The Luna he threw away

THE PULL I CANNOT NAME

Damien's POV

I didn't sleep.

This was not unusual for me. I'd gone weeks in my twenties running on three hours and black coffee and the particular kind of focus that comes from having something to prove. Sleep was for people who weren't watching everything.

But tonight was different.

Tonight, I lay in the dark at two in the morning with my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling and thought about a woman I'd met forty-eight hours ago.

My wolf wouldn't settle. He kept circling, restless, the way he moved before something significant, before a confrontation, a hunt, a challenge. I kept telling him to stand down and he kept ignoring me.

We hadn't fought like this in years. Not since…

I pushed that thought away.

I picked up my phone from the nightstand. No new messages. I opened the file Marcus… my Marcus, my head of security, not whoever she used… had compiled on Ava Sinclair. I'd asked for it the night of the boardroom meeting.

It was thorough. And it was perfectly clean.

Too clean.

I'd built Voss Enterprises from the inside of a pack war and a near-bankruptcy. I knew what real financial histories looked like the small inconsistencies, the delayed payments, the evidence of early struggle that everyone had but not everyone showed.

Ava Sinclair's record had none of that. It started three years ago, fully formed, like a life that had been assembled rather than lived.

Someone had built her very carefully.

I sat up. Swung my legs over the side of the bed. The city outside my window was still and dark.

She'd said something at dinner that I hadn't been able to let go of.

You can't build anything real on someone else's foundation. You have to start from nothing, sometimes. All the way from nothing. The way she'd said it.. quiet, certain, like she was reciting something she'd lived rather than concluded, had landed somewhere under my ribs and stayed there.

She knew what it felt like to start from nothing.

I'd watched her face when she said it. That was the other thing I couldn't shake, I kept watching her face the way my wolf watched something at the tree line, certain that something was there and unable to name it.

Every time she looked at me, there was something in her eyes that was too layered for a stranger. Too much held back. Like someone who knew the words to a song they weren't supposed to know.

My phone lit up.

Celeste.

I almost didn't answer. We'd been talking less lately, a quiet erosion I hadn't fully examined but at two in the morning her name on my screen felt like an obligation.

"It's late," I said when I picked up.

"I know." Her voice was careful. The kind of careful that meant she'd planned the call. "I need to talk to you about the Sinclair situation."

"Tomorrow, Celeste."

"Damien." A pause. "I think you should know who she is before you take this further."

I went still. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she's not who she says she is. There are things about her background that don't add up, and I've been looking…"

"You've been investigating my business partners?"

"I've been protecting the pack." Her voice sharpened, just slightly. "That's my job. You gave me that responsibility."

"I did," I said. "I didn't ask you to run background on individuals I'm in active negotiations with."

A brief quiet. When she spoke again, her voice had smoothed back out. "I'm trying to look out for you. The way I always have."

Something about the way she said that made my jaw tighten. The way I always have. It was a reminder of history, of loyalty, of the version of events she kept carefully maintained between us. A version I'd accepted for three years without much pressure-testing.

"Send me whatever you have," I said. "In writing. Through proper channels."

"Damien…"

"Good night, Celeste."

I ended the call.

I sat there for a moment in the dark, turning the conversation over. Something about it felt wrong in a way I couldn't specify. Like a note played almost correctly, close enough to pass but not right enough to trust.

I got up. Walked to the window.

The Sinclair file was still open on my phone. I scrolled back to her photo… taken from a business event she'd attended eight months ago, before Silverpeak. Professional smile, eyes direct, dark hair back.

My wolf pushed forward again.

What do you want from me? I thought at him.