The Luna He Rejected Is The Millennium Wolf

Chapter 014

Sienna's POV

The crowd fell into a jagged silence while two eyes ignited from the throat of the dark tunnel, appearing as deep, sulfurous pits that didn’t just look at me, but weighed my very soul.

I staggered back, leaving my heels to catch on the uneven wood of the stage. The air in the Arc prison was thick, smelling of dry sawdust and old iron to create a heavy, suffocating scent that felt like it was trying to coat the inside of my lungs.

“You're putting me in chains against that?” I called out, my voice feeling thin against the vast, open hunger of the arena.

I looked up at the dais with my wrists raw where the iron bit into my skin, the metal running ice-cold and etched with runes that hummed with a low, suppressive energy.

Clara didn’t answer, nor did she even look at me, leaning toward Kael instead as her fingers traced his jaw to mingle with a practiced, sickening intimacy.

I reached inward, searching for the heat of the bond, but Damien hadn't recovered. He was a flickering candle in my mind—a faint pulse of warmth in the hollow cavern of my chest—leaving me as the only thing shielding him from the wind.

“What are you waiting for, you b***h?” Clara hissed.

“Release her,” Kael said, his voice sounding like a blade clearing a scabbard as he looked at me with cold, predatory eyes. “Let her bleed properly.”

Clara’s fingers clawed at her green silk gown. “Kael, look at her. She insulted me.” She leaned closer to him, her voice dropping to a jagged whisper. “Are you going to let her live when your brother is as good as dead?”

The word dead hit my chest like a physical strike, burning in my lungs to taste like cold ash.

Kael settled back, allowing me to see a flash of genuine anger in his eyes, though it wasn't at me but at the performance he had to keep up. He didn't answer her, simply signaling the gates instead.

The monster was out.

It was a mountain of scarred flesh with a jaw so heavy it seemed to drag, leaving its breath to hitch in wet, raspy growls. Every time it moved, the wood of the stage groaned in protest.

“Go on! Go on! Go on!” The crowd’s chant became a rhythmic pulse, proving they weren't watching a fight, but were participating in a sacrifice.

The guard unshackled my wrists, leaving the sudden weightlessness to make my arms tremble as he tossed a short, rusted blade onto the wood with a dull clink.

I didn't pick it up immediately, staring Clara down while my skin felt too thin. I lacked the spiritual armor my wolf, Juvien, had provided for years, leaving me raw, exposed, and fundamentally changed.

The monster charged.

The ground beat like a drum, but fear didn't come as a cold wave—it came as a sharp, electric clarity.

In my mind, a memory flickered, bringing back my mother’s voice: ‘Sienna, don't watch the weapon. Watch the center of gravity. If you can't be stronger, be sooner.’

I didn't dodge cleanly, throwing my body sideways in a desperate, graceless lunge. His foot clipped my shoulder, and I heard a sickening pop as my collarbone protested.

I hit the floor, leaving the rough wood to flay the skin from my palms while the smell of dust and old blood rose from the floorboards to fill my senses.

The beast roared, enraged by the miss, and struck again faster this time. His backhand caught me in the ribs to launch me into the arena wall with a thud that completely rattled my brain.

Every broken rib on my body felt like a c***k in his stone-cold chest.

River Moon daughters don’t win by strength. We win by refusing to stay down.

I acted before I could think, using my momentum instead of my muscles. As the beast lunged to finish me, I dove right under its reach with my vision blurring, driving the rusted blade toward the soft tissue under its chest.

The crowd gasped, their collective intake of breath chilling the air as they saw the human girl—the "battery"—slice directly into the hide of a killer.

See me, I thought.

The monster didn't go down, hissing a high-pitched sound of pure ego as it smashed its giant fist into the floor beside me. I gripped the weapon until my knuckles went white, though my eyes were starting to bleed from the internal pressure of the bond reaching its breaking point.

“She’s... surviving,” Clara whispered, her voice carrying easily in the sudden silence of the arena.

I moved forward again, leaving the combat drills of my youth to take over my nervous system. I wasn't stabbing with power, but was stabbing with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Strike. Step. Breathe. Strike.

I targeted the joints, the eyes, and the neck, doing anything to slow the mountain of flesh down while the copper taste of blood flooded my mouth, hot and thick.

The crowd began to murmur as the shock finally set in, because no human lasted this long.

Then, the beast caught me.

Its hand closed around my neck to lift me off my feet, causing my airway to collapse. The world began to gray at the edges as he slammed me against the floor.

The impact stole the last of my air before the kick came—a brutal, heavy blow to my stomach that sent me skidding across the wood like a discarded rag.

I clutched my belly, curling into a ball while my vision swam in red. I tried to stand, but my legs had turned to water.

Not again. Juvien... are you waiting?

I closed my eyes, waiting for the final, crushing blow to arrive so the darkness could take the pain away.

The blow never came.

Instead, a sound like a thunderclap echoed—the sound of sheer, unadulterated power hitting flesh. I slowly opened my eyes to see a silhouette standing directly between me and the beast.

Clement.

He hadn't moved on his own, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Kael’s fingers tap the armrest of his chair twice in a clear signal.

Clement grabbed the monster by the throat with his muscles bulging with Beta-grade strength, throwing the beast back into the darkness with one fluid, violent motion. The sound of the massive body hitting the stone echoed through the space like a funeral bell.

“Sienna. Stand up,” Clement commanded, his hands remaining steady as he reached for me.

“Yes… barely,” I whispered.

“I know what you’ve done,” Clement murmured, his eyes turning dark with a secret understanding.

What?

He didn't wait for a response, swinging my arm over his shoulder to lead me straight off the stage.

“Clement! Stop!” Clara shrieked, standing up as her shrill voice broke the heavy silence.

Kael reached out, wrapping his hand around her wrist without speaking a word, simply forcing her right back into her seat.

The silence in the arena was absolute now, driven by pure fear because they had seen a human refuse to die.

We stumbled into the hallway, where the air shifted from the dry heat of the arena to the cool, clinical scent of the inner sanctum. We passed doors until we reached one smelling of expensive perfume and something metallic—the sharp, biting scent of ozone and blood.

The door creaked open, and my heart stopped.

Damien was on the bed, and the gray was no longer just a tint, but a solid, lifeless crust. His hands were frozen in a clawing gesture, leaving his skin to turn to cold, jagged stone before my eyes.

I crumbled to the floor, the last of my strength vanishing as the silence of the room screamed. My fingers brushed the stone of his hand, and because it was the coldest thing I had ever touched, it felt like a final, silent weight threatening to pull me into the dark alongside him.