Chapter 15 #2
“Just let me go,” he says, his voice taking on a coaxing tone. “Let me leave, and I’ll vanish from your life forever. You’ll never see me again, I promise. I’ll go far away, start over somewhere new. No one has to know what happened here.”
I’m genuinely considering it. Maybe mercy is the right choice. Maybe—
That’s when I see it. Just for a split second, the corner of his mouth twitches upward. A tiny, satisfied smirk that he thinks I don’t notice. A sly look in his eyes that says he thinks he has won.
He thinks I’m still the same naive girl who saved his life so many years ago. He thinks I’ll let him walk away—so he can do the same thing to someone else.
My decision crystallizes. “You’re not going to survive this,” I say quietly.
Andrew’s relief instantly transforms into fear. “What? No, Astra, please!”
I crouch back down in front of him, my hand reaching out to grip his jaw firmly. My voice is gentle, almost tender, which seems to frighten him even more than if I were shouting.
“Even if I am a latent shifter,” I say softly, “I’m still a wolf at heart. And wolves don’t forgive threats to their pack.”
His eyes widen with genuine terror now.
“I’m not going to forgive you, Andrew.” My fingers tighten on his jaw. “Not for what you did to me. Not for what you did to Luna. Not for what you planned to do to my children.”
“Astra, please—”
“I want him to die,” I say, standing and turning to Lucian.
He smiles at me. “As you wish.”
He steps toward Andrew, but I hold up a hand. “Not in front of me.”
Lucian’s eyes meet mine. “Of course.”
He grabs Andrew by the ankle and starts dragging him toward the trees. Andrew’s screams pierce the air, desperate and terrified.
“Astra! Astra, please! Don’t let him do this! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
I watch him being dragged away, and I feel...nothing. No guilt, no regret, no second thoughts. Just a cold, empty satisfaction that justice is finally being served.
“Please!” Andrew’s voice gets fainter as Lucian pulls him deeper into the forest. “I love you! I’ve always loved you! Don’t do this!”
Even now, even facing death, he’s still a liar.
The silence that follows is deafening.
I stand alone in the clearing with Luna, who has appeared from wherever she was hiding and is now rubbing against my legs. I pick her up and hold her against my chest, waiting for Lucian to return.
A few minutes pass, and suddenly, Luna begins struggling in my arms. Before I can stop her, she leaps down and bolts into the trees where Lucian disappeared with Andrew.
“Luna, no!” Panic explodes through me as I chase after her. “Come back!”
The thought of losing her again, of her getting hurt because I wasn’t careful enough, terrifies me. I crash through the underbrush, branches catching at my clothes and hair.
“Luna!” I whisper desperately. What if there are other dangers in these woods?
I’m following the sound of her soft paws when I hear voices ahead. I freeze behind a thick tree trunk, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“—thought you would get a painless death, you were wrong.” Lucian’s voice is cold, deadly.
I creep closer, staying hidden behind the trees. Through the gaps in the foliage, I can see them. Andrew is on the ground, whimpering, while Lucian stands over him with an eerie calm.
“I’m going to make you suffer for everything you put her through,” Lucian continues, his voice carrying a promise of violence that makes my skin crawl.
I press my hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp.
“A human like you never deserved somebody as precious as Astra.” Lucian crouches down beside Andrew’s broken form. “You had no right to touch her. No right to lie to her. No right to make her believe you cared about her.”
My heart is pounding so hard, I’m sure they’ll hear it. The possessiveness in Lucian’s voice, the way he speaks about me like I’m something sacred, sends heat racing through me despite the horrific circumstances.
“I’m going to make sure she forgets your name,” Lucian continues, his voice dripping with malice. “She won’t even remember who you were. You’re that insignificant. Do you think you could hurt my woman and walk away unscathed? What I have planned for you will make you beg me for death.”
I can’t listen to any more of this. The intensity in his voice, the implications of his words—it’s all too much. I back away carefully, my legs shaking.
I find Luna a few yards away, investigating a fallen log with typical feline curiosity. Relief floods through me as I scoop her up and hug her tightly.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I whisper into her fur, my voice shaking. “I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
She purrs and nuzzles against my neck, completely oblivious to the alarm she just caused me.
As I hurry back to the campsite, Lucian’s words echo in my mind. The way he spoke about me, the reverence in his voice when he called me “precious”…It makes me feel warm inside.
I wait for Lucian to return, and he takes his sweet time. The minutes stretch endlessly as I sit by the dying fire, Luna curled in my lap, both of us listening to the sounds of the forest. Every snapping twig makes my heart jump, even though I know there’s nothing left to fear from Andrew.
When Lucian finally comes back, he’s covered in blood.
It’s everywhere: splattered across his face, soaked into his shirt, coating his hands and forearms like crimson gloves.
Some of it is fresh and bright red, while other patches have already begun to darken and dry.
He moves with the same casual grace as always, as if being drenched in another person’s blood is perfectly normal.
I stare at him, taking in the gruesome sight. I should be horrified. I should be sick to my stomach, repulsed by the evidence of what he has done. But I’m not. I feel nothing.
I don’t have to ask if Andrew is dead. He clearly is.
Lucian stops a few feet away from me, his blue eyes studying my face carefully. He seems to be waiting for some kind of reaction—shock, horror, disgust. When I continue to stare at him in silence, his expression changes almost imperceptibly.
He clears his throat, the sound awkward in the quiet clearing. “I’ll go wash up.”
He has only taken a few steps toward the stream when I speak. “Why are you doing all of this for me?”
The question stops him dead in his tracks. His back goes rigid, every muscle tensing up as if my words have struck him physically.
