Chapter 19
Chapter 19
The knock came while Lucien stood at the floor–to–ceiling windows, watching the European moon–larger and more accusing than the one above Shadowpine. The cigarette between his fingers had burned down to ash, singeing his
skin without him noticing.
When he opened the door, Elias lounged against the frame with predatory casualness, an amber–filled tumbler dangling from his fingers.
“So you attacked the Alpha of Lunargent Pack on his own territory?” Elias’s lip curled in a mixture of disbelief and mockery. “Impressive. Even for an American Alpha with a death wish.”
Lucien eyed the whiskey. Alcohol had never been his vice–the Moon Priests who’d raised him had instilled an almost fanatical devotion to clarity of mind. Tea ceremonies. Meditation. Those ridiculous Purification Beads he’d worn like spiritual armor.
But tonight… tonight he needed something stronger than tea to dull the wolf clawing at his insides.
He accepted the glass and downed it in one savage motion. The whiskey burned a path down his throat, mirroring
the choking sensation he’d felt watching Mira’s lips against Riven’s skin.
“He was about to mark her,” Lucien’s voice came out as a ravaged growl, more wolf than human. “I couldn’t… I
couldn’t just stand there and watch another Alpha claim what’s—”
“What’s yours?” Elias finished, his laugh entirely devoid of warmth. “That’s rich. Six years as her mate, and I’ve never once heard you refer to my sister with that kind of possessive tone.”
The alcohol worked its way through Lucien’s system with alarming speed, dissolving the iron control that had defined him since puberty. His fingers tightened on the doorframe as something inside him finally fractured.
“I think I’m in love with her, Elias.”
The words hung in the air between them–perhaps the first completely honest statement he’d made in years.
“When I came here, I wasn’t even sure what I felt… just knew our den felt hollow without her scent, her presence.”
“But seeing her with him-” He pressed his palm against his temple where a vicious headache pulsed. “I just arranged Saela’s mating to the Monroe heir without a second thought, yet the idea of Mira belonging to another Alpha is ” He swallowed hard. “Unbearable.”
He looked up, his bloodshot eyes revealing a raw vulnerability no packmate had ever witnessed. “Maybe I’ve loved her all along, but I was too-”
“Too fucking self–absorbed to notice?” Elias cut in, his tone colder than midwinter moon. “Too busy fantasizing about my sister while your actual mate bled herself dry trying to please you?”
Lucien didn’t flinch from the accusation. “Yes. Blind, self–absorbed, and unworthy.”
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The Unclaimed Luna’s Final Goodbye: No Longer a Stand–In for His Forbidden Love
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Chapter 19
“I’d give anything to undo what I’ve dime? The desperation centre sided anyone tum “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her if she’ll pu
Elias studied him for a long, evaluating moment, marking waveadable siding end is. The former allies regarded each other in silence, years of shared laws and try pwyrains unging between them
“We’ll see,” he finally said, a fraction of the hostility leaving his poure. “Get some dorp, Astone You look like
shit.”
After the door closed, Lucien collapsed onto the bed, his mind spinning from more than just the widney.
The ceiling patterns warped and twisted in his vision, morphing into tortuous neges of Mira and Kiven together Every time he closed his eyes, he saw them–her smile brighter for kiven than it had ever been for kém, her wulf finally unleashed from the cage he’d forced it into,
He bolted upright as an acrid scent invaded his nostrils.
Smoke.
Tendrils of black seeped through the doorframe while panicked shouts and footsteps thundered in the hallway.
“Fire! Everyone out! NOW!”
Orange flames cast dancing shadows on the curtains. Lucien tried to stand but found his limbs leaden, his coordination shot.
The whiskey. It had been laced with wolfshane or silver powder.
Elias had drugged him.
Cold realization washed over him, but one thought dominated everything: Mira couldn’t be harmed.
Summoning every ounce of his Alpha strength, he threw his body against the door until it splintered open. A wall of scorching heat assaulted him immediately.
The hallway had transformed into an inferno, thick smoke burning his lungs with each desperate breath. Through the wavering heat, he spotted Mira half–carrying a drugged and stumbling Riven toward the emergency exit.
“MIRA!” The Alpha command in his voice should have carried over even the roar of the flames.
She turned–just enough for him to see her profile.
The look she gave him seared more painfully than any fire. Cold. Empty. Devoid of recognition.
The gaze one would give to a stranger of no consequence.
She turned away without hesitation, continuing to help Riven as flames licked at the hem of her nightgown.
“MIRA, PLEASE!” Raw desperation replaced command in his voice.
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The Unclaimed Luna’s Final Goodbye: No Longer a Stand In for His Forbidden Love
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Chapter 19
This time, she didn’t even acknowledge him.
Lucien tried to follow, but his drugged body betrayed him as he collapsed to his knees. The irony wasn’t lost on him–watching her choose another wolf’s safety over his, just as he had once chosen Saela over her
Karma. Cosmic justice, The Moon Goddess’s punishment.
Above him, the wooden beam supporting the ceiling groaned under the fire’s assault, ancient timbers weakening by
the second.
The beam came crashing down, trailing fire and destruction. In his drugged state, he lacked the strength to dodge it
In his final moment of consciousness, his mind flashed back to the warehouse with perfect clarity.
When both Mira and Saela had been strapped to bombs with only seconds remaining, he’d chosen Saela without a moment’s hesitation.
Had Mira felt then what he was feeling now?
This soul–crushing despair of knowing you weren’t chosen?
“I’m sorry…” he whispered to the empty hallway.
The flames consumed his belated remorse.
