The Rogue Luna Memory

Chapter 4

The rain did not stop. By midnight, it had turned into a torrential downpour, turning the riverbanks into treacherous slides of thick, black mud.

​Silas stood at the edge of the roaring water, his clothes soaked through, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. Flashes of lightning split the night sky, illuminating the foam crashing over the jagged rocks downstream. Beside him, dozens of torches sputtered against the wind, held by trembling warriors who had been searching the riverbanks for hours.

​"Alpha!" Logan shouted over the deafening roar of the rapids, trudging up the muddy bank. His face was smeared with dirt, his breath hitching from exhaustion. "We’ve searched five miles down from the drop point. The current is too wild tonight. The search dogs can’t pick up her scent—the rain is washing everything away."

​Silas didn't turn to face him. He kept his glowing golden eyes fixed on the churning water. "Then search six miles down. Search ten. Search until the sun comes up."

​"Silas, listen to reason!" Logan stepped closer, his voice laced with desperate frustration. "No one survives a fall from the balcony into these rapids! The rocks at the base of the cliff are sharp enough to shatter bone. Even if she survived the impact, the heavy fabric of that wedding dress would have pulled her straight to the bottom! She’s—"

​Silas spun around so fast that Logan’s breath caught in his throat. In a flash of terrifying speed, Silas grabbed Logan by the collar of his tactical vest and shoved him back against a wide pine tree.

​"Do not say it," Silas growled, his voice vibrating with a dark, unnatural echo. "Do not say the word."

​"Silas..." Logan rasped, gripping his Alpha’s wrists, unable to break the steel grip. "Look at yourself. You’re losing your mind."

​"I am holding onto my mind by a single thread, Logan," Silas whispered, his face inches from his commander’s. "I can still feel her. The bond is weak, but it hasn't snapped. If she were dead, I would know. I would feel my soul tear in half. She is breathing. Somewhere out there in the dark, my wife is breathing, and she is terrified."

​He released Logan, shoving him back into the tree trunk. Logan swallowed hard, rubbing his chest as he took a ragged breath. He looked at Silas not just with fear, but with pity—and that pained Silas more than any silver blade ever could.

​"Tell the trackers to move past the pack territory borders," Silas ordered, his tone suddenly turning sharp and clinical. "If the river carried her out, she might have washed up on the neutral lands. I want small, stealthy search teams dispatched along the eastern banks. Do not raise alarms with neighboring packs yet. We keep this quiet."

​"Quiet?" Logan repeated, incredulous. "Silas, half the noble packs in the region were in that ballroom! They saw her scream at you. They saw her call you a stranger! By tomorrow morning, every rival Alpha in the territory will know that the Luna of the Bloodmoon Pack rejected her Alpha and vanished into the night. They will smell blood in the water."

​"Let them smell whatever they want," Silas said, stepping back toward the river's edge, his gaze dark. "If anyone tries to cross our borders while we are vulnerable, I will gut them myself. Now carry out my orders."

​Logan lowered his head, knowing better than to argue further. "Yes, Alpha."

​As Logan hurried away to regroup the warriors, Silas closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, trying to cut through the heavy smell of wet pine and copper rain. He focused entirely on the faint, dull ache in his chest—the fading thread of the mate bond.

​Where are you, Sienna? he called out through the mental link, projecting his voice with everything he had. Stay strong. Please. I’m coming.

​Silence. Only the cold, empty void of her forced rejection answered him. The potion had blocked her mind, walling him out completely.

​Two hours later, deep inside the dark halls of the Bloodmoon Packhouse, the atmosphere was suffocating. The grand ballroom, once filled with flowers and gold decorations, was now sealed off like a crime scene.

​Silas pushed open the heavy oak doors of Dr. Rebecca’s medical wing. The smell of medicinal herbs, lavender, and silver salve filled the air. Rebecca was standing over a long iron table, examining the silver goblets and the remains of the wedding feast under a glowing lamp.

​"Report," Silas commanded, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor.

