LUNA OF ASHES

CHAPTER 4 — The Alpha’s Shame

Silvercrest did not sleep easily after the attack.

The pack grounds bore the marks of violence no one spoke about openly—scorched stone hastily scrubbed clean, splintered doors replaced too quickly, blood-scent masked beneath layers of ash and pine oil. The repairs were efficient, almost aggressive, as though erasing the damage might erase the questions clawing at the pack’s collective mind.

It didn’t work.

Kaden felt it everywhere he went.

Whispers followed him through the halls of the Alpha residence, quiet but persistent. Warriors fell silent when he approached, then resumed murmuring once he passed. Their deference remained, but something had shifted beneath it—unease, curiosity, the beginnings of doubt.

They had seen something during the attack.

They had seen her.

Kaden kept his expression carved from stone as he crossed the training grounds, hands clasped behind his back. He neither slowed nor acknowledged the looks cast in his direction. An Alpha did not react to rumors. He stood above them.

Or so he told himself.

“Did you feel that surge?” someone whispered as he passed.

“I swear the air went silver.”

“An omega couldn’t—”

Kaden’s jaw tightened.

He pretended not to hear.

Inside the council chamber, Rowan waited.

The Beta stood near the long oak table, arms crossed, his posture tense in a way Kaden rarely saw. Rowan had been at his side since boyhood—steady, loyal, infuriatingly perceptive. If anyone in Silvercrest would challenge him, it would be Rowan.

“You’re avoiding this,” Rowan said the moment the doors closed.

Kaden poured himself a drink he had no intention of finishing. “I’m handling it.”

“You rejected your mate publicly and sealed the gates while she was unaccounted for,” Rowan replied flatly. “That’s not handling it. That’s lighting a fuse.”

Kaden’s grip tightened around the glass. “Watch your tone.”

Rowan stepped closer. “Then give me something to work with. Because the pack is asking questions, and I’m running out of answers.”

Silence stretched between them, heavy and brittle.

Finally, Kaden exhaled slowly. “It wasn’t brutality. It was necessity.”

Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t discard a mate unless you’re hiding something.”

Kaden looked away, his gaze catching on the high windows where pale daylight filtered in. For a heartbeat, the memory surged unbidden—Aria’s scent, soft and familiar, curling around his senses in a way nothing else ever had. The way the bond had snapped when he turned away, tearing through him with a pain he had not allowed himself to acknowledge.

He swallowed.

“There was a prophecy,” Kaden said quietly.

Rowan stilled.

“Years ago,” Kaden continued, voice controlled, measured. “Before I took the Alpha mantle. The elders brought it to my father. A warning bound to the Alpha bloodline.”

Rowan said nothing, but his attention sharpened.

“It spoke of a girl born under a blood-red moon,” Kaden said. “A girl whose existence would fracture the pack from within. Ruin us. Tear down everything Silvercrest stands for.”

Rowan’s expression darkened. “Prophecies are riddles. Half-truths.”

“This one named a detail that cannot be coincidence,” Kaden said. His voice hardened. “She would be the mate of the Alpha heir.”

Understanding flickered in Rowan’s eyes—followed swiftly by disbelief. “You think Aria—”

“I don’t think,” Kaden snapped. “I see patterns. Her birth date. The surge of power during the attack. The way the air responded to her presence. Omegas don’t do that.”

Rowan shook his head slowly. “So you decided to punish her for a story told by frightened elders?”

“I decided to protect this pack,” Kaden replied sharply. “Even from myself.”

Rowan studied him for a long moment. “And what if you’re wrong?”

Kaden didn’t answer.

Because that question haunted him more than any prophecy ever could.

He dismissed Rowan shortly after, citing patrol duties. The truth was, he couldn’t stand the scrutiny any longer. The walls of Silvercrest felt too close, too heavy with expectation and unspoken judgment.

He needed air.

The forest beyond the pack grounds welcomed him with familiar scents—pine, damp earth, the quiet hum of life untouched by politics or prophecy. Kaden shifted mid-stride, bones reshaping as his wolf surged forward, powerful and restless.

They ran hard, tearing through underbrush, following patrol routes etched into muscle memory. Movement should have cleared his head.

It didn’t.

The bond tugged at him relentlessly, a phantom ache deep in his chest. Severed or not, it refused to go silent. Every breath carried the faint echo of Aria’s scent, imagined or not, threading through his senses like a taunt.

You did this, his wolf growled.

I did what was necessary, Kaden shot back.

You cast away what was ours.

Kaden faltered.

The forest shifted around him, unfamiliar now. His wolf slowed, nostrils flaring as a scent cut through the air—faint, old, but unmistakable.

Blood.

Aria’s blood.

Panic slammed into him without warning. He skidded to a halt near the forest border, heart hammering as he lowered his head to the ground. The scent was diluted by time and rain, but it was there—iron and moonlight, woven with pain.

His wolf whined low in his chest.

She was hurt, it accused. Badly.

Kaden’s breath came faster. Images assaulted him unbidden—Aria alone in the forest, bleeding, calling out to a pack that never answered. The gates closing. His voice declaring her gone.

Dead.

The thought sent a jolt of raw terror through him.

“No,” he muttered, forcing himself to breathe. “She left.”

But the forest did not agree.

The scent trail ended abruptly, as though she had been taken—or collapsed. Kaden circled the area, searching desperately for more, for anything that would confirm she still lived.

There was nothing.

The bond flared suddenly, painfully, a sharp spike of agony that drove him to one knee. He snarled, claws digging into the earth as his wolf surged forward, furious and grieving.

You feared a prophecy, it snarled. So you made it true.

Kaden squeezed his eyes shut.

He had believed distance would dull the danger. That rejection would sever the bond cleanly enough to protect the pack from whatever Aria might become.

Instead, it had hollowed him out.

When he finally rose, his movements were rigid, controlled by sheer force of will. The Alpha mask slid back into place as he turned toward Silvercrest.

He would not show doubt. He would not show regret.

But as he crossed back into pack territory, the shame followed him like a second shadow—heavy, inescapable, and earned.

And somewhere deep within, his wolf mourned what he had thrown away.