photograph beside his father's letter.

Two pieces of a story that someone had spent years trying to bury.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was beginning to understand why.

Nadia woke shortly after midnight.

She sat up, breathing hard, with no clear memory of what had woken her.

Moonlight fell across the floor.

For a moment, she thought she heard someone walking outside her bedroom door. She waited, listening, but there was nothing.

Then she noticed the mark on her hand.

The crescent was glowing again.

Nadia switched on the bedside lamp.

The light made no difference.

Silver lines appeared beneath her skin, slowly spreading toward her wrist. They formed a pattern she recognised from somewhere, though she couldn't remember where.

Her eyes drifted toward the window.

Beyond the glass, the trees surrounding Blackthorn Estate moved in the wind.

And suddenly, she was no longer looking at the present.

She saw a stone building beneath a full moon. A woman stood in the doorway, holding a small child against her chest.

The woman had dark hair and silver-grey eyes.

Nadia knew her face.

"Mum?"

The woman looked straight at her.

"Don't let them take you to the sanctuary."

Nadia tried to move, but her body wouldn't respond.

"Why? What's there?"

The woman's expression broke.

"I'm sorry, Nadia."

The vision vanished.

Nadia stumbled out of bed and reached for her phone. Her hands were shaking so badly that she nearly dropped it.

She called Roman.

He answered on the second ring.

"Nadia?"

"I need you to come here."

"I'm coming."

She heard him moving, then the sound of a door opening.

"What happened?"

Nadia stared at her hand.

"I saw my mother."

Silence.

Then Roman asked, very carefully, "What did she say?"

Nadia swallowed.

"She told me not to let anyone take me to the sanctuary."

Across the estate, in his private study, Roman looked at the photograph Darius had found.

The ruined stone building.

The carved crescent.

His father's name.

He closed his eyes.

For the first time, he wondered whether protecting Nadia meant keeping her away from the Mooncrest sanctuary.

Or whether the only way to save her was to take her there before the council found it first.