Rise Of The Warrior Luna

Chapter 2

FREYA

Eli stands up and twirls him in the air while I stay frozen in shock and speechless as the giggle of the child fills the air.

My heart feels like it’s slowly crumbling to dust as I stare at Eli, twirling the boy of about three or four years old in the air, completely oblivious of my dumbfounded state.

Their resemblance is uncanny, same dark hair color, same eyes and even the red burn mark that Eli has on his forehead— their family birthmark, the one his dad and grandfather both have is smeared across the boy’s forehead.

There’s such joy in Eli’s eyes, a lightness I haven’t seen in so long. My chest aches watching him like this. So natural, so present. When was the last time he looked at me with even a fraction of that warmth?

“Martin! I told you not to come in here.”

Victoria’s curt yell grabs our attention before I can say or do anything and Eli drops the boy. The boy quickly hides behind Eli, his head poking out from behind Eli’s legs.

“I’m sorry mama,” he pouts innocently, “I just wanted to see daddy again.”

Mama…

Daddy…

My heart throbs as the words echo in my mind. The family I’ve been dreaming of for five years…..it already exists.

Just without me in it.

My breathing becomes shallow and I have to lean on the chair closest to me to keep my knees from failing.

I look at Eli, searching his face for something. An apology, regret, anything at all, but there’s nothing in his eyes. Just that same distant look he’s been giving me for months now.

The realisation hits with a deep feeling of gloom. He’s already gone. I’ve been holding onto someone who left me a long time ago.

“Martin,” Victoria turns to me with that same sly expression, “this is Luna Freya. Daddy’s wife. She’s going to be like a second mama to you. Go say hi to her.”

I glance at Eli again, hoping he will say something, anything to help me understand, but he remains silent and his silence hurts more than words ever could.

“A second mama?” Martin frowns at me and whines, “other kids have their mama as their daddy’s wife, why does daddy have a wife that’s not you?”

Victoria glances at Eli and immediately, his eyes are filled with guilt.

But not guilt for me. Guilt for her. For the life he couldn’t give her.

I’ve seen that look in his eyes when he talks about the early days of our marriage. The regret that duty forced him to choose the bond over the woman he truly wanted. I just never wanted to believe it until now.

“Why don’t you go wait for mama in the lobby honey?”

Victoria nudges Martin toward the door and the kid stops in front of me. Though little, his eyes hold a lot of disdain as they meet mine.

“I don’t want a second mama,” He says with such bravado that is so cute. On any other day I would crouch and tug his cheeks but right now, seeing him just reminds me of everything I’ve lost before I even knew it was gone.

“Freya,” Victoria heaves a sigh as Martin runs off, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this but as you’ve already guessed, Martin is my son with Eli. We had a moment not long before I left the pack—”

“A moment?” My voice cracks despite my effort to stay calm.

Victoria’s eyes flicker with something I can’t read before she continues.

“A moment that led to Martin’s pregnancy. I don’t need to go into details. When I found out I was pregnant a few weeks after leaving, I knew I had a choice to make. Come back here and complicate things for all of us or raise the child myself. I chose the latter.

I wanted to be as far away from here as possible but sometimes fate has its way of forcing its will on us. Martin has a medical condition. A condition that requires his father’s help. That’s why I came back. My child’s life is more important than my ego. If you were a mother, you’d understand.”

The subtle jab at my childlessness in her words cut deep, but I can’t even find it in myself to be angry at her. She’s a mother protecting her child. She and Eli share something I’ve been desperately trying to give him for years.

Maybe that’s why he could never fully love me.

I couldn’t give him what she already had.

“It’s a lot to take in,” I say honestly and in a calm tone, struggling to keep my voice steady, “can you give us the room? I need to talk to Eli alone.”

“Of course,” she nods slightly with a polite grin and exits the office.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Eli stands up and walks over to the bar and grabs a bottle of whiskey and a glass.

Pouring the whiskey, he looks at me, his eyes still holding that distant and formal look, “there’ll be a council meeting tonight. I’ll introduce Martin to the elders and then to the pack. Make sure you’re in attendance.”

The casual way he says it twists something deep in my chest. Like I’m just another pack member receiving orders. Not his wife. Not his mate.

“I’m sure there’s a reason why you didn’t tell me any of this till now?”

I try to keep my tone gentle, non-accusatory. I don’t want to fight. I just want to understand when I lost him.

He takes a gulp of his glass and exhales the heat from the alcohol before slamming the glass gently and looking at me again, his voice as curt as the first time.

“There could be a million reasons why I didn’t tell you but the most important thing is that you are now aware.”

His cold response feels like rounds of silver bullets aimed at my heart. I take slow steps towards him, hoping proximity might soften him, might remind him of what we have, but he swiftly moves away from the bar like my touch would burn him.

The rejection stings. He used to reach for me without thinking. Now he can’t even stand to be near me?

“Tonight,” he continues as he sets the glass on his table and sits, “Martin will be named as my heir, see to it that he is ready for the Alpha crowning ceremony and have the omegas clean my old room for him.”

“Your— your heir?” I repeat the words with my hands instinctively clutching my stomach, feeling the weight of what this means for the life growing inside me.

He gives me a ‘did I stutter look,’ before he retrieves a document from his drawer and slams it on the table.

“I’ll need you to sign these.”

I walk towards him and grab the document. Legal adoption papers. Me and him— adopting the boy as our legal child.

I look up at him, trying to read his intentions.

Does this mean he still wants me as his Luna? That despite everything, there’s still a place for me in his life, even if it’s not the place I wanted?

Or is this just him being kind, giving me the role of mother since I couldn’t become one on my own?

“What about Vicky?” I ask softly, “what role will she play in all of this? Will she go back?”

I already know the answer. I can see it in the way he looked at her, the way his whole demeanor changed when Martin called him daddy. But I need to hear it from him.

“And leave her sick child? You should be grateful she let us adopt him. At least now you can stop the fertility treatments and focus on raising a child like you’ve always wanted to.”

The words land like stones in my chest. He has no idea. No idea that I’m finally carrying what we’ve both wanted, that our child is growing inside me right now.

But watching him with Martin, seeing the family he has with Victoria, I realize something that breaks my heart completely.

He’s never going to look at me the way he looks at her. He’s never going to choose me, not really. The mate bond forced his hand, but his heart has always belonged to someone else.

How naive I’ve been, thinking that love could be built from duty and proximity.

But you can’t force someone to love you. You can’t compete with a love that existed before you and never really ended.

My hand moves toward my purse, fingers brushing the zipper where the test strip is.

If I tell him now, what changes? Will he be happy? Or will he just see it as another obligation, another tie binding him to the woman he never wanted to be bound to?