Too Late, the Luna Has Already Moved On

Chapter 8 – The Song Everyone Wants

Angela's POV

"Do they know it's me?" I asked.

I didn’t state it directly—I meant whether Adrienne knew that “Rowan Hart” was my alias—but Gregory already understood what I meant.

"No. I'm certain of that."

I sat in the parking lot and watched the clouds move.

She wants the song, Silvia said. The one you wrote about us. About everything we lost.

I know.

That song is our pain. Our seven years. And she wants to wear it like a costume.

I know, Silvia.

So what are we going to do about it?

I started the engine.

I called my therapist first. Moved the appointment to later. Then called Gregory back and told him I was coming.

Mask. Sunglasses. Cap. A suppressant swallowed dry in the elevator.

The doors opened. My Dior heels hit the tile floor as I walked into Gregory's office.

He rose when he saw me. His eyes moved over the new outfit, the shorter hair, and he said nothing — just guided me to my seat at the far end of the table.

Adrienne and Jake were already there.

The moment I entered, Adrienne stood.

"Mrs. Rowan Hart." Her smile was fragile and precisely calibrated. "I'm Adrienne. Perhaps you've heard of me. I truly want to buy your song."

I didn't answer her.

I looked at Jake instead.

He didn't look back. His attention was entirely on Adrienne. Every line of him angled toward her like a compass finding north.

His scent reached me even across the table. Cedar and mountain air. The same as it had always been.

The bond pulled. Once. Sharp.

I pressed my heel into the floor and held still. The suppressant helped, but it couldn't touch the bone-level recognition — my wolf knowing her Alpha was in the room, the pull that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with seven years of shared territory.

Gregory spoke first. "Ms. Jenson. As I've already said — Rowan isn't selling."

Adrienne ignored him. Her eyes went red on cue. "This song speaks to my heart," she said. "Rowan, I only have six months to live. Please — grant me this one dying wish."

Another one, Silvia said flatly. How many dying wishes does she get?

The matebond dissolution had been a dying wish. Now this.

"What if I said no?" I asked.

Adrienne stilled.

"I'm aware of your situation," I continued. "The countdown. The livestream. But I'm not obligated to satisfy a dying wish from someone I've never met." I paused. "Why this song specifically? Is it for the livestream? Or for your funeral?"

Adrienne gasped. Then coughed.

Jake's hand was on her back before the second cough landed. He looked up at me for the first time since I'd walked in.

"Don't you think that's a little harsh?" His voice was cold. Eyes sharp.

I looked at him.

He was wearing one of the outfits I'd coordinated. Not yesterday's clothes — he'd gone back to the packhouse, opened the closet, and dressed himself from the half I'd left behind. He hadn't noticed I was gone until the closet told him. He still hadn't mentioned it.

"Forcing a sale is harsher," I said. "If you're going to push, be prepared for pushback."

Jake's jaw tightened.

"I've got this." Adrienne touched his arm and he stood down. She turned back to me, voice dropping into something softer. "Rowan. This song is my story. The longing. The sacrifice. The sorrow underneath all of it." Her eyes found Jake's face briefly, then returned to mine. "And the release at the end. Accepting everything. Letting go. That part most of all."

Jake's face in that moment.

The tenderness in it. Open and unguarded, directed at her without effort or thought.

Seven years. Not once had he looked at me like that.

Seeing their interactions, I started to feel like an outsider observing a tragic, idealized couple. The irony burned a hole inside my heart. The other wolf, having harvested sympathy from a song inspired by my heartbreak, while I, the rightful Luna, was treated as if I were the villain. It wasn’t fair.

Don't, Silvia said quietly. Don't let it in.

Too late. I felt it move through me — not jealousy, something older and quieter. The specific grief of understanding, finally and completely, that what I'd been waiting for had never been coming.

Adrienne mistook my silence for something else.

"Surely you'd want someone who truly understands the pain behind the lyrics to have it," she said.

I nearly laughed.

She had lived my pain. She had caused my pain. And now she was sitting across a table trying to purchase the song I'd written inspired by that pain.

Adrienne’s tears couldn’t manipulate me. I knew what she was trying to do. She was attempting to turn my pain into sentimentality. The entire situation was absurd.

I did end up laughing. Quietly, behind my sunglasses.

Jake's eyes narrowed. "You let her hear the song. That indicates willingness to sell. Your refusal now means you're unhappy with either the buyer or the price."

"Top songwriters earn millions," I said. "Annual royalties on a star track can reach ten million."

"Ten million," Jake said. "Done."

Ten million for a relatively unknown alias. The number was for Adrienne, not for the song.

Adrienne's expression hardened. "That is our final offer. I intend to use it as my signature piece on Rising Notes—"

Gregory's hands hit the table. "She said no. We're done here."

Jake didn't move. His Alpha pressure settled over the room like a change in air density. Silvia coiled beneath it, hackles up, every instinct bracing.

Hold, I told her. Not yet.

I reached over and touched Gregory's sleeve.

"It's all right," I said quietly. "I'll sell it."

Gregory turned to stare at me.

I kept my eyes on the table and didn't explain.

Rising Notes. The same show I was entering as a competitor.

Oh, Silvia said slowly. Then, with something that sounded almost like a growl of approval: Oh, I see.