Luna He Rejected: Alpha's Forbidden Heir

Chapter 4

Selena POV

Three years is long enough to become someone new, but not long enough to forget who you used to be.

Selene learned that lesson every single morning when she woke up in her own room, in her own pack, and for half a second before her mind caught up, she almost expected to hear Damian's voice down the hall. Then she would remember. She was Alpha Selene Cross now, leader of Crimson Hollow, and Damian Voss was nothing more than a wound that had finally stopped bleeding, even if the scar never fully faded.

Crimson Hollow had grown since the day Marta first brought her here, though it had cost more than she liked to remember. There had been a winter when three of her own pack tried to challenge her right to lead, sure a pregnant rogue girl with no bloodline behind her would break under pressure. She hadn't broken. She had fought each of them herself, one at a time, until no one else dared try. There had been a season when half their food stores were stolen by a rival settlement, and she had spent two weeks fighting, threatening, and bleeding for every scrap they earned back. What used to be a scattered group of broken cabins and frightened rogues was now a real settlement, with real homes, trained fighters, and a wall strong enough to keep most threats out. Smoke curled up from chimneys in the early light, and near the training yard she could hear wolves sparring before sunrise, the same routine she had built into this place out of failure after failure until it finally held.

That very morning, before Ethan found her, she had settled a fight between two of her best warriors who almost came to blows over hunting land. She hadn't raised her voice once. She had simply reminded them, calmly, exactly what they owed this pack and what they stood to lose if they forgot it. They backed down in minutes. It still surprised her sometimes, how easily people listened to her now, when three years ago she couldn't even hold eye contact with a stranger without flinching.

"Mama, look!"

Ethan came running across the yard, his small legs moving as fast as they could go, his dark hair messy from playing and his gray eyes bright with excitement. Those eyes were the one part of him that never let her forget where he came from.

"What did you find?" she asked, crouching down to his level.

He held up a smooth gray stone like it was the most precious thing in the world. "For you," he said simply.

She took it from his small hands and pressed it against her chest, right over her heart. "Thank you, baby. It's perfect."

He grinned, happy, then ran off again, and she watched him go with a love that still surprised her some days, sharp and too big for her body to hold.

She had built this whole life for him, out of every hard year that came before it. There were nights she still doubted herself, still wondered if she was strong enough to keep him safe. But watching him laugh in the morning sun always pushed those doubts back down where they belonged.

Lila found her still crouched in the yard. She dropped down beside her, and her face said something was wrong before she even spoke.

"We have a problem," she said.

"We always have a problem," Selene said, trying to keep her voice light. "Which one is it today?"

"The Ravenswood settlement," Lila said. "It's gone."

Selene stood up slowly. "Gone how?"

"Gone like Thornfield was gone last month," Lila said. "Gone like Ashbrook before that. Whoever is doing this isn't just attacking rogue packs anymore. They're swallowing them whole."

A cold feeling settled in Selene's stomach. "How many packs is that now?"

"Four in the last two months," Lila said. "And our scouts say the pattern is moving south. Straight toward us."

Selene looked back at Ethan, still laughing near the fence, with no idea how fragile his safety really was.

"We need real information," she said. "Not rumors. Who's leading this?"

"Word is his name is Caleb Drayton," Lila said. "He's strong, organized, and he's not stopping."

"There's something else," Lila said carefully. "If we need allies strong enough to actually fight this, there's really only one territory close enough and powerful enough to help."

Selene's whole body went still.

"Blackthorn," she said quietly.

Lila nodded. "Blackthorn."

Selene looked at Ethan again, so innocent of the storm gathering on every side of him.

"Get the scouts ready," she said. "We're going to Blackthorn."

She told herself it was the only choice. She told herself the past was buried deep enough that it couldn't touch them anymore. She had been wrong about that kind of thing before, and some quiet, certain part of her already knew she was wrong about it now. That night, while she packed what little they would carry, Lila came to find her one more time, her face pale in the lamp light.

"There's one more thing," she said. "Our scout who got close to Blackthorn's border says someone there already knew we were coming. Days before we sent any word at all."