Coming Back as Enemy's Luna

35. Respect

= Mikael =

Cutting my father and brother out of my life hadn’t been difficult. It should have happened the moment I took the Alpha title—clean, decisive, final. And yet, I hadn’t done it then.

Not because I owed them anything.

But I showed them mercy.

Not because they deserved it—but because blood still meant something to me. Because no matter how fractured we had become, they were still my family.

I let them stay.

Even when every instinct screamed for me to exile them, to strip them of the protection they no longer respected. I wanted distance. Finality. Silence. But banishment would have done more than punish them—it would have provoked the Elders. And the council never forgot a slight, especially when it came from someone like me.

They reminded me often of my father.

Of how he had fulfilled every duty without complaint. Of how he had served the Veyrath Pack with loyalty until he was replaced by me. His name was still currency among them, still a shield they wielded when it suited their purpose.

So I swallowed my fury.

I chose restraint over rebellion, peace over pride.

And if I couldn’t cast them out…

Then I would isolate them instead.

I offered them a place at the edges of the territory, far enough from the heart of the pack to keep their presence from poisoning it, close enough that their disgrace wouldn’t turn into an open spectacle. It was my way of containing the damage. Of sparing the pack from the uglier truths while giving them the illusion of dignity.

An opportunity, I’d told myself.

A chance to exist without dragging the rest of us down with them.

They hadn’t earned it.

And they hadn’t respected it either.

It was never surprising to see one of them show up uninvited at a gathering—drunk, causing a scene, resurrecting old failures as if repetition could somehow rewrite history. Each appearance was a reminder of battles already lost, mistakes already buried. And every time, they made damn sure the wounds reopened.

If I was being honest, they’d been nothing but a persistent irritation. A thorn I should have removed as soon as I became the Alpha.

Last night, though—that had been different.

Last night had snapped whatever restraint I had left.

Enough was enough.

I had delayed long enough. Boundaries needed to be drawn. Limits enforced. And this time, I wasn’t going to soften the edges for anyone’s sake.

“Alpha.”

Lorne’s voice reached me the moment I stepped out of the council hall, pulling me back into the present. I turned to see him approaching with his usual sharp efficiency—already moving like he knew my schedule better than I did.

Good. He’s here.

I’d been about to send for him anyway—needed an update on the investigation into Amara’s a*******n. That wasn’t something I could afford to let slip into the background, not with everything already moving at a frustratingly slow pace. We were still crawling when it came to uncovering Amara’s true identity, and I refused to let this case drag on alongside it.

Time was a luxury I didn’t have.

I needed names. Faces. Suspects—now. The longer the trail went cold, the greater the risk. And the last thing I wanted was to find Amara in danger again.

She was my leverage.

My key.

My revenge now depended on her staying alive and untouched, and I wouldn’t allow anyone—ally or enemy—to damage the one piece I needed intact.

Amara had done her part. She gave us descriptions of the people who took her. I made sure the investigation stayed covert, handled quietly and without drawing attention. No rumors. No loose ends.

And yet, the problem remained.

But none of her descriptions matched any of them. Not their faces. Not their builds. Not their mannerisms. Which meant either someone was wearing my pack’s shadow… or someone wanted it to look that way.

Neither possibility sat well with me.

When I finally spoke, my voice was steady, even, betraying none of the tension coiled beneath my skin.

“Good thing you’re here,” I said. “I want a follow-up on the a*******n investigation.”

“The deltas are still in the field, Alpha,” Lorne reported as he walked beside me. “Based on Miss Amara’s description, the suspects were careful. Too careful. They didn’t leave much behind.”

I said nothing, but my jaw tightened.

“The teams I assigned are having difficulty tracing any solid leads,” he continued. “They’re still actively searching for the suspects, but progress is…slow.”

My teeth ground together as irritation flared. Of course it was. Whoever they were, they knew how to disappear. I should have expected nothing less.

“Double the manpower,” I said without slowing my stride. “If you have to pull from other units, do it. I want them found.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Lorne replied, dipping his head in immediate acknowledgement.

I shifted my focus back to the day ahead, already mentally rearranging my schedule as I headed toward my next appointment.

We hadn’t gone far when Lorne spoke again.

“And Alpha,” he said, his tone changing just enough to catch my attention. “There’s something else I need to report.”

I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “What is it?”

“There’s movement near the border,” he revealed, falling into step beside me. “It needs your attention.”

