Second Chance Luna: Fated To The Two Cursed Alphas

*I Accept*

Chapter 9

Aurora's POV:

It took me a few seconds to remember where I was. A motel.

I pushed myself up, my body stiff from the night. Sleep had come in fragments, flashes of movement, something breaking, the smell of blood still clinging to the edges of my mind.

Last night had not been normal at all. I grew up in the pack, gone out for patrol with Mason and the boys, and I've seen seen my own share of violence. But nothing felt as brutal as Ivar's. It looked to me like he enjoyed every bit of it. For a man whose reputation has been built on war, this should probably be nothing to him. For me, it was a lot.

I stood, and for a moment I just let the silence sit around me. It felt too complete and undisturbed. In my world, silence and peace never meant safety. It usually meant something or someone was waiting for the perfect time to make trouble.

I scratched my forearms, then moved into the bathroom, turned on the shower, stepped under it. The warmth did little to ease the tightness in my shoulders. My thoughts drifted back to the forest, whether I wanted them to or not. Nine of them, gone without much of a fight. I scrubbed harder, like I could wash off the last few days along with my stupid plan to go after Ivar Caine in the first place.

It didn't work.

It never does, does it?

By the time I dried off, my thoughts had already moved to him, again.

The way he looked at me after it was over, completely unfazed like the whole thing had been a minor inconvenience. Then he said he'd given me a choice. Pfft. Or something that looked like one. A choice with a gun pressed to the back of it isn't a choice. It's control.

I shrugged the thought off and got dressed. My gaze went to the window on instinct and caught a glimpse of something. I moved closer, shifted the curtain just enough to see out whilst remaining hidden.

There were two men across the street.

Good looking, casual. One leaned against a car, smoking. The other stood near him, eyes roaming the street occasionally like it was nothing. If I wasn't in so much trouble I would've thought nothing of it, but the fact that they looked that normal, appearing relaxed, probably running some rehearsed conversation between them, it gave them away. Too practiced. Too unbothered. They were definitely looking for something.

Or someone.

Shifters? That was my first thought, but I dismissed it just as quickly. Panthers didn’t wait around like that. They wouldn’t be watching from a distance. They would have already been inside, already finished.

These men were different.

I watched them a little longer, taking in the small details. Their attention wasn't on each other. They were watching my room. Watching me.

So this was what "distance, not freedom" looked like. Ivar hadn't let me walk away to decide anything. He'd just given me room to prove I couldn't.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the curtain before I let it fall back into place.

"No," I said under my breath. "I won't get married."

I had not survived everything behind me just to end up bound to another man who thought he could decide my life for me. I had already lost enough control once. I would not willingly give it away again. Not to Mason. Not to anyone.

This decision settled something inside me, but it did not make the situation easier.

I grabbed what little I had and left. Their attention shifted the second I stepped out. I felt it but didn't look back. I walked the corridor slow and unbothered, then picked up my pace once I'd put enough distance between me and the motel.

I needed to move before he decided waiting wasn't necessary anymore.

I cut through street corners and headed down the road, back the way I came. My mind repeated what I had already decided, like a mantra I was trying to make myself believe.

*No, Aurora. You haven't come this far to have your life handed to someone else.*

Then I turned a corner and stopped.

A group of shifters had a man pinned against a wall, taking turns punching and kicking him. I knew him. He was the shopkeeper who'd pointed me toward the motel last night. Unassuming. Kind. The sort of person who minded his own business and helped strangers anyway.

And now he is bleeding because of me.

The shifters were smart. They knew no one could come around this area without passing crossing his path. But torturing him for it was something else entirely.

"For the last time, Bruno, did you see the w***e pass by here?" the one who held him by the throat asked.

The shopkeeper shook his head, terrified, and barely able to speak.

"I know he's lying, Jer. I traced her scent. Faint, but she was here."

"My brother's dead because of that w***e. I'll gut her alive."

Another blow to his chin, and he spluttered blood, more blood.

My heart slammed. They were already here, looking for me. Faster than I'd hoped. And they were hurting people who had nothing to do with any of this.

I stepped back.

Too late.

One of them turned. Our eyes met.

"There she is!"

I ran before I decided to.

Footsteps thundered almost immediately, behind me and closing in fast. I cut through narrow paths, turned, and tried to break their line of sight. They were gaining. I felt it in every second the gap shrank.

A car pulled up beside me, keeping pace. The window rolled down.

"Hey girl, what you running from?"

A dark brunette with a deep accent sat behind the wheel, expression unreadable behind dark shades, posture relaxed like she had all the time in the world.

"Get in," she said.

They were so close that hesitating would cost me. I hopped in.

The car surged forward, pressing me into the seat. I forced my breathing to slow and watched the woman drive. No tension in her hands or her face. She looked like someone who was just making a routine run.

"Thanks," I said.

She said nothing, just remained focused on the road.

I watched the car turn. A familiar turn. Then another, and for a second my mind just imagined the stupidest thought, what if she was just another person from Ivar's pack? And this turned out to be true.

"No," I muttered.

But it was.

The car stopped on the main road.

I looked up and saw him. Standing exactly where he'd left me last night. Dark suit. A single red rose in his hand. Stoic expression. Waiting, almost like he'd never once considered the possibility that this moment wouldn't come.

Behind him, a line of men like a battalion.

The door opened before I remembered reaching for it.

"Alright, girl. Our path ends here," the woman said, giving an assuring smile with a wink.

I got out, almost like I was being compelled, my eyes never leaving him as the full weight of it settled in.

He had planned this. All of it. The car breaking down. The men at the motel. The woman who picked me up. Every road I thought I was choosing on my own had been laid out for me in advance.

He didn't deny it. He never explained himself. Maybe he never felt like he had to.

I said nothing else. There was nothing left to say. The panthers were in the city, hunting. The shopkeeper's blood was on my hands in a way I couldn't undo. His men had been watching every road that led away from him.

If the panthers reached me first, everything I had survived to get here would end for nothing.

Not now. Not when I still have a chance to ruin Mason.

I met his eyes.

"What is your decision?" he asked the moment I was standing in front of him.

I exhaled deeply, my body already giving away, weak and just wanting to get past this. "Alright." The word cost more than I let it show. "I'll do it. I accept your proposal."

He stepped forward and opened the car door.

"The registry opens in twenty minutes."

I held his gaze a second longer, then got in.

The door closed behind me. And with it, whatever space I had left to run.