“If he does,” I say, “he punishes loyalty to the pack. This is not a rebellion that I’m stirring. This is me reclaiming my position, reminding you all that I’m your Luna.”
Jax crosses his arm over his chest, bowing low. “Luna.”
Kade forbade everyone from using the title, but now his most loyal beta does it.
The others follow, one by one, until the entire front half of the field is on their knees. The rest—those who came only to watch—don’t move. I don’t force them. I just meet their eyes and say, “You’ll come next time.”
I pick up my cloak, sling it over my shoulders, and walk down the ridge.
As I pass Jax, he leans close. “You’ve taken half the pack back tonight.”
I shake my head. “Not half. Enough.”
HIS LUNA
Kade
From the balcony above, Kade watches.
He came when he heard the howling—first one, then many—and thought it was a hunt gone wrong. But when he stepped onto the balcony and saw her, saw the circle of wolves below, his breath locked.
Freya stands on the ridge, her hair wild, her stance unflinching. She moves like she was born to command, not ask.But he’d known that when he first met her, didn’t he?
Izel stands behind him, trying to peer over the railing. “What is she doing?” she hisses. “Calling a rebellion?”
Kade doesn’t answer. Because even from here, he can feel it—the bond. The pulse of pack magic. He’d thought it broken or at least weakened beyond repair when his father passed away, but it isn’t. It’s alive. It’s thriving. It’s answeringher.
“She’s defying you,” Izel says sharply.
He turns his head just enough to silence her. “She’s reminding them what a Luna sounds like.”
The admission surprises even him.
He watches as the wolves kneel. She marches with confidence, and for a moment, she looks like the stories his father told him—the High Lunas who could command storms with their voices. He’d seen Freya naked often when they made love, so he had noticed the mark on her back—the crescent shape that mirrored the High Luna in the mural of the Queen’s Wing.
He’d dismissed it as a coincidence. But now he isn’t sure anymore.
Something cracks open in him, small and painful.
“She has no right,” Izel spits.
Kade remains quiet. He knows she has every right.
When he looks again, Freya has already descended from the ridge. The crowd parts around her like water. Wolves bow as she passes.
He realizes with sudden clarity that he’s watching not his wife, but the Luna he once swore to serve—and he no longer knows if he still deserves to.
BETTER BLOOD THAN SILENCE
Freya
Three days have passed since the Midnight Howl, and already, I can feel the difference.
The Queen’s Wing is no longer silent. More pack members have moved here. Children’s laughter fills the halls where dust used to sleep. The air smells of soap, jasmine, honey, and something that almost feels like home.
I sit cross-legged on the carpet, a doll in each hand. Ivy giggles sleepily in my lap, clutching another in her tiny fingers. Across the room, Finn runs in circles, flying his wooden wolf through the air.
A croak startles me. Rowan’s raven—Noctra perches on the edge of my desk. Its feathers shimmer darkly in the light. Finn chases it, laughing, but the bird only hops higher, smug, and untouchable.
