The moment we stepped into the clearing, the world changed.
The air was alive, thrumming with a raw, wild energy that made my skin prickle.
Torches and bonfires cast dancing shadows on ancient trees, and the massive, full moon was a blinding silver eye in the sky.
The pack was a sea of bare skin and simmering power, a symphony of low growls and laughter.
And every head turned as Clara and I walked in.
I wore the dark blue, glittering dress, a slash of midnight against the primal scene.
The whispers started instantly, a current of sound that followed our every step.
I heard my name, and the new title they'd given me. "The People's Luna."
Then I saw them. A small group of young she-wolves, all from Selene's inner circle, clustered near the water's edge.
They weren't sneering. They were watching me with wide, earnest eyes.
As I passed, the boldest one, a girl with fiery red hair, stepped forward.
"Luna Riley," she said, her voice trembling just slightly. "We saw you on SHE-KNOWS. You were… incredible."
Another girl nodded fervently. "You weren't afraid of her at all."
The validation was a physical warmth in my chest, so different from reading it on a screen. This was real. I had given them something.
The warmth froze instantly.
"How… charming."
Selene emerged from the shadows like a phantom, her own dress a simple, stunning shift of white silk that screamed effortless elegance.
Her smile was a razor blade.
"It seems you've found your audience, Clara," she said, her voice sweet as poisoned honey.
Her gaze swept over my assistant with utter contempt. "I see you've found your true calling. Fetching and carrying for the new toy. It must be a step up from polishing silver in the servant's quarters."
Clara flinched as if struck, her face flushing a deep, humiliated red.
The young she-wolves looked down, the spell broken.
Something inside me snapped. Cold and clean.
I took one step forward, placing myself squarely between Selene and Clara.
"The only one here acting like a toy, Selene, is you," I said, my voice calm and clear, cutting through the night air. Every whisper died. The entire clearing was listening.
"Parroting the same old insults because you have nothing new to say. No vision. No strength of your own."
I looked her dead in the eyes, my own turning to flint.
"Clara is my Head of Staff. You will address her with the respect her title demands," I stated, the words final and absolute. "Or you will not address her at all."
The silence was profound. You could hear the crackle of the bonfire from fifty feet away.
Selene's beautiful face went pale with a rage so pure it seemed to suck the air from around her.
She had been publicly stripped of her power, not by a challenge of claws, but by words. By authority.
I didn't wait for a reply. I turned my back on her, a deliberate, calculated insult, and looped my arm through Clara's.
"Let's go," I murmured.
As we walked away, I felt the gaze of the young she-wolves on my back. It wasn't just admiration now.
It was allegiance.
I had won my first battle.
But as my eyes scanned the crowd, finding first Darel's hurt, accusing stare, and then Trevor's drunken, predatory glare, I knew the war for my soul was just beginning.
The high from humiliating Selene was short-lived. It evaporated the moment my eyes met Darel's across the fire.
He wasn't with his friends.
He stood alone, a dark silhouette against the roaring flames, a glass of amber liquor dangling from his fingers.
The hurt in his gaze was a physical blow.
I had to try. I excused myself from Clara and walked toward him, the confident Luna melting away with every step.
"Darel," I said, my voice softer than I intended.
He didn't smile. He just took a slow sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving mine. "Riley."
My name was a sigh of disappointment.
"I… I wanted to see how you were."
A bitter, humorless laugh escaped him. "How I am? You disappear after the gala. The next time I see you, you're my brother's wife. And now you want to know how I am?"
He finally looked away, into the fire. "Why didn't you tell me?"
My heart hammered against my ribs. "Tell you what?"
"This!" he hissed, gesturing vaguely at the manor, the title, the torque around my neck.
"That this was your plan all along. That everything at the cafe… was just a move on the board. Was any of it real?"
The question stole the air from my lungs. Yes. All of it was real. You were the only real thing.
But the words were trapped, locked behind a vault of secrets I could never open.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Just a broken, helpless whisper. "Darel… it's not what you think."
He looked at me then, and the raw, wounded betrayal in his eyes was worse than any of Selene's venom. "It never is."
He turned and walked away, melting into the crowd, leaving me standing there alone, the emptiness where his warmth had been feeling colder than the night air.
That's when he found me.
"Look what the cat dragged in," a voice slurred beside me.
Trevor leaned against a tree, shirtless and gleaming with sweat, a predatory smile on his face. "The People's Luna. Cute."
I stiffened, the old fear coiling in my stomach, but I gathered courage. "I knew I didn't have to find you, somehow, you're obsessed with me."
"Obsessed?" he purred, pushing off the tree and stepping far too close. "What are you going to do about it?."
The scent of cheap mead and aggression was a nauseating cloud around him. "You'll give another speech? You don't have a microphone here, sweetheart. Just us wolves."
His eyes raked over me, lingering on the torque at my neck. "Still can't answer the moon's call, I see. Some Luna."
He circled me, a shark tasting blood.
"WHERE IS HE?" The scream tore from me, raw and guttural, shattering the night's ambiance.
But Trevor just smiled wider, savoring my breakdown. "A good mother always keeps her son close," he whispered, his voice dripping with sinister implication.
"But you? You let him slip right through your fingers. What kind of mother does that make you?"
The words were a psychological atom bomb, designed to annihilate me from the inside out.
And they worked.
As his smirk of victory settled on his face, something in my soul shattered.
The grief, the rage, the primal need to protect my child—it didn't just boil over. It IGNITED.
A searing heat exploded in my veins. The world tinted silver.
A sound ripped from my throat that was half-sob, half-thunderous growl.
My vision sharpened. My teeth elongated.
A wave of raw, invisible force slammed out from my core.
It wasn't aimed. It was a detonation.
It hit Trevor square in the chest.
His eyes bulged with shock, his feet left the ground, and he landed on his back in the dirt with a grunt, the wind and his smugness knocked right out of him.
Silence.
The entire clearing froze. The howls, the laughter, the chatter—it all died.
Every single wolf, in human and beast form, stared at me.
At the woman with the glowing silver eyes and the fangs, standing over the Alpha's brother.
In the dead quiet, a single set of footsteps echoed.
Falon.
He didn't run. He didn't shout.
He simply walked through the parted crowd, a king reclaiming his domain.
He didn't even glance at his brother groaning on the ground.
His stormy eyes were only for me.
He stopped before me, his gaze intense, unreadable. Then, he slowly reached out and placed his hand on my arm.
Just like in his study, the connection was instant.
The searing heat in my veins cooled.
The silver faded from my vision. The wild energy receded, soothed by his touch, channeled by his will.
Only then did he turn to face his pack, his hand still firmly on my arm, binding us together.
"The next wolf," he said, his voice low but carrying to the farthest edges of the clearing, "who challenges my Luna, will answer to me."
He paused, letting the threat hang in the air like an executioner's axe.
"And I am not nearly as… restrained… as she is."
He had not condemned my power. He had claimedit. He had made it his own.
As he led me away from the stunned silence, I took one last look over my shoulder.
I saw Selene's horrified face. I saw the young she-wolves, their eyes now filled with something beyond allegiance—awe.
And I saw Trevor, climbing to his feet, his expression a murderous promise of vengeance.
The pawn was gone. The fragile Luna was gone.
I had become the storm.