He Left Me for His Luna, Then Came Back

I told myself I was fine.

I'd been telling myself that for eight years, so by now I was pretty good at it.

The bonfire was enormous — the kind Silverfang only built for ceremonies, stacked high with pine and cedar until the flames reached above the cliff's edge and threw orange light across the whole ridge. Below us, the river ran black and fast in the dark. I could hear it if I stood close enough to the railing. I didn't stand close.

I stood near the back of the crowd instead, where the firelight barely reached, and I watched Harrison place his hand on Alia Mitchell's waist.

His touch was easy. Practiced. The kind of touch that said he'd decided.

The pack cheered. Someone near me let out a long howl, and others joined in, and the sound rolled out over the cliff and down into the valley like it belonged there. Like this was exactly how things were supposed to go.

I pressed my fingers to the inside of my wrist.

It was a habit I'd picked up somewhere along the way — pressing two fingers to that soft spot where my pulse lived, just to feel it. Just to stay in my body when everything in me wanted to go somewhere else. I'd done it so many times in Harrison's presence that it had become automatic. A private thing. Mine.

Alia was beautiful in the ceremony dress. White and silver, fitted at the waist, her dark hair pinned up with small flowers woven through it. She looked like a Luna. She'd been practicing looking like one for months, and she was good at it.

Harrison looked at her the way he looked at everything he'd decided to own.

I exhaled slowly and told myself the ache in my chest was just the cold air coming off the river.

Eight years. Eight years of staying. Of being useful and quiet and loyal, of telling myself that what Harrison and I had was complicated, that Alphas showed care differently, that the distance he kept was protection rather than indifference. Eight years of building my entire sense of belonging inside this pack around a single memory — a summer night when I was fifteen, rogues coming out of the dark, and a wolf who nearly died keeping them off me. I'd woken up with Harrison at my side, steady and unhurt, and I'd believed him when the story said it was him.

I'd believed him for eight years.

The fire crackled. Someone laughed near the railing. The ceremony was winding toward its close, the formal words already spoken, the bond already declared in front of the pack. All that was left was the celebration.

I should have left then. I know that now.

I was turning to go when I heard my name.

"Elora."

Alia's voice was smooth. Composed. She had the Luna tone down already — warm on the surface, with something harder underneath that most people didn't