The Alpha's Contracted Luna

She's Gone

Damien's POV

The pen was still in my hand when I caught the scent—fear, sharp and sour, pouring off Marcus my beta, even before he stepped inside.

He didn’t knock. Marcus always knocks.

“Alpha..”

“What.” I didn’t bother to look up.

“Mrs. Blackwood is gone.”

The pen clattered onto the desk. I hadn’t even realized I’d let go. Every sound in the room seized. The fire, the clock—all drowned out by the hammering in my chest. Deep down, my wolf Axel dangerous stirred, waking up at last.I was already on my feet before I realized I’d moved.

“When?”

“Less than an hour.” Marcus was right behind me, boots quick against the stone. “Nobody’s seen her since.”

Her room hit me hard. The bed, perfectly made and untouched. Balcony doors locked from the inside. Her phone, dead and plugged into the charger, exactly where it’d been that morning.

She hadn’t run. Somebody took her.

My claws broke from my skin before I told them to—four black points glinting in the lamplight. My breath came up hot and rough. I shoved them back. Not now.

“West service door,” Marcus said, quick, tense, eyes flicking to my hands—that same wary way someone watches a live wire. “Guard saw her leave. Alone. Forty minutes back. No one’s seen anything since—no calls, no cars, nothing.”

“Cameras. All of them. Now.”

“Already pulling the feeds, Alpha.”

The security room smelled like fear, sweat and burnt coffee. Six men, all silent, barely breathing while they watched the screens.

The footage rolled. Lila, alone, hands stuffed in her coat pockets, moving like she wanted the whole world to come at her. Fast, furious. Still gorgeous, and so rebellious it hurt to watch.

A black SUV dragged into view behind her. Slow. Deliberate. Only a predator moves that slow—knowing it’s got all the time in the world.

My pulse went haywire. My nails dug deep half-crescents into my palms.

Lila turned the corner.

Just gray snow where my wife had been a moment ago.

“They jammed the feed,” someone whispered, and the words cut straight through me.

I stood. Every man in that room fell back right away, like animals can sense a coming storm before it even hits.They were right to.

“Lock down every gate.” My voice barely sounded human. More like a growl than anything else. I saw it hit every man in there, a weight nobody could ignore. “Ground every helicopter not already hunting for her. I want every favor, every debt anyone’s ever owed to this pack called in. Every Alpha, every treaty, I don’t care what burns tonight.”

Nobody moved. They didn’t even breathe.

“Find my wife.”

The room emptied fast—chairs scraping, doors banging, radios exploding to life everywhere. Even Marcus avoided my eyes as he left, and I’ve watched him walk through gunfire without so much as a blink.

Alone, I let my wolf climb halfway up into my skin, just to feel something other than this icy weight spreading through my chest. Claws. Teeth too sharp. My reflection in that dark glass looked nothing like me—eyes rimmed gold, ragged breaths fogging up the window.

"Last night should never have happened.That’s it. Nothing else I care to remember."

I let out a laugh, short and ugly, didn’t even sound like me.

“Liar.”

Not to her. I was talking to that part of me that actually thought keeping my distance would keep her safe.

My hand pressed over my own mouth—same mouth that kissed her up on the terrace when the whole world seemed to be collapsing. Same mouth that sent her out the door alone later, thinking a contract was some kind of shield.

If I hadn’t stared her in the eye and lied, she wouldn’t have had to prove how strong she was. Wouldn’t have walked off without asking.I would have traded anything, right then, to take it back.

The door banged open. A guard stumbled in, dragging another man, throat torn and blood soaking through his shirt. Not deep enough to finish him—just enough for a message.

I Knelt on the stone next to him. His eyes found me, glassy but hanging on, fighting to keep focused.

“Black—” Blood bubbled up with the word. “Black—”

“I saw the SUV.” I grabbed his hand, steady. “Give me something I don’t know. Stay here.”

Weak shake of his head, desperate to get it right, even with the breath it cost him.

“Black… Moon…”

He let go with an exhale, staring past me.

I knelt there too long. Black Moon wasn’t real. Dead and buried twenty years ago, just a story Alphas told their pups to scare them straight.But dead things don’t jam cameras. Dead things don’t leave bodies for show.I opened the safe behind my grandfather’s painting, hands finally shaking.

Two folders sat waiting, untouched for years. I’d left them there because opening them meant admitting how long I’d known. PROJECT MOONLIGHT. THE LAST HEIR.

A photo slipped out and landed on the desk—Lila, just a kid, maybe seven, hole in her smile, hair wild, grinning up at the camera like she’d never been hurt.

She’d been a target since long before I ever came into her life.And I’d let her walk out that gate anyway.

“They’re finally moving,” I said—more to the empty room than myself. My voice shook too.

Marcus showed up quick, shoving a courier in front of him. His knuckles were white as paper, hands trembling around a little black box.

“Left at the gate,” Marcus said. “No one saw who did it. No plates, nothing to track.”

I took the box. My hands had gone calm the way they always do before I break.Inside was her ring stained dark with blood, still wet.

Beneath it, a folded note. Six words written in silver ink. That was all it took for the wolf inside me to finish tearing loose.

Come alone… if you want her alive.

I looked up. Marcus backed away by instinct—the same way everybody had, an hour earlier.

“Get the car,” I told him. “No one needs to know where I’m going. Not the pack. Not you.”

“Alpha, if this really is Black Moon..."

“Then they already know exactly what I am.” The claws were out again, and this time, I didn’t bother hiding them. “Let’s see if they still remember why that used to scare kingdoms."