​Rebecca flinched slightly, then turned to face him, holding a pair of thin glass vials. "I ran a full chemical analysis on the wine from both your cup and Sienna's. Yours was completely clean, Alpha. But Sienna's cup contained a heavy concentrate of Wolfsbane-Silver ash, mixed with a binding root native only to the high northern mountain ridges."

​Silas’s jaw clenched. "The northern ridges? That’s Shadow Claw territory."

​"It originates there, yes," Rebecca said carefully. "But the ash itself must be prepared by a skilled herbalist. It takes days to refine. Whoever put this in her drink planned this well in advance of the wedding."

​"Who had access to the high table before the ceremony?" Silas asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble. "Only the inner circle and the high-ranking servants are allowed near the Alpha's table."

​Rebecca hesitated, her eyes flickering nervously toward the doorway before returning to Silas. "The servants were all vetted by Logan’s security detail. Every cup was poured in the main kitchen under strict supervision. The only time the goblets were left unattended was during the five minutes when the bridal party took their positions at the altar."

​Silas felt a cold, sharp realization settle in his stomach.

​"Someone inside my inner circle did this," Silas said softly. The thought was sickening. He had trusted his inner circle with his life—and with Sienna's.

​"Or someone managed to bribe a high-ranking member," Rebecca added quietly. "Alpha, you need to understand... the Wolfsbane-Silver ash doesn't just erase memories randomly. It wipes away the deepest emotional anchor in a wolf’s mind. To Sienna, the months she spent here—the safety she felt, the love she grew to have for you—have been completely erased. Her brain defaulted back to her last state of extreme emotional survival."

​"When she was a rogue," Silas murmured, the memory hitting him like a physical blow.

​He remembered the day he found her six months ago. She had been starving, bruised, and bleeding, cornered near the northern boundary by rogue hunters. She had fought him like a wild animal when he tried to help her, her eyes filled with pure, unadulterated fear of Alphas. It had taken him three painstaking months just to get her to sit in the same room with him without reaching for a knife.

​And now, with a single drop of poison, all that trust, all those quiet nights by the fire, all those shared promises had been violently erased. To her, he was just another terrifying Alpha trying to cage her.

​"Can the poison be reversed?" Silas demanded, stepping closer to the table. "Is there an antidote?"

​"If she takes a counter-dose of the binding root within thirty days, her memories might return," Rebecca explained. "But the ash won’t stop at the last six months, little by little, the rest of her past will fade too… her… her years as a rogue, her childhood, even who she was. If the thirty days pass without the antidote, all of it is gone for good.”

​The words echoed in Silas’s mind like a ticking clock.

​He had thirty days to find his wife, protect her from whoever was trying to destroy them, and somehow convince her to take a potion from a man she currently believed was a monster.

​Before Silas could ask another question, the heavy double doors of the infirmary slammed open.

​A young scout, breathless and covered in mud, burst into the room. He sank to one knee, trembling as he looked up at Silas.

​"Alpha Silas!" the scout gasped, struggling to catch his breath. "We found something! Three miles downstream, near the border of the Shadow Claw territory!"

​Silas was across the room in a second, gripping the scout by his shoulder. "Did you find her? Is she alive?"

​"We didn't find the Luna, Alpha," the scout stammered, holding up a small, torn piece of fabric soaked in water and river mud. "We found this caught on a branch near the shore. It’s part of her dress. And... there are fresh tracks leading away from the river into the woods."

​Silas stared at the white lace in his hand. His heart hammered against his ribs.

​She had made it out of the river.

​"Search the woods!" Silas ordered, his voice echoing through the stone halls. "Get the warriors moving!"

​"There’s a problem, Alpha," the scout whispered nervously, looking down at the floor. "The tracks don't lead into our forest. They cross directly over the border into Alpha Kane's land. And a Shadow Claw patrol was spotted heading toward those exact woods ten minutes ago."

​Silas’s eyes ignited into a violent, blood-red glow.

​Alpha Kane. His oldest enemy. The ruler of the Shadow Claw Pack.

​Silas tightened his fist around the torn piece of white lace, his knuckles turning white. "Prepare my war unit," he growled. "We are crossing the border.”