I Never Meant to Be His Luna

Chapter 13

The awareness hit her before the alarm.

Lyra lay half-dozing in the guest cabin, half-listening to the quiet thrum of Hollow Ridge through the new sense braided into her. The wards were a thin, silver line at the back of her mind—steady, humming, almost soothing.

Then they flared.

Pressure brushed the outer edge, not a full hit, just a testing fingertip. Her wolf snapped awake, ears up. Lyra was on her feet before her conscious brain had caught up, heart already thudding.

“Too soon,” she muttered, jamming her boots on without socks.

She shoved the door open. Cool air slapped her, carrying the scent of pine, damp earth—and rising tension. Somewhere toward the main house, a siren whooped once, then cut. Short-range alert, not full-scale.

Cassian’s voice came over the little radio on her belt, terse. “Inner patrols to positions. Hold outer lines. No one crosses wards without my say.”

No one. Including her.

The order brushed against that new awareness too, Alpha steel sliding along the ward-sense. It didn’t bind her. Just…registered.

Lyra jogged toward the garage, the quickest route to monitors and people with information. Wolves moved past her at a ground-eating lope, some already half-shifted, claws scraping gravel. No one tried to stop her. A few dipped their chins in quick, distracted acknowledgment.

Inside the garage, Theo was a blur between screens, curls wild, shirt halfway untucked. Sienna leaned over his shoulder, grease-streaked and scowling.

“What’ve we got?” Lyra demanded, slamming the door behind her.

Theo jumped. “Don’t do that,” he yelped. “My heart’s fragile.”

“Your heart plays video games until three a.m. It’ll cope,” she said. “Show me.”

He jabbed a finger at the main monitor. “North ravine. Same sector as last night. But this time they’re…louder.”

The camera showed trees. Rock. A flicker of movement just beyond the line, dark shapes pacing, never quite giving the lens a clean profile.

The wards pulsed in Lyra’s head with every pass, a faint static crawl over her skin.

“Numbers?” she asked.

“At least six,” Sienna said. “Could be more out of frame. They’re staying just shy of a direct hit.”

“So they know we felt them,” Lyra said quietly. “And they want us to know they’re not done.”

Her stomach turned. Her wolf wanted to snarl.

The door banged open again. Nia strode in, hair damp from a hasty wash, eyes sharp.

“Outer teams are in position,” she said. “Atlas is on his way. Cassian wants you to stay here, Quinn.”

Lyra’s hackles went up. “Here, as in ‘safe distance,’ or here, as in ‘eyes on the feeds’?”

“Bit of both,” Nia said. “He didn’t phrase it that politely.”

Of course he hadn’t.

The wards fluttered again in the back of Lyra’s mind—then, startlingly, steadied.

Something had changed. Not a hit. A…withdrawal?

She frowned, leaning closer to the screen. The pacing shapes blurred, then slipped back into the trees, one by one, until the ravine looked empty again.

Theo’s fingers flew over the controls. “They’re gone from visual,” he said. “No new hits on the sensors.”

“Wards agree,” Lyra said. “They’re not pressing anymore.”

Nia stared. “You can feel that.”

“That’s what last night was for,” Lyra said. “Congratulations, I’m your new very grumpy perimeter plugin.”

Sienna snorted, but her eyes were relief-soft. “They poke, they run. Cowards.”

“No,” Lyra said slowly. “They’re timing us. Seeing how fast we scramble. How many people move. Who goes where.”

“They can’t see all that from the trees,” Theo protested.

“Silas can,” Lyra said. “He’s not just muscle and ritual. He watches patterns. He’s mapping your reflexes.”

Theo went pale. “Like…stress-testing a system before you hit it for real.”

“Exactly.” Lyra’s hand curled around the edge of the console. “They want us jumpy. Tired. Doubting our new tricks.”

Nia’s jaw tightened. “Then we don’t give them that satisfaction. We rotate patrols. We don’t leave anyone on edge long enough to crack.”

“Atlas will say that,” Sienna muttered. “And half the old guard will argue we should have thrown everything at the border the second we scented them.”

Lyra could already hear the tension brewing: fear, anger, the old instinct to meet threat with teeth and nothing else. The part of her wired for flight vibrated under her skin.

She took a slow breath and forced her fingers to unclench.

“I’ll talk to Atlas,” she said. “We can’t stop them from poking. But we can choose how much they see when they do.”

Theo glanced at her. “You mean…give them a pattern that hurts them more than us?”

Her wolf bared its teeth in something almost like a grin.

“Yeah,” Lyra said. “If Silas wants a show, we script the damn performance.”

Behind her, the outer door opened again. Cassian stepped in, rain on his jacket, eyes flicking first to her, then to the screens.

“What’ve we got?” he asked.

She met his gaze, the wards thrumming quietly between them.

“News,” Lyra said. “They’re not just testing your border, Cassian. They’re testing us.”

And this time, she wasn’t planning on playing the part they expected.