I Never Meant to Be His Luna

Chapter 17 – packing for war

Lyra had never packed for a Council trip before.

Running, yes. Vanishing, absolutely. But not flying straight into the jaws of the institution that had once watched her life crack and called it “necessary.”

Her duffel lay open on the guest cabin bed, half full of clothes. Practical layers. No dresses. One decent shirt Elara had bullied her into accepting.

“Comfort first,” the Luna had said. “You can’t breathe, you can’t speak.”

Lyra tossed in a spare pair of boots and eyed the remaining space like it had personally offended her.

What did you pack to face your past? Extra sarcasm?

A soft knock on the doorframe made her wolf flick an ear.

“Busy?” Cassian asked.

He leaned against the jamb, jacket unzipped, travel bag slung over one shoulder. The sight of him with luggage made it feel suddenly, brutally real.

“Just deciding how many knives is overkill for a political trip,” she said.

“Depends if you count your tongue,” he replied. “You planning on using that as a weapon too?”

“Always.” She shoved a roll of tape and a coil of wire into the duffel. “What’s the plan?”

“Atlas, Elara, you, me,” Cassian said, stepping inside. “Darius stays to hold the fort. Nia runs outer patrols with Jace. Theo cries over his servers. We leave at dawn, convoy with two trucks. Four more from allied packs will meet us on the highway.”

“All this for one hearing,” Lyra muttered.

“All this because they turned it into a showpiece,” he corrected. “We’re not letting them control the narrative.”

She zipped the duffel halfway, then hesitated. “You bringing anything nice?” she asked, nodding at his bag.

He glanced down. “Couple of shirts Elara snuck in when I wasn’t looking. Apparently ‘Council respect’ has a dress code.”

“Can’t wait,” Lyra said. “Maybe they’ll confiscate me at the door for emotional terrorism.”

“That’s my line,” he said. “You’re just here to make them rethink their life choices.”

A beat of silence. The air between them thickened with everything unsaid.

“You sure about this?” he asked quietly. “We can still send you to that human sister of yours for a week while we deal with the political garbage. No one would blame you.”

Her wolf snarled at the suggestion. Lyra’s spine went cold.

“You think I’d let Silas stand in that room calling me ‘unstable rogue’ while I hide behind my sister’s couch?” she said. “You don’t know me at all.”

His mouth twitched. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

She threw a rolled-up pair of socks at his chest. He caught them one-handed, barely.

“Ass,” she muttered.

He tossed them back; she snagged them out of the air without looking and stuffed them into the bag.

“Rowan sent another message,” Cassian said. “Through our neutral channel, not the border. Jonah’s confirmed Silas is bringing ritualists to ‘demonstrate’ the necessity of Council intervention.”

“He’s going to try something in the hall,” Lyra said. Her stomach turned. “Of course he is.”

“Elara and Isolde are packing countermeasures,” Cassian said. “You don’t leave my side. Or Atlas’s. If anyone so much as breathes magic in your direction, we answer.”

“We,” she echoed.

“Yeah,” he said simply.

Lyra looked around the small cabin. The dent in the pillow where her head had rested. The hook by the door where her jacket hung. The chipped mug she’d been using every morning.

She’d had more constant addresses in dingy motels, but somehow this little box of wood and quiet had started to feel like more.

Her chest hurt.

“You’re thinking very loud,” Cassian murmured.

“I hate leaving,” she said, before she could tidy it up. “I always hate leaving. Usually that just means I drive faster until the feeling shuts up. Now it means I’m coming back. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

He blinked, then smiled, soft and bright in a way that punched the air out of her.

“You’re supposed to survive the trip,” he said. “Then complain about the Council’s coffee to anyone who’ll listen on the way home.”

“High aspirations,” she said, but her voice shook at the end.

He stepped closer, close enough that his scent wrapped around her, warm and grounding. Close enough that she could feel the steady beat of his wolf under his skin.

“Lyra,” he said. “If it gets too much in there—if Silas, Jonah, any of them start to pull you back into old scenes—you look at me, not them. You hold onto the wards and this pack and what we’ve built here. Not what they broke.”

“Bossy,” she murmured.

“Professionally concerned,” he corrected. “And selfish. I like having you in one piece.”

Her throat tightened. “You’re really not going to say ‘we’ll protect you’ in some dramatic, alpha way?”

He considered. “We’ll stand with you in a dramatic, alpha way. Protecting you is part of that, but it’s not the whole.”

Her wolf melted at that.

Lyra shoved the duffel zip closed, more forceful than necessary. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go make some very powerful people extremely uncomfortable.”

“Tomorrow,” Cassian said. “Tonight you eat, you sleep, you don’t rehearse speeches until three a.m.”

“You have no authority over my insomnia,” she said.

He reached past her, flicked off the overhead light, leaving them in the softer glow of the bedside lamp.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I can make distractions.”

The implication hung between them, hot and tempting. Her wolf surged.

Lyra swallowed. “If I let you do that,” she said, “I’ll have no plausible deniability when we get to the Council.”

Cassian’s smile turned wicked. “Good.”

She laughed, the sound half-strangled, half-free.

“Out,” she said, nudging him toward the door. “Before I make worse decisions than agreeing to this trip.”

He went, but not before brushing a kiss over her temple, quick and careful, like he was afraid she’d bolt.

Instead, her wolf leaned into it.

When the door clicked shut behind him, the cabin felt smaller and bigger at once.

Lyra looked at the packed duffel, at the bed, at the faint shimmer of wards in the back of her mind.

Tomorrow she’d step into the hall where her life had once been decided without her.

This time, she’d be bringing a pack, a bond, and teeth.

And whether the Council liked it or not, they were all staying.