I Never Meant to Be His Luna

Chapter 10

Lyra couldn’t stop feeling hollow.

Not trembling, not panicking—just scraped out where Silas’s magic had hooked in. Back in Atlas’s office, with the door shut and the border feeds muted, it was almost worse.

Maps covered one wall, pins and red string crisscrossing Hollow Ridge. Atlas leaned against his desk, Darius a solid shadow nearby. Cassian took the spot by the door, close enough to reach her, far enough not to crowd.

“Again,” Atlas said. “From when you scented them.”

Lyra kept her eyes on the map. “Ravine seams. Wards and cameras overlap. Their scent was a few hours old. Silas. Jonah. At least one more from my old pack.”

“Scouts and ritual support,” Darius said.

“Both,” she agreed. “Silas loves an audience.”

“And then he pushed a call through the wards,” Cassian said, jaw tight. “Straight at you.”

“Through old hooks,” Lyra said. “Bits of bond they never fully cut. They always planned to ‘fix’ me and reattach me to someone more suitable.”

Atlas’s gaze hardened. “They kept pieces of your bond on purpose.”

“Welcome to my formative years,” she said, too light.

The door opened. Elara slipped in, holding a mug. She crossed straight to Lyra.

“Drink,” she said simply.

The tea was warm, honeyed, laced with something that smoothed the edges of Lyra’s nerves. She took a swallow.

“You blocked them,” Elara said.

“Bond with Cassian, Isolde’s charm, pure spite,” Lyra said. “It held.”

“And Jonah?” Cassian asked. The name came out like a stone.

“Further back,” she said. “Tried to shout me off the hook instead of on. That’s…new. Doesn’t erase the rest.”

“Don’t give him that much,” Darius muttered. “He still walked with Silas to our line.”

Lyra didn’t argue.

Atlas uncrossed his arms. “Next move?”

“He’ll go up,” she said. “Council. Claim I’m unstable, that Hollow Ridge is harboring a liability. Try to pressure you into handing me over nicely.”

“Not happening,” Cassian said flatly.

Atlas’s mouth twitched. “He can ask. We say no.”

All three of them were looking at her again. The soft point in the armor.

“What do you need?” Atlas asked. No pity. Just logistics. “From us. From the wards.”

Lyra set the mug down, fingers tight on the handle.

“First,” she said, “no one uses me as bait. Ever. I’ve done altar duty. I’m done.”

“Agreed,” Elara said immediately.

“Second: Isolde needs to redo the warding with me in it,” Lyra went on. “Right now, when Silas hits the edge, it ripples through me. I want it keyed so if he grabs me, it slams back into the wards instead.”

Elara considered. “Braiding you into the outer layer. Unusual. Possible.”

Lyra’s wolf perked. Her spine went stiff. “That sounds dangerously like ‘become part of the pack.’”

“It sounds like becoming part of its shield,” Darius said quietly.

Her heart thudded once, heavy.

“Third: you brief your people,” she said. “All of them. I’m not a dirty secret at the border. Silas will use whispers if you leave a vacuum. I’d rather they hear what I am and what I did from me than from him.”

Atlas’s mouth curved, grim. “You want to stand in front of a whole pack and tell them why an old Alpha hates you.”

“I want to stop waiting for him to weaponize my silence,” Lyra said. “Last time I didn’t get to choose the circle. This time I do.”

Cassian’s gaze burned into her profile. “You’re sure?”

“No,” she said. “But I’m done hiding from my own name.”

Atlas nodded once. “Done. Three conditions accepted.”

Elara squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll do the warding tomorrow night. Full moon will help.”

Lyra grimaced. “Nothing like publicly tangling myself with a pack under an overachieving moon.”

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “Door’s still open if you want to run.”

Her wolf snarled at the thought. Lyra just huffed. “Don’t tempt me.”

She turned to go. Atlas’s voice stopped her.

“Lyra.” She looked back. “Silas used your bond to make you smaller,” he said. “We’re not going to use this one as a cage.”

Her throat closed. She managed a nod and stepped into the hallway.

Outside, Hollow Ridge buzzed—voices, footsteps, life. Her past knew where she was now. So, for the first time, did her future.

Standing between them didn’t feel like a sentence anymore.

It felt like a decision she’d already started to make.