Claimed by Alpha and Omega: The Fated Luna

CHAPTER 16: The Voice Within

The battlefield fell silent, and somehow that silence was louder than any of the howling had been.

Smoke drifted through the shattered streets of Moonfall as the last echoes of the wolves faded into the mountains. Nobody celebrated. Victory was supposed to feel like something. Instead it felt hollow, the way winning a game nobody wanted to play always does.

I walked beside Cassian as he surveyed the destruction, burned homes lining the streets, wagons overturned, the temple courtyard full of the wounded.

"They knew exactly when to retreat," he murmured, more to himself than to me, his eyes moving over the ruin with a heaviness I had not seen on him before.

Nearby, Kael crouched beside the body of a fallen feral wolf. I watched, frozen, as the creature slowly began to change back, its fur receding, its claws shortening, until a young man no older than twenty lay lifeless on the ground.

"He was a wolf?" one of the Born Wolf warriors asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Kael shook his head slowly, his hand resting briefly against the boy's shoulder. "He was a person," he said.

My chest tightened. I stepped closer and saw the scars covering the young man's arms, and around his neck hung a simple wooden pendant shaped like a crescent moon. "He looks ordinary," I whispered.

"He was," Kael said quietly. "Someone turned him into a weapon."

Those words settled over everyone nearby like a weight none of us had asked to carry. For the first time, I noticed Born Wolves looking at a dead Bitten Wolf with pity instead of hatred, a small thing that felt larger than it should have.

We carried the wounded into the temple. Part of the roof had collapsed, yet the priest and healers kept working without stopping, treating anyone who came through the door. Nobody asked whether the injured belonged to the Born Wolves or the Omegas. Blood looked exactly the same on everyone.

I rolled up my sleeves and worked alongside them, cleaning wounds, carrying water, comforting frightened children. One little boy clung to my hand as though I were the only solid thing left in his world.

"Is it over?" he asked, looking up at me.

"For tonight," I said gently, though I was not entirely certain of the answer myself.

He glanced across the room toward Cassian. "That big wolf. Was that really the Alpha King?"

I laughed softly. "Yes."

"I thought kings wore crowns," he said, sounding genuinely disappointed.

"He does," I told him. "Just not when people need protecting."

Across the room, I noticed Cassian had overheard me. A faint smile crossed his face before he quickly hid it, like a man unused to being caught in something so unguarded. I decided, watching him turn back to his work with that smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth, that I wanted to see it again. Often.

As the moon climbed higher, Kael began preparing to return to the Omega Settlement with his wounded. I found him tightening the straps on his horse, his shoulders still marked with the fight, his movements slower than usual with exhaustion.

"You are leaving already?" I asked.

"My people need me," he said simply, not looking up from the strap in his hands.

"So do his," I said, nodding toward Cassian, who was still directing the rebuilding without pausing to rest.

"He is stubborn," Kael said, shaking his head.

"So are you," I replied.

He laughed, and for a moment the tiredness in his face eased. "I will take that as a compliment."

Neither of us spoke for a moment after that. Then Kael reached into his pocket and placed the small wooden pendant into my hand, his fingers lingering against mine a beat longer than the gesture required.

"I think you should keep it," he said.

"Why me?"

"Because someone should remember his name." His voice softened. "His name was Eli. He disappeared almost a year ago. His family never stopped looking for him."

I closed my fingers gently around the pendant, my throat tight. "I will remember," I said, and I meant it. He held my gaze a moment longer, something unspoken passing behind his eyes, before he mounted his horse and rode into the dark toward his own wounded, leaving me standing there with the weight of a stranger's name pressed into my palm.

Before we departed, Cassian walked alone through the ruined town, and I followed a short distance behind, curious despite myself. An elderly merchant whose shop had burned to the ground stopped him in the street.

"My Alpha," the old man said. "I am sorry."

Cassian lowered his head. "I could not save everything."

The old man smiled sadly. "You saved my granddaughter. A shop can be rebuilt. A life cannot." He pressed a weathered wooden carving of a wolf into Cassian's palm. "For good luck."

Cassian looked at the carving for a long moment before slipping it carefully into his pocket, as though it actually mattered to him. Watching him, this powerful, guarded king treasuring a small wooden wolf from a man who had lost everything, something in my chest ached in a way I did not have a name for yet.

The ride back to the Alpha Kingdom was unusually quiet. I rode beside him, watching him from the corner of my eye, his jaw set, his gaze distant.

"You blame yourself," I said finally.

"I do," he admitted.

"You could not have stopped all of it."

"No," he agreed. "But I should have seen it coming."

I studied him a while longer before speaking again. "You are always trying to carry everything alone." He gave me a tired smile, though it did not quite reach his eyes. "That is what Alphas do."

"Maybe," I said. "But that does not mean it is right."

He said nothing after that, though something shifted in his expression, some quiet surprise settling there. I understood, watching him, that no one had questioned his loneliness before, only his strength, and that the difference had caught him off guard more than any battle could have.

That night, back at the castle, I stood alone on my balcony with the crescent pendant resting in my palm. "I will remember you, Eli,"

I whispered into the cold air. A breeze swept across the stones. Then, without warning, the bite mark on my neck began to burn. I gasped and gripped the railing as the world around me faded into darkness.

When I opened my eyes again, I stood in a vast silver forest beneath an enormous full moon. Everything was silent, almost unnaturally so, the kind of silence that makes a heartbeat sound too loud.

A wolf stepped out from between the ancient trees, its fur shimmering like liquid silver, its eyes unlike anything I had seen before. Ancient. Wise. Sad, somehow, in a way I could not explain.

It stopped only a few steps away, and though it did not bare its fangs, I felt strangely calm standing before it.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

The wolf tilted its head, and its voice echoed directly inside my mind. "You seek the one who destroyed your family."

My breath caught. "You know who it is?"

"No," it said, stepping closer. "But I know why they were killed."

Before I could ask anything more, chains of black smoke erupted from the ground and wrapped around the silver wolf. It growled, straining against them, and a second voice echoed through the forest, cold and unfamiliar, laced with quiet amusement.

"She is awakening too soon."

The chains tightened further. The silver wolf looked at me with something close to desperation.

"Wake up," it said. "Before he finds you."

My eyes flew open. I was back on the balcony, my breathing ragged, my heart slamming against my ribs. The pendant in my hand had cracked straight down the middle. And on the stone railing beside me, three deep claw marks had appeared, as though something unseen had been standing there the entire time, watching my dream.