CHAPTER FOUR
1177 Words
“She watched him fall to protect their daughter and feared it wouldn’t be the last time.”
Aria
She looked at Rowan not like an enemy but like a woman who'd been humiliated and never forgotten.
“I gave you everything,” she said quietly. I stood beside you when no one else would. I wore your name. I bled for your title. And then you tossed me aside like I was nothing.”
Rowan didn’t answer.
“I was your Luna,” she continued. “And you left me for a rogue.”
She laughed bitterly.
“So now, you’ll watch me take something from you.”
Her hand twitched toward the silver.
“Selene,” I said, my voice breaking. This isn’t the way. Please—”
“You don’t get to plead with me,” she snapped. You got the man. You have got a child. I'm ashamed.”
Rowan’s voice was tight. Controlled. “You don’t have to do this.”
Selene’s eyes gleamed with something close to hate. “I want to.”
Then she raised the gun and pointed it towards Lyra.
“No!” I screamed.
Rowan was already ahead. His wolf had half-shifted, his claws out, tracking.
Then—
A scream. Lyra’s scream.
A gunshot.
Bang!
I dropped to my knees. The forest was silent. My head spun.
The gun went off.
I screamed at first, then froze, chest clenched, waiting to hear my daughter’s body hit the ground.
But it wasn’t Lyra’s voice I heard; it was Rowan’s.
He growled in pain.
He’d jumped fast enough to take the hit. The bullet tore through his left foreleg mid-shift and dropped him hard beside Lyra.
I ran forward without thinking. My knees hit the ground. My hands found Lyra first.
She was shaking, eyes wide, but she was alive.
Rowan rolled onto his side, panting through his teeth, his paw already shifting back to a blood-covered hand. He didn’t look at the wound; he just looked at her.
“Are you okay?” he rasped.
Lyra nodded, barely.
Before Selene could react, three guards tackled her to the ground. One kicked the gun away. Another had her arms pinned, and the third secured the silver cuffs around her wrists.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t fight. She just laughed.
“I warned you,” she said, her voice flat. “You should’ve stayed gone.”
Rowan pushed himself upright. Blood poured from his arm, but he ignored it. He limped over, towering above her as she lay in the dirt.
“You aimed at a child.”
“No,” Selene said, eyes flashing. “I aimed at your legacy.”
She had no regrets whatsoever. She was consumed by her obsession.
The main reason I fled ten years ago.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My arms were wrapped around Lyra, who clung to me like a lifeline.
“Take her back to the dungeons,” Rowan barked. “Now.”
The guards dragged her away. Even cuffed, even surrounded, she didn’t stop smiling.
“This isn’t over,” she said over her shoulder. “Not even close.”
Back in the healer's den, Mira stitched up Rowan’s arm while I sat on the cot beside Lyra. She hadn’t let go of my hand since we got back.
She was quiet, but her eyes tracked every movement in the room.
“She’s in shock,” Mira said. “But there’s no physical damage.”
“What about the symbols?” Rowan asked, her voice tighter than usual.
“They faded when Selene was taken down,” Mira said. Whatever triggered her, it wasn’t just fear. It was a connection—exposure. Some kind of energy that shouldn’t be waking up yet.”
“What kind of energy?” I asked.
Mira hesitated. “I’m not sure. But it’s older than what we’re trained to handle. She’s not just a hybrid, Aria. She’s something else.”
I looked at Lyra. Her face was pale, her knuckles white as she gripped me.
“She’s just a girl,” I said.
“She’s more than that,” Rowan said. “And now Selene knows it.”
Two hours later, Rowan stood at the foot of Lyra’s cot. He'd refused healing magic, saying he needed to feel the pain.
“She needs to be protected,” he said.
“She needs stability,” I replied. “Ripping her from one chair to another won’t help.”
He didn’t argue; he just watched her.
“She looks like you when she’s scared,” he said after a long pause.
I looked up. “She dreams about you, you know.”
He turned his head.
“She told me once,” I continued. “She said she saw a man with silver eyes. A man who made her feel safe, even in the dark.”
He swallowed hard.
“I didn’t tell her who you were until we crossed the border.”
Rowan finally looked at me. “Why now?”
“Because she was dying,” I said. “And you were her only chance.”
That truth sat between us for a long time.
Later that night, I checked on Lyra again. She was finally asleep, her breathing steady. Her small hand still curled around the edge of the blanket as if she were afraid it would be ripped away.
I stepped into the hallway and found Rowan sitting alone outside the room.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
“Don’t want to.”
I sat beside him.
His arm was still wrapped in gauze, the blood long dried.
“She almost died,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“She didn’t because of you.”
I shook my head. “She didn’t because of you.”
Rowan leaned back against the wall. “Do you remember that night? The one we never talk about?”
“I remember every second,” I said.
He looked at me then, not like an Alpha, not like the man I ran from. Just Rowan.
“I wasn’t drunk,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“That night. When I found you at the border. I wasn’t drunk. Everyone thinks I was. Hell, I let them think it. But I wasn’t.”
I stared at him, the weight of his words sinking in.
“Then why pretend you were?” I asked. “Why let me believe it?”
He didn’t answer; he didn’t look at me either.
He just kept his eyes on the floor, as if the truth hurt more to say than to carry.
Before I could press, footsteps echoed down the hall.
A guard appeared at the end of the corridor. “Alpha. She’s awake. Selene is awake.”
Rowan stood, his jaw set, but my eyes stayed on him.
Because I couldn’t stop wondering—
If he wasn’t drunk that night, why did he make love to me?
What else had he chosen to hide?
And why?
- Writer
