MY LUNA, MY CHOICE

Chapter 5 — Beneath the Oak Tree

Kaima’s POV

The growl came again, closer this time, low and deliberate, the kind of sound that wasn't meant to warn but to announce.

Carlmax moved instantly, pushing me behind him with one arm while his other hand shifted, claws lengthening at his fingertips even as the rest of him remained human, caught in that dangerous space between calm and shift.

"Stay behind me," he said

Carlmax voice dropping into something rougher, something closer to his wolf than I'd heard from him all night.

The cabin door hadn't fully closed. Through the gap, I caught a flash of movement in the trees, something low and fast circling the clearing just beyond the firelight's reach.

My own wolf clawed at my chest, desperate to answer the challenge, but exhaustion and fear kept her caged, kept me human and useless in a moment that demanded strength I didn't have left to give.

"Show yourself," Carlmax called out

His tone leaving no room for hesitation.

"I already know you're out there."

A figure emerged from the treeline, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

It wasn't a rogue. It wasn't one of Larisa's people either.

It was Kyle.

Henry's beta stood at the edge of the clearing, arms crossed, a slow, satisfied smile spreading across his face like he'd just won something he'd been waiting years to claim.

"Well, well. I always wondered where you disappeared to at night, Carlmax. Should've known you'd have a hideaway waiting for whenever she came crawling back."

"This isn't your business, Kyle,"

Carlmax said, stepping fully into the doorway now, blocking my view of him entirely.

"Isn't it?" Kyle's smile widened.

"Henry's going to want to know exactly where his rejected mate ran off to. Especially once he hears what I just heard, standing outside this cozy little cabin of yours."

My blood turned to ice. He'd heard everything. The pregnancy. Larisa's confession. All of it.

"You heard nothing," Carlmax said, though the tightness in his voice betrayed just how much he understood the danger we were now in.

"I heard enough," Kyle said.

His gaze sliding past Carlmax to find me in the shadows behind him, his expression twisting into something cruel and delighted all at once.

"A child conceived behind Henry's back, from a bond he could never claim no matter how long he kept you.”

“Do you have any idea what that's worth, Kaima? Do you understand what it does to an Alpha's reputation, a mate who turned to someone else the moment his back was turned?”

"Leave."

Carlmax growled as his shift edging closer to the surface, fur rippling faintly along his forearms.

Kyle didn't move, didn't even flinch at the warning.

"I'm not here to fight you, Carlmax. I'm here to deliver a message. Henry will want to negotiate. He'll want that child, regardless of whose blood actually runs through it. A pup like that could make him powerful beyond anything his own bloodline could ever offer."

"She rejected him,"

I said, forcing myself to step out from behind Carlmax despite every instinct screaming at me to stay hidden.

"He rejected me. That bond is broken. He has no claim to anything that's mine."

Kyle's eyes flicked to me, cold and calculating.

"Rejection doesn't erase opportunity, sweetheart. Henry will find a way to make this work in his favor. He always does."

"Get off my land," Carlmax said,

His voice dropping into something that vibrated with barely restrained fury.

"Now, before I forget every reason I have for letting you walk away tonight."

For a moment, Kyle seemed to actually consider pushing further, his gaze flicking between the two of us like he was calculating exactly how much danger he was willing to risk for information he'd already gathered.

Then, with a short, mocking laugh, he took a step back into the treeline.

"Enjoy your little reunion while it lasts," he said.

"It won't last long. Henry doesn't lose things gracefully, and he definitely doesn't forget insults, real or imagined."

He disappeared into the darkness as quickly as he'd appeared, leaving nothing behind but the echo of his laughter and the cold certainty that whatever fragile safety we'd found in this cabin had just been shattered completely.

Carlmax turned to face me, his expression grim, his shift receding slowly as the immediate threat faded.

"We can't stay here anymore, not now, not after that."

"Where do we go?"

I asked, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to steady it.

"Kyle knows where this cabin is. He'll tell Henry everything."

"There's a place,"

Carlmax said slowly, something guarded entering his expression, the same hesitation I'd noticed right before Kyle interrupted us.

"Somewhere tied to my mother's side of the family. A pack most people have forgotten even exists, hidden deep enough that even Henry's reach can't easily follow."

"You never mentioned your mother's side before,"

I said, studying him carefully, sensing there was far more to this than he was letting on.

Carlmax's jaw tightened, and for a moment, he looked almost as exhausted as I felt, carrying some weight I hadn't fully understood until this exact moment.

"There's a reason for that, Kaima. My bloodline isn't as simple as everyone believes. And what my aunt said about fated pregnancies being rare, being valuable, it's not just true for your family's history. It's true for mine

as well."

I stared at him, trying to piece together what he was implying, my exhausted mind struggling to keep up with everything unraveling around us in a single night.

"What are you saying?"

He hesitated, glancing toward the door as though Kyle might still be listening from somewhere in the shadows.

"I'm saying we need to leave right now, and I'll explain everything on the way. But Kaima, once I tell you the truth about my family, there's no going back to thinking any of this started the night Henry rejected you."

Before I could respond, before I could even process what he meant, the unmistakable howl of a pack alarm rose in the distance, carried on the wind from somewhere back toward Henry's territory.

Kyle hadn't wasted a single second.