Claimed by Alpha and Omega: Trash Luna

8: Stand Beside Me

The words hung in the air between us, and for a long moment I couldn't find anything to say back to him.

"Long before that," I repeated slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Lucian's gaze didn't waver. "It means what it sounds like."

"That's not an answer."

"No," he agreed easily, "it isn't."

I felt heat rise in my chest, part frustration, part something far more dangerous I refused to name. "You can't just say something like that and then refuse to explain it."

"I can," he said, the corner of his mouth curving again, "and I just did."

My father shifted uncomfortably in his seat, clearly wishing he were anywhere else in that particular moment. "Lucian, perhaps this conversation should continue another time—"

"No," Lucian said, and his eyes stayed fixed on mine the entire time he said it. "She doesn't need more time. She's had years of time, and it's gotten her nowhere."

I bristled at that. "That's easy for you to say. You've never had to spend your whole life standing in someone else's shadow."

"Haven't I?" Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. "Everyone assumes the Central Alpha's seat came easily to me. It didn't. I fought for every inch of authority I hold, Ariana, including against people who were far more certain of their own superiority than you've ever been of yours."

That caught me off guard. "That's different."

"Is it?"

"You're the Central Alpha. Nobody calls you lesser anything."

"Not anymore," he said quietly. "They did, once. Before I made sure they stopped."

I stared at him, trying to reconcile the composed, amused man in front of me with whatever version of himself he was describing. "How?"

"That's a story for another day," he said, deflecting with the ease of someone well-practiced at it. "Right now, we're discussing you."

"Convenient," I muttered.

His mouth twitched. "Very."

2:31 PM — A Dangerous Proposal

My father stood, clearly hoping to regain some control over a conversation that had slipped entirely out of his hands. "Lucian, perhaps Ariana should have some time to consider everything before—"

"No," Lucian said again, firmer this time, his eyes never once leaving mine. "She doesn't need time."

I frowned. "Then what exactly do I need?"

"Courage," he said simply.

I stared at him, half insulted, half unable to argue the point. He rose and crossed the room toward me, stopping close enough that I had to tilt my head slightly to hold his gaze.

"You came here because you want to take control of your own life," he said. "Isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm going to give you the opportunity to do exactly that."

"What opportunity?"

He stopped directly in front of me. "Stay here. In the Central Pack."

My eyes widened. "For how long?"

"Until the marriage rite."

My heart lurched violently. "The *marriage rite*?"

He nodded, calm as ever, as though he hadn't just upended my entire understanding of this meeting. "You need protection. Your family needs political stability. And the other six packs need a clear, public reminder that the Vale family answers to my authority, not theirs."

I understood the logic instantly. It was politics, nothing more than that, a calculated move on a board far larger than my own small, shattered heart. At least, that's what I told myself, gripping the reasoning like a lifeline.

Then Lucian leaned slightly closer, and whatever careful distance I'd been maintaining collapsed a little further.

"But there's one condition," he said.

"What condition?"

His eyes held mine, steady and unrelenting. "You stop pretending to be Alina."

My breath caught sharply. "I've never tried to be—"

"You've spent your entire life trying to prove you're just as good as her," he said, cutting through my protest without raising his voice at all. "I'm telling you to stop competing with a ghost that was never even real to begin with."

His voice softened, dropping lower. "Be Ariana. Just Ariana. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less."

I stared at him, something cracking open in my chest that I hadn't given anyone permission to touch. Nobody had ever asked that of me before. They'd asked me to become stronger, prettier, more confident, more like my sister in every conceivable way.

Lucian wasn't asking me to become anyone else at all.

He was asking me to finally become myself.

I turned toward the window, looking out at the Central Pack sprawling endlessly beneath the afternoon sun. Six packs were circling my family like wolves scenting blood. Damian had chosen my sister. Alina was carrying his child. Whatever life I'd once imagined for myself had already burned to nothing.

Maybe Lucian was right. Maybe I truly had nothing left to lose by trying.

I turned back to face him. "I'll stay."

Lucian smiled, but something flickered behind his eyes that made my stomach twist with a nervous, unfamiliar flutter, something that made me wonder whether this arrangement was ever going to be as simple or as purely political as he claimed.

"Good," he said, stepping even closer, close enough now that I could feel the warmth radiating off him. "Because tomorrow, I'm bringing you before the Seven Pack Council."

My blood ran instantly cold. "The Council? All of them, together?"

Lucian nodded, entirely unbothered by the panic clearly written across my face. "And you're going to stand beside me while I do it."

I stared up at him, my mind racing in a dozen directions at once. Why would the Central Alpha, the single most powerful figure among all seven packs, choose to place the supposedly weakest Luna in the entire hierarchy directly in front of every rival Alpha who'd ever doubted her?

And how much did Lucian Cross actually know about the wolf that everyone else in this world had spent years dismissing as nothing at all?