“I’m not the best companion,” I continue, my voice tired, my heart aching, a steady throbbing in my head that doesn’t seem to go away. My gaze fixes on the broad line of his shoulders. “And it’s obvious I’m not the best judge of character, either. I’ll drag you down wherever you go.”
A silence hangs between us, heavy and loaded. After turning to look at me, he doesn’t move at all except for the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.
“You can do whatever you like,” he says finally, his voice rough and low. “I will never stop you.”
I wait for him to elaborate, to explain what he means, but he doesn’t. Not right away.
“However,” he eventually continues, his voice growing stronger, more certain, “the one thing you can’t do is look at yourself through my eyes.”
My breath catches in my throat. What does that mean?
“You are mine, Astra. You can fight it all you want, but you are mine. And I am yours.”
I don’t know how to respond to this. I can hear the truth in his voice, and the raw honesty makes my chest tight with emotion that I don’t understand.
“From the moment I first laid eyes on you,” he continues, his voice dropping lower, “you were mine.”
He stares at me, those intense eyes burning into mine across the space between us. The possessiveness in his gaze is absolute, unshakeable.
“I’m a patient man, Astra,” he says, my name rolling off his tongue like it belongs there. “I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to believe me. You are the first woman I have ever cared about.”
With that, he turns and walks toward the stream, disappearing from my line of sight and leaving me alone with my racing thoughts.
I sit there in stunned silence, his words echoing in my mind.
“From the moment I first laid eyes on you, you were mine.” Not “I hoped you could be mine” or “I wanted you to be mine,” but “you were mine.” Like it was a foregone conclusion from the very beginning.
Like he took one look at me and decided my fate.
This possessiveness should be frightening to me. After Andrew’s manipulation, after learning how easily I was deceived, I should be running from any man who speaks of possessing me. But instead of fear, I feel something else entirely. Something I’m too terrified to consider.
Buried beneath the confusion and the doubt, though, something else stirs. My pulse quickens when I think about the way he looked at me. I’m not ready to name it, not ready to trust it, but it’s there, nonetheless.
Luna shifts in my lap, drawing my attention back to the present.
I stroke her soft fur, trying to process everything that has happened today.
This morning, I was hollow and empty, convinced that love is just another weapon people use against each other.
Now, I’m sitting here with blood on my hands—metaphorically, at least—and listening to a dangerous man tell me I belong to him.
“You are the first woman I have ever cared about.”
How is that possible? How has a man like Lucian—powerful, daring, devastatingly attractive—never cared about anyone before? How have I become the exception?
“You can fight it all you want, but you are mine.”
I think back to that first night when he burst out of the shadows to save me from the pack warriors. The way he looked at me then—I thought he was just a mercenary taking pity on a helpless female, but maybe it was something else altogether.
Then all those dead animals I kept waking up to…Could it have been Lucian?
The sound of splashing water carries from the stream, and I envision him washing Andrew’s blood from his skin. He killed a man for me today. Not in the heat of battle or self-defense, but because I asked him to. Because Andrew had hurt me.
I should feel guilty about that. I should feel responsible for Andrew’s death. But all I feel is a grim sense of closure, like a chapter of my life has finally ended the way it should have.
“I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to believe me.”
Believe what? That he cares about me? That I’m somehow dear to him? That this isn’t just another elaborate manipulation designed to get something from me?
After Andrew, I don’t know if I can trust my own judgment anymore. How do I tell the difference between genuine feeling and skilled deception? How do I know if what I see in Lucian’s eyes is real or just another pretty lie?
But even as the doubts swirl through my mind, I can’t forget the way he spoke about me to Andrew.
The tone of his voice when he called me precious.
The fury when he talked about what Andrew had done to me.
That wasn’t for my benefit; he didn’t know I was listening.
That was just truth, raw and unfiltered.
After my mother passed away, I don’t remember anybody caring about me.
I was a child who needed comfort, who was grieving, but I was punished for existing.
I learned to smile through the pain and the vicious words spoken to me.
I taught myself to let the cruelty slide off my back.
But deep inside, I was breaking. Andrew’s kindness made me crave a different life.
I wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to tell me I mattered.
But in the end, I was still nothing.
Andrew reached in and crushed the remaining jagged edges of my heart into rubble. He showed me my true worth. Someone who couldn’t be loved, who didn’t deserve to be loved, who was a burden on society.
So, why is Lucian contradicting what I finally accepted? Why is he acting as if I matter to him?
“I’m scared, Luna,” I whisper wearily. “How can Lucian want me? My own pack didn’t want me. Andrew didn’t want me. He has to be playing some game, right? If I let him sleep with me, maybe he’ll grow bored and throw me aside.”
I’ve never taken a man to my bed. I was too busy trying to survive in my pack even to think about it.
And with Andrew, we only met up for a brief time every few weeks, and he never pushed, so I never asked.
But now? I don’t even care. After everything I have been through, my body is just that: a body.
If Lucian wants it, I don’t care. I’ll just wait till he realizes what everybody else did, and when he discards me, I’ll leave quietly.
My eyes are wet, I realize, and I rub them, laughing bitterly.
The splashing from the stream stops, which means Lucian will be returning soon. Clean, blood-free, ready to continue whatever this is between us. I look down at Luna, who blinks up at me with those knowing, amber eyes of hers. Then she purrs and nuzzles deeper into my arms, offering comfort.
I close my eyes and rest my chin on top of her head, murmuring, “It’s just going to be me and you again soon, I guess. Don’t get too used to him.”
I feel an ache in my chest, which I ignore.