Chapter 2
By seven in the evening, Alpha Christian, missing for six hours, finally showed up at the healing center. He looked pale, a hint of guilt reflected in his piercing amber eyes, which usually carried the weight of his Alpha authority. His broad shoulders, usually squared with confidence, now slumped slightly, as if burdened by an invisible force.
“Luna Violeta, I’m sorry,” he rasped, his deep voice strained, the Alpha tone momentarily absent. “Emersyn… I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. I had to try and help.”
I swallowed the bitterness rising within me, my hand instinctively resting on my still-flat abdomen where our six-week-old pup grew. “There are plenty of warriors and healers in the pack. Why did it have to be you, Alpha?”
“She picked today to threaten to leap off the cliffs, insisting only I could save her. What was going through her mind?” I continued, feeling a swell of hurt that even my wolf whimpered softly in the back of my consciousness. “Christian, I’m not oblivious.”
He fell silent for a long moment, his large, calloused hand gripping mine, though his touch felt cold despite his natural warmth. “Luna Violeta, in seven years, I’ve never asked anything of you. Just this once, I’m pleading with you not to spread this around. Don’t let it hurt Emersyn’s reputation. I’m worried she can’t handle it.”
His sincere gaze, usually so commanding, now gripped my heart with a suffocating ache. This wasn’t a request he should make of me; he should be apologizing, not protecting her.
A person’s instinct doesn’t mislead. He hadn’t considered the embarrassment he caused by leaving me stranded at the marking ceremony. He hadn’t been concerned about my ending up in the healing center. All his thoughts were on Emersyn.
Tears fell like scattered pearls onto the white sheets, dotting them with dark spots. It took all my strength to whisper one word: “Okay.”
He relaxed visibly, his shoulders rising slightly as if a weight had been lifted. Then he added, “When Emersyn found out about the ceremony, she became destabilized. Let’s postpone it.”
“I need to be with her for treatment for now. Once she improves… maybe three months, just three months, and we can proceed, alright?” he suggested, his voice filled with caution, as if tiptoeing around a fragile truth.
I had waited seven years; surely three months shouldn’t matter. Yet observing his concern for someone else made even those three months feel unbearable.
The tiny life within me seemed to sense my turmoil and shifted slightly, a quiet reminder of the bond we once shared. I rested my hand on my abdomen, nurturing our pup—ours, yet distanced from him now.
Slowly, I withdrew my hand, my voice as calm and placid as a still pond. “Christian…”
“I may not have the best memory, but I recall when you handed me a love letter in the pack schoolyard at seventeen, so nervous you stumbled over your own feet.”
“I remember when you first held my hand, your palm sweaty, and you didn’t let go for three blocks.”
“I remember our Alpha ceremony day, when you promised to take care of me forever, vowed to make me the happiest Luna.”
“All these years, you remembered I don’t eat onions or garlic, that I sip herbal tea during my cycles, all my little quirks… I always believed I mattered most to you.”
I met his gaze, tears suddenly streaming down: “But today, I don’t feel your love…”
Memories from the past seven years flooded my mind, and Christian’s eyes grew red. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and a tear slipped down, a rare crack in his Alpha facade.
“But Luna Violeta, Emersyn needs me right now.”
The phrase “needs me” crushed my last glimmer of hope. Looking at him, I suddenly laughed through my tears: “Then go to her.”
He looked taken aback, as if not expecting those words. But in the end, he didn’t say anything and walked out of the healing center, his broad frame disappearing into the dimly lit hallway, leaving me alone with the shattered remnants of our bond.
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