The door slammed shut.
The sound echoed like a death knell, final and cruel.
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The heat hadn’t faded. It clung to my skin like fire that couldn’t be quenched. My limbs were shaking and I didn’t know if it was from the Core Fang I held earlier….. or from the look in his eyes.
Alexander’s eyes.
Eyes that once held warmth for me days ago…. now burned like judgment. The way he looked at me. Like I was filth. Like I was some stranger who walked into his kingdom and spat on his name.
He had dragged me like a criminal. Not his mate. Not his Luna. Just a thief he couldn’t wait to lock away. One that he’d
want to kill.
I sat curled in the corner of the room. Everything burned. My throat. My skin. My chest. I couldn’t stop shaking.
And Levi was here.
He stepped in slowly, eyes unreadable as they trailed over me.
knew I looked terrible. Hair, a mess. Face stained. Blood dripping from my wrists where Alexander’s claws had dug in.
“You have to save Katherine, Levi.” I choked, tears clinging to my lashes. “He’s going to kill her,” I begged. “Please… please
don’t give her to them.”
Levi blinked. “No, he’s not. She’s under house arrest. Not the dungeon.”
“There is no difference as long as Aaron is with her.” My voice cracked. “Aaron… he’s cruel. You know how he is with prisoners. If they think she helped me, they’ll torture her. They’ll make her talk, Levi.”
Levi’s eyes darkened, but he still didn’t speak.
“She didn’t know anything,” I rushed out. “She didn’t know about the Core Fang. She hasn’t even heard of it or knew I was going to take it.”
“Then why did she pack a sack?” he asked, “The clothes and everything seemed like you were going to run away.”
“Because “I choked. “Because she thought we were going outside the walls. Just to breathe.”
He raised a brow.
“She just wanted us to go outside the walls. That’s it,” I said. “She told me this morning–while I was crafting in Alexander’s workshop. She said there’s a waterfall nearby. Some maids told her about it. She thought it might help clear my head. She always does that when things get suffocating.”
Levi tilted his head. “She always did that for you?”
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“In my old pack, yeah.” I swallowed and looked up at him, begging. “It wasn’t a plan to run away. It wasn’t anything like that. She didn’t know I took the Core Fang. I swear she didn’t.”
Levi finally sat across from me, elbows resting on his knees.
He studied me quietly for a long time. So long I thought he wouldn’t respond.
Then he said, softly, “Why did you take the Core Fang, Luna?”
I shook my head immediately. “I can’t tell you that, Levi. I’m sorry. If I could, I would have told Alex a long time ago but… Right now, I can’t. But I didn’t steal it for me. I didn’t even want to touch it.”
His brow furrowed. “Who told you to take it, Luna?”
My heart squeezed at how he still called me that. “It doesn’t matter. If I tell you she-”
“She?”
I didn’t answer.
Levi knelt closer. “Then why not deny it in front of The Order?”
“I did. I told him I wasn’t stealing it. But he doesn’t believe me.”
“Because it looks like betrayal,” he muttered.
I shivered at his ‘words. This isn’t going as I had planned, if only he had given me a chance to explain to him. “I know what
it looks like. But he thinks I’m his enemy, Levi.”
“He does not.”
“He does,” I said, tears streaming now. “He thinks I’m a spy. That I’m working with my pack to bring his own down. But I’m
not.”
Levi’s jaw clenched. “He’s angry. Furious. But he’s also confused.
My lips trembled.
“You marked him,” he muttered, almost like a thought.
I stared. “He said that too.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “But I never did. I don’t even know how to mark someone.”
Levi looked down at his hands. “Our ways are different,” he said. “She–lycans… you were blessed with the ability to also mark your mates. Unlike werewolves whose bond is determined solely by the he–wolf.”
I hesitated. My lips parted, but I couldn’t speak.
“He felt it,” Levi added quietly. “So did the others. The way you commanded us to stop in that hall. The power you held over him- over us. Not an accident, Not a coincidence. Not because they wanted to listen to you, but because we had no
choice.”
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I swallowed hard.
“It was the Luna’s command,” he finished. “When was the first time you bit him?”
I closed my eyes, trying to think. “But… the only time I bit him… was when we were… having sex. But that was after he marked me. After he took my first time. That was the day we arrived in the pack.”
“Are you sure that was the first time he bit you?” Levi raised an eyebrow. “Did you bite him before that time? Taste his
blood?”
I frowned. My thoughts went spiraling. Backward. Digging through all the chaos of days I barely remembered.
I opened my mouth to answer, then paused. My heart stumbled.
“No…“I breathed. “The tent.”
Levi tilted his head.
“The day you almost killed Katherine. I bit him.” My voice was barely a whisper. “I was scared. You were going to kill her. It was just instinct. I didn’t think. I just… reacted.”
Levi was silent for a beat. “Then you marked him first.”
“No,” I gasped. That doesn’t count. I had no intention. It was just… a reflex. I didn’t even know what I was doing.”
“Intent doesn’t matter with She–lycans. Your wolf knew what it wanted. Your blood mixed with his before he ever claimed you. That bite… it was enough. Your power recognized his. Claimed it.”
My mouth went dry and I shook my head slowly. “That’s impossible.”
“I believe it’s true. Think about it. Everything you ask him to do, he does. Even things he would never do for himself. He listens to you like your voice is law. And now, we all do too. Even before him.”
“No,” I said again, weaker. “I didn’t mean to do this. I’didn’t want to… mark him.”
“But you did. And now the Pack knows and even beyond that.”
I buried my face in my hands and whispered the truth I hadn’t said out loud yet. “I think I’ve ruined everything.”
I wanted to vomit. Tears spilled again and I clutched my arms, folding in on myself.
“He’s angry, Luna, But he isn’t lost. Not yet!”
“He said he’d make me pay,” I whispered. “Every day.”
Levi’s jaw tightened. “He won’t kill you. Not even if the moon herself asked him to.”
“Then why do I feel like I already died?”
My voice cracked. I didn’t expect an answer. Levi didn’t give one,
He just looked at me. Like I was still worth something.
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I didn’t move.
对完32%出
I just sat there, hugging my knees, my body still trembling from everything–his words, the look in his eyes, the sound of that door slamming shut.
And then I heard it.
A roar.
Distant but unmistakable.
Alexander.
I jumped, my breath catching in my throat. Another sound followed–louder, more like a howl. But silence didn’t follow.
My heart started racing all over again.
What was happening out there? Was he fighting someone? Hurting someone? Was he even coming back?
I didn’t know what that sound meant.
I didn’t know anything anymore.
I buried my face in my arms, squeezing my eyes shut.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”
I said it again, quieter this time. “I didn’t know.”
And I didn’t even know if that mattered anymore.
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AD
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