Chapter 9: In the Shadows
Mira’s POV
The door slammed behind me, the sound echoing down the corridor like a warning I refused to hear.
My heels clicked against the marble floor of the Bloodridge packhouse, sharp and deliberate. I carried myself like I belonged here—like I was the Luna already.
But sometimes… it didn’t feel that way.
Sometimes it felt like I was being measured against someone else.
Not me. Not Kaelen.
Her.
Kaia.
That half-broken, wolfless disgrace who should have faded into dust by now. Yet somehow, she lingered—haunting these halls, clinging to Kaelen’s thoughts like a stain I couldn’t scrub out.
He called it duty. Mercy. Strategy.
But I saw the way his jaw tightened when her name crossed his lips. The way his eyes lit, not with affection, but with obsession.
“