I gave a single nod and continued outside the premises of the council hall, my pace steady as we left the building behind. My first meeting for this morning was over, but the weight of it still clung to my shoulders. Lorne walked beside me in silence, his footsteps matched to mine with practiced precision.

His silence told me everything.

When he had something on his mind, he usually filled the space with commentary, small observations, anything to keep the air moving. But now, he said nothing. His gaze stayed fixed on the road ahead, hands steady, jaw set. No sideways glances. No passing remarks.

He was holding something back.

I could hear it in the absence of sound, feel it in the way the moment stretched longer than it should have. Whatever he wanted to say, he was weighing it carefully—deciding whether or not I was ready to hear it. He probably knew how packed my day was. Knew this wasn’t the right moment.

Still, the quiet pressed against me until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“What is it?” I asked, turning slightly toward him.

My schedule flashed through my mind—my next meeting was in the West District, an hour run from the Council Hall.

I didn’t slow down. My schedule wouldn’t allow it. The rice mill was next on my list—one of the workers had requested my presence personally to settle a brewing dispute between the mill and several local farmers. Small issues had a way of festering if left alone, and I preferred to crush problems before they learned how to grow teeth.

“There have been…issues,” Lorne said at last, choosing his words with care.

I stopped.

The suddenness of it made him freeze as well. He straightened instinctively, shoulders squared, standing at attention like a soldier awaiting orders. I turned to face him, my expression already hardening.

“What issues?” I said. “Elaborate.”

His face remained neutral—professional, disciplined—but I knew him well enough to see the tension beneath it. After a brief pause, he began his report.

“There was a heated exchange earlier today,” he said. “At the market. A small one.”

My jaw tightened.

“And Miss Amara was involved.”

That earned my full attention.

“She was assisting an elderly woman with her groceries,” Lorne continued. “The assistance was taken the wrong way by another party—interpreted as condescension, or interference. The old woman attempted to explain Miss Amara’s intentions, but the discussion escalated before it could be resolved.”

I exhaled slowly, the breath heavy in my chest.

A public scene.

“A commotion,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

And somehow, I already knew this wouldn’t be the last time her name crossed my path today.

The memory of last night hit me without warning.

Last night—her voice, her eyes, the way the air between us had felt tight and charged—I remembered it all too clearly. I had cornered her with doubts, with questions sharpened by the pack’s uncertainty. I tried to break her confidence, to see if the idea of being rejected again and again would finally intimidate her. I expected her to back down. To quit.

I should have known better.

No woman who carried rumors like hers ever bowed that easily. Stories didn’t spread without reason. There was no smoke without fire, and whatever burned inside her had been glowing long before I decided to test it.

The look in her eyes last night lingered with me—steady, unyielding. It reminded me of the stars scattered across a moonless sky, flickering and glimmering as if daring the darkness to deny their existence. They didn’t shine loudly, didn’t demand attention. They simply were. And the deeper the night grew, the more determined they became—much like hope itself, refusing to be extinguished no matter how vast the dark around it was.

She hadn’t pleaded. She hadn’t wavered.

Her words had been firm, her expression unwavering when she said she would earn the pack’s respect—all of it, in time. It wasn’t arrogance. It was conviction. The kind that rooted itself deep and refused to be shaken by doubt or opposition.

And I had to admit it—quietly, reluctantly—that I respected her for it.

But the more Lorne spoke, the more my thoughts drifted back last night.

She’d said it herself—that it wasn’t the first time she’d been insulted. That rejection wasn’t new to her. No one had accepted her. No one had believed in her. Those weren’t words spoken for sympathy; they were facts she’d learned to live with.

She said she had dragged herself up from nothing—through doubt, through ridicule, through being overlooked—until she stood where she was before she was outcasted. The future Luna of the Gravemire pack. A position no one simply fell into.

That wasn’t luck.

That was grit.

It was… impressive.

And if even half of what she’d said was true, then she was never the kind of woman who knew how to back down. The proof was already burned into my memory. When I’d found her that night, she’d been balanced on the edge of death itself—bloodied, broken, breath shallow.

And still, she had fought.

She had been standing at death’s door and refused to step inside.

“What happened next?” I asked quietly, breaking the stretch of my own thoughts.

Lorne glanced at me, surprise flickering briefly across his face. I met his gaze without looking away, waiting. He studied me for a moment, as if weighing whether I truly wanted the answer—or whether I was ready for it.

After a pause, he continued.

I said nothing after that. I just listened as he spoke, the words settling heavily in my chest, each detail carving a deeper understanding of who she was—and why she’d survived.