The Luna He Couldn’t Shed

Chapter 4 — What He Wouldn’t Say

“Don’t.”

He moved before I could. His large hand slammed flat over the stack of letters, obscuring the silver seal completely. It was as if hiding it now could erase the fact that I had already seen it.

“That’s the Chancellor’s mark,” I said.

“It’s a wax seal. Half the north uses that pattern for correspondence with the Synod.”

“You just told a hall full of priests you didn’t trust their order an hour ago.”

His jaw worked, the muscle locking tight. He said nothing.

“What is it, Ansel?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“Everything in this castle concerns me now. That was the whole point of the contract you just signed.”

Something profound crossed his face, a fleeting shadow of a man completely cornered by his own mate. He gathered the letters into one neat stack, squaring the crisp edges hard against the desk, deliberately avoiding my gaze.

“You’ll have your archive access,” he said. “Your guard. Everything you asked for. Leave the rest of it alone.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting today.”

I stood there a moment longer, waiting to see if he’d change his mind. Instead, he walked past me, opened the door and stood aside. A dismissal.

“Fine.” I walked out.

I barely made it three steps before I nearly collided with a wall of gray robes.

“Luna.”

The Synod messenger bowed quickly, careful not to meet my eyes, the way most of them didn’t. “The Chancellor sends urgent word. The Rite of the Weighing has been officially called for tomorrow at dusk.”

I felt Ansel go still behind me.

“Tomorrow,” I repeated.

“Yes, Luna.”

“The Weighing isn’t held until midyear, I countered, “Every record says midyear.”

“The Chancellor has his reasons.” The messenger’s eyes flicked past me to Ansel, lingering there for half a second too long. “Alpha. Luna, you are both ordered to appear before the Synod’s altar tomorrow at dusk, before the assembled leaders of every northern pack. It is a sovereign decree you both must adhere to.

He bowed again. “Good evening,” he said, and left almost too fast to be called walking.

I already knew what the Weighing was. I’d knelt through one before, in my past life. It hadn’t meant anything then. What I didn’t know was why the Synod would move it up by months.

“There you are.” Cerys rounded the corner at speed, slamming her shoulder into mine hard enough to knock me back a step as she brushed past. To anyone watching, it would have looked like an accident. I didn’t believe that for a second.

She didn’t look back. She didn’t care whether I’d stumbled or not. The moment she saw Ansel, her expression changed completely.

“Alpha.” Sweetness slipped into her voice so easily it made my teeth clench.“I only heard about tomorrow by accident, in the stairwell. I wanted to be certain it was true.”

“It’s true.”

“Tomorrow.” She stepped into his space without hesitation and rested a hand on his forearm. Her fingers curled around the thick fabric of his sleeve, her thumb brushing across it once in a gesture that looked almost absentminded. It wasn’t. She wanted me to see it.

“Is it true what they say the staff can do?” Cerys asked, her gaze fixed on me instead of Ansel. “That it knows the difference? Between a real bond and one that’s only for show?”

“It reads what’s in front of it,” Ansel said evenly. His gaze flicked to my shoulder before returning to Cerys.

“But it can tell,” she pressed, her smile never wavering. “Whether a bond is truly fated or just a miserable political marriage that happened to drag out for seven years.”

“Yes,” Ansel said, his tone flat as ice. “It can tell.”

“And if it’s fated?”

“Then everyone knows.” Ansel didn’t hesitate. “A public reading can’t be taken back. That’s why they do it in front of every pack. No exceptions.”

‘How thrilling.” Cerys’s smile widened. She leaned in just enough for the sweet scent of jasmine to reach me. It turned my stomach. . “Enjoy the wait, Luna. I hear it goes faster when you’ve got something to look forward to.”

Heat climbed my neck, but I refused to give her what she wanted. I didn’t say a word.

“That’s enough,” Ansel said. Just two quiet words, and the corridor fell silent.

“Of course, Alpha,” she murmured, her submissive act instantly sliding back into place. She offered a shallow curtsy and then glanced at me over her shoulder as she walked away. The look in her eyes promised this wasn’t over.

I rubbed my shoulder where she’d hit me. The ache had already started to fade, Three days ago, I would’ve laughed it off. Now I knew better. The fear hiding behind her anger. The way she’d looked at me, as if I were the only thing keeping her from a life she’d already claimed in her head. I’ll definitely keep my eyes on her.

“Why does it even matter,” I asked, “fated or not? The law severs it either way.”

“That’s what they tell everyone.” Ansel’s gaze drifted past me, settling somewhere down the corridor. “A hollow bond and a fated one don’t sever the same. A hollow one, there’s nothing there to lose. A fated one…”

He stopped. His jaw tightened, and for a moment I thought he’d say it. Instead, he swallowed the words before they could leave his mouth.

“The Synod has never explained why they care whether the bond is hollow or fated,”Ansel said, his gaze still fixed on the empty corridor. “I stopped trusting their silence a long time ago.”

“You think they want to know. Not for the law. For themselves.”

Ansel’s gaze met mine. “I think no one builds an entire ceremony around something meaningless.”

The timeline was changing. I’d already seen how I died. Now someone was rewriting the road that led there. If tomorrow had changed, what else was changing with it?

A chill slid down my spine.

“What happens tomorrow, Ansel? If it doesn’t read empty?”

“I don’t know.”He didn’t look away. There wasn’t a trace of certainty in his voice. “Seven years I made sure it never had to answer that question, Maeva.”

“And now?”

He didn’t answer straight away. He just looked at me. We were standing so close I could feel the heat of his body.

“Then by dusk tomorrow,” he said, his eyes holding mine, “I don’t get to pretend anymore.”