My Rouge Luna

Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The Midnight Lake

Christa’s P.O.V.

The lake was quiet tonight. Too quiet. The kind of silence that felt heavy, expectant, like even the Moon herself was holding her breath.

Serenity paced the shoreline like a caged wolf, her hazel eyes bright and sharp. Aaliyah sat on a flat stone, her red locs spilling around her shoulders, fingers flickering with sparks of restrained magic.

They didn’t look at me when I arrived. Not at first. But they didn’t have to. They already knew why I’d come.

“I spoke to the healer,” I began, my voice rough.

That got their attention. Serenity stopped pacing, fixing me with a stare that made my stomach twist. Aaliyah’s magic dimmed, but her eyes were worse—dark, patient, waiting for the blade to fall.

“She felt something,” I said, pressing a hand to my stomach. “An omen. The possibility of life.”

The words hung heavy in the night air.

Serenity’s chest rose and fell too fast. “No. No, Christa—tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

I swallowed hard. “She didn’t confirm it. But if the Moon’s right… I may be carrying Carlos’s child.”

Aaliyah rose from the stone, her movements too slow, too controlled. “Do you hear yourself? First you let him mark you, then you let him mate you, and now—” She cut herself off, breathing sharp through her nose. “Now you give him the one thing no law, no council, no Alpha can deny. An heir.”

“I didn’t give him anything!” My voice cracked like a whip across the lake. “It wasn’t a choice, Aaliyah. You think I wanted this? That I wanted to wake up branded like cattle? That I wanted to feel his wolf clawing at mine every second of the day?”

Serenity’s fists trembled at her sides. “And yet you stayed. And yet you let him touch you. And now you carry the consequences.”

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to beg her to understand. Instead, I sank to my knees in the dirt, clutching at the earth as if it could anchor me. “Do you think I don’t grieve Normani? Do you think I don’t feel her blood every time I look at Carlos? But if the omen is true, then Normani’s justice… it has to wait. Because if I die, if this child dies, everything she suffered for will be buried with us.”

Aaliyah’s magic flared, blue fire crackling between her fingers, lighting her face with something halfway between rage and heartbreak. “You sound like them. Like one of them. The pack that slaughtered our sister.”

Serenity’s voice was quieter, but it cut deeper. “Or worse. You sound like you’ve already chosen him.”

The words shattered me. Because part of me knew they were right.

I turned toward the lake, its rippling surface fractured under the weight of the moonlight. “Maybe I did,” I whispered. “Maybe I don’t have aa choice anymore.”

Neither of them answered. The silence between us was thick enough to choke on.

When I finally looked back, my sisters were gone. Melted into the forest like ghosts.

And I was left kneeling by the water, clutching a future I never asked for, knowing it was already too late to turn back.