The Luna He Erased

Chapter 4

The Impossible Return

Kade

Selene’s crystal wine glass hit the table with a loud c***k, spilling red wine across the maps we had spent hours plotting.

"You're calling off the invasion?" Selene shrieked, her face twisting into an ugly snarl as she stood up so fast her chair screeched against the floor. "My father’s estate didn't pledge three hundred warriors for you to get cold feet over a handful of mangy outcasts!"

"Keep your voice down," I growled, my hands gripping the edge of the map table so hard the wood splintered beneath my palms.

My chest felt tight, the old scar aching where the mate bond used to burn.

"The war isn't off. We march at dawn. I just want the perimeter scouts doubled near the eastern ridge."

"Why?" she hissed, stepping into my space, her dark eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Are you still mourning the dead girl? Five years, Kade! Five years since that human healer threw herself off the cliffs because she couldn't hack life outside our walls. Every patrol report confirms it. Her body washed up bloated and unrecognizable in the black river. She's food for the worms.

"Every time Selene spoke her name, a cold lump formed in my throat, tasting like copper and ash. I didn't love Selene. She was a strategic alliance, to place the crown on my head after my father finally got caught in a rogue’s blade during Galen Throne’s border raid last winter.

But the guilt, gods, the guilt was a rotting corpse I dragged behind me every single day.

"I'm not mourning a damn thing," I lied, my voice dropping as I pushed past her toward the doors. "I want Galen Throne's head on a spike for what he did to my father. Double the guards, Selene. That's an order."

I slammed the doors behind me, needing to escape the suffocating stench of jasmine perfume and ambition that clung to her skin.

The cold night air hit my face, sharp and smelling of pine, reminding me of a time before my father and High Chancellor Magnus twisted my arm behind my back and forced me to butcher my own soul.

Five years of sitting on a throne built on lies. Five years of waking up in a cold sweat with Lyra’s final, shattered scream echoing in my skull.

“Kade! Please! You swore on your life…!”

I swallowed hard, wiping a hand across my face as I stalked past the lower training grounds. The packhouse was quiet, most warriors asleep before tomorrow's bloodbath.

I kept walking, drawn instinctively toward the outer edge of the Silver Ridge campsite where the dark timber of the Forbidden Forest began.

A sharp rustle in the brush a few yards ahead made my muscles snap into combat mode.

"Who's there?" I barked, my hand dropping instantly to the heavy hunting dagger strapped to my thigh.

Instead of a rogue or a patrol guard, a small streak of motion darted out from behind a thick cluster of ferns, nearly colliding straight into my shins.

I stumbled back a half-step, looking down.

It was a kid. Maybe four or five years old, wearing scuffed leather trousers and a tunic covered in dirt. He scrambled backward, falling onto his rear in the dry leaves, and looked up at me with wide, panicked eyes.

My breath caught entirely in my lungs.

He had storm-grey eyes. The exact, unmistakable shade of my own staring back at me from a small, round face.

"Hey," I muttered, dropping to one knee without even realizing I was moving, my hands hovering awkwardly in the air. "Who are you, little guy? Where are your parents?"

The boy didn't answer. He clamped a small hand defensively over the collar of his shirt, but as he jerked away, the fabric slipped sideways.

My heart slammed against my ribs so violently I thought my chest would c***k.

Right there, stark and silver against the pale skin of his neck, was the distinct, crescent-shaped Alpha birthmark unique to my direct bloodline.

‘No.’ My mind spun into a freefall, every coherent thought dissolving into static.

‘That's impossible.’

“Leo!" a voice called out from the dark treeline. It was soft, breathless, and carrying a musical cadence that time hadn't managed to scrub from my memory. "Leo, where did you run off to? If your godfather catches you sneaking past the boundary again, we'll…."

The footsteps stopped dead.

I slowly stood up, my boots crushing the twigs beneath them, and turned my head toward the edge of the shadows.

A woman stepped out into the dim moonlight, wearing practical travel leathers, her dark hair pulled back into a loose braid.

She had a smudge of dirt across her cheekbone and a bow slung over her shoulder, but as the silver light hit her face, my vision blurred at the edges.

Lyra stood frozen three paces away, her lips parted in a silent, trembling gasp. "Kade," The name left her lips in a stunned whisper.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. Then her instinct took over.

“Leo!” she gasped.

She rushed forward, scooping the little boy into her arms before he could take another step toward me. Leo wrapped his arms tightly around her neck, burying his face against her shoulder.

She backed away without taking her eyes off me.

I stared at her as if looking at a ghost. “Lyra…” My voice cracked. “You’re alive.”

Her jaw tightened, but she said nothing. She simply turned toward the forest.

“Wait!” I shouted, taking a step after her.

She broke into a run.

“Lyra!”

Branches whipped across her clothes as she disappeared into the darkness, moving with a speed I had never seen from her before.

I chased her to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, but the moment I crossed the boundary, an invisible pressure forced me back. There were ancient wards still standing, protecting the rogue territory.

She stopped just beyond them. Moonlight spilled over her face as she shifted Leo higher on her hip. My eyes locked on the silver crescent birthmark on the boy’s neck.

My blood ran cold.

“Lyra…” I called, my voice barely above a whisper. “Whose child is that?”

She looked down at Leo for a long moment before lifting her gaze to mine. A sad, unreadable smile touched her lips.

Then she spoke. “My son’s father died five years ago.”

She vanished into the trees, leaving me frozen as her words shattered everything I thought I knew.