(First-Person POV / Alternating)
Her POV
The apartment felt too large when he was gone.
Silence stretched across the rooms like a second skin — soft, heavy, suffocating. Every tick of the clock sounded like a countdown to something I couldn't name.
I tried to distract myself.I cleaned. Rearranged the books. Cooked again, though the food turned cold untouched.
But eventually, I found myself standing before the one place I hadn't dared to open — the locked drawer in his study.
The key wasn't hard to find. Leonardo was meticulous, but not paranoid; he hid things like a man who wanted to be discovered, one day, but never had the courage to invite it.
The key was under a small glass paperweight shaped like a wolf.
I hesitated, then turned it.
The drawer slide open with a sigh.
Inside was a box — dark mahogany, polished smooth. It smelled faintly of cedar and old letters.
I opened it.
Photos.
The first one showed a woman — beautiful, strong-eyed, the kind of face that looked carved by moonlight itself. Her smile was quiet, but sure. She stood beside Leonardo, who looked younger, softer, unscarred by the weight he now carried.
Tucked beneath the photo was a small silver ring.And a letter, its edges worn from being unfolded too many times.
My dearest Leo,
If you're reading this, it means you've chosen duty again. It means I'm gone, or worse — forgotten. Please, don't carry my ghost with you. You were never meant to bear the whole world alone.
I loved you once — enough to let you go when you needed to become a king. But I hope, wherever your path ends, you'll remember you were human before you were Alpha.
— L.
My breath caught.
So this was her — the Luna before the crown, before the walls he built so high no one could climb them.
I traced the ink with trembling fingers, wondering how long he'd kept this wound unhealed.
Then, from outside, thunder cracked — distant but deep.A storm? No. The sky was too clear.
Something inside me twisted, a sudden tug of instinct. My body reacted before thought could catch up — the Omega part of me knew.
He was fighting.Bleeding.Somewhere out there, Leonardo was drowning in a storm that smelled of blood and metal.
I pressed the letter to my chest. "Don't die," I whispered. "You still have someone left to remember you."
Leonardo's POV
Blood ran down my arm, warm and steady.
The rebellion had turned into a slaughter.
Flames licked the broken walls around us; smoke stung my throat. The rebels — Omegas, Betas, even fallen Alphas — screamed as they rushed forward.
I met them blade for blade.
The wolf inside me howled for dominance, but the man — the one who once laughed in sunlight beside a woman named Lira — fought for something quieter: peace.
"Hold the line!" I roared, voice breaking through the din.
My soldiers obeyed without hesitation. Their loyalty was absolute, blind. That was the curse of the crown — obedience without question, victory without mercy.
A young Alpha charged me, wild eyes full of hatred. "Monster! You killed your own mate!"
The words hit harder than the blade he swung.
I disarmed him easily, my sword flashing in the firelight. The steel stopped an inch from his throat.
But the accusation stayed.
My Luna hadn't died by my hand — but by my choices. By the duty I'd chosen over her heartbeat.
And still, even here, in this chaos, I saw another face — brown curls, stubborn eyes, soft voice whispering come back safe.
Her.
The one I'd sworn not to care for. The one who looked at me without fear.
It shouldn't have mattered. She was a stranger, a fragile Omega who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the thought of her waiting — alone, scared, maybe reading that damned letter — burned hotter than the fire around me.
When the next rebel lunged, I moved without hesitation, cutting him down cleanly.
Blood sprayed across my cheek. I didn't flinch.
For every strike I dealt, I thought of her hands in the dirt, her whisper against the night.
Grow.
That was what she'd said to her garden.And to me, without knowing.
So I did. I grew fangs. I grew fury.But under it all, I grew something dangerous — hope.
By the time the last body fell, the moon had risen, white and pitiless.
The battlefield was silent except for the wind and the beating of my own heart.
I wiped my blade clean and looked toward the horizon — toward home.
Her POV
The clock struck midnight.
I sat by the window, Leonardo's letter — her letter — still in my hands.
The night outside was calm now, but the air smelled faintly of smoke.
Something in me whispered that he was alive. That somehow, against every reason, he'd come back.
And maybe, when he did, I'd tell him I'd seen her letter.Or maybe I'd keep it a secret — another ghost to carry between us.
Either way, I wasn't afraid anymore.
I looked out into the dark and whispered,"Come back, Leonardo. You're not done being human yet."
Leonardo's POV
Miles away, standing among corpses and ash, I tilted my head toward the same moon.
For a fleeting second, I could almost hear her voice — soft, trembling, real.
I sheath my sword.
"I'm trying," I said quietly to no one. "For you."