The Luna They Didn't Want

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5: THE FIRST REAL ATTACK

MAREN

Councilor Ren didn't waste time on pleasantries once the chamber doors closed behind me.

"Sit," she says, and I do, because something in her tone makes it clear this isn't the same conversation she had with Caspian. "I'll be direct, Luna. I've sat through eleven of these reviews this year. I know what a struggling pack looks like, and I know what a pack being carried by exactly one person looks like. Yours is the second kind."

I don't answer right away. I kept quiet, waiting, three years of composures doesn't suddenly break just because one person had stated clearly what had been invisible to the rest for years.

"The border incident," she continues. "The trade network. The patrol restructuring. None of that has your Alpha's fingerprints on it, does it."

"He authorized the patrols," I say, out of old habit more than conviction.

"After you brought it to him. After you'd already done the work of identifying the threat." There was something gentle underneath the sharpness that made me feel even worse, because it would have been better if she was just cold about it, and not understanding.

"I'm not here to dismantle your marriage, Maren, nor do I want to poke holes in the marriage, whatever is going on between you and your mate is not council business unless it threatens pack stability, and frankly, it's getting close to that line. I'm telling you this because whoever mapped your border three days ago is going to come back, and when they do, this pack needs to know who's actually in charge of the response. Make sure that's clear. For your sake and the Pack's wellbeing, not his."

She doesn't elaborate further on this. She doesn't need to. I left, with her words sitting heavy in my chest and in exactly four hours later, I find out right she was.

FOUR HOURS LATER

The horn sounds a little after sunset — three short blasts, the pattern that means border breach, not drill. I'm out of the council hall and halfway to the armory before I've fully processed what I heard. This was the sign of a hostile attack, one that we were not prepared to face at all, and there would be casualties unless we could come up with a response in the next 40 seconds.

Tomi caught up to me at a run. "Eastern border. Same stretch as the prints. It's not a probe this time, Maren, it's a full incursion — six, maybe eight unfamiliar wolves, Yusra's patrol is already engaged."

"Get every available warrior moving. Now." I'm already shifting course toward the eastern path. "Where's Caspian?"

"Selene's quarters. Someone's gone to get him."

Of course he is. I don't have time to feel anything about that, so I don't.

By the time I reach the border, the fighting is already loud and close and wrong in the way real fights are always wrong — nothing like the controlled drills we run twice a season. Yusra's patrol is outnumbered, pinned against the treeline, and the unfamiliar wolves move with the same deliberate precision as the prints that started this — not a desperate raid, a calculated one.

I don't think. I shift.

It's been a long time since I led from the front line instead of a council table, but the body remembers what the mind sometimes forgets it knows. I go for the wolf bearing down on one of our younger warriors — barely more than a pup, blood already on his shoulder — and put myself between them, teeth bared, every instinct from three years of being underestimated rising up at once.

The fight is fast and ugly and exactly as long as it needs to be. Our numbers catch up. The attacking wolves break formation once they realize they're outmatched, retreating back to neutral property once they realized they were losing, leaving torn ground and the smell of blood in it's wake.

I'm turning to check on the young warrior when I see her — one of the unfamiliar wolves hasn't fully retreated, circling back toward Yusra's exposed flank while she's distracted pulling someone else to safety.

I don't decide to move or think about if putting myself in the equation was the right thing to do. I just moved.

I managed to get there in time to take the brunt of it instead of her. Teeth close hard across my shoulder, deep enough that the pain arrives a half second after the sound of it does, white and total. I twist hard enough to throw the wolf off-balance, and Tomi's there a heartbeat later, finishing what I started, and then the wolf is gone too, retreating with more injuries than she came with.

The world gets very loud and very quiet at the same time. I'm aware of Yusra's voice, sharp with panic, aware of the blood that is soaking the ground, aware that it was my old blood, as I involuntarily shift back into human form, my body getting cold with each passing second.

And then I'm aware of him.

Caspian arrives at a dead run, too late for the fight and exactly in time for this — sees me on the ground, sees the wound, and the sound that comes out of him isn't anything I've heard from him in three years of marriage. It is not obligation or composure, no it is raw, terrifying and chilling to the bone as he got to me, quickly, his hands on me, as he held me.

#"Maren." He's on his knees beside me, his hands soft to the touch. "Maren, look at me."

"I'm fine," I managed to croak out, which is a lie, but it's the same lie I've been telling this entire pack for three years, so it comes out easily even now.

"You're not fine, you're—" His voice cracks on the word, and for the first time since the night he married me and told the front rows he didn't ask for it, I watch Caspian look at me like I am something he is genuinely, finally afraid of losing.

It's three years too late for it to fix anything.

But it's the first time it's ever been real.

The last thing I remembered before the darkness at the edges took over completely was Caspian's voice, sharp and urgent, calling for the healer, , terrified.