HIS LUNA
Kade
From the balcony above, Kade watches.
He came when he heard the howling—first one, then many—and thought it was a hunt gone wrong. But when he stepped onto the balcony and saw her, saw the circle of wolves below, his breath locked.
Freya stands on the ridge, her hair wild, her stance unflinching. She moves like she was born to command, not ask. But he’d known that when he first met her, didn’t he?
Izel stands behind him, trying to peer over the railing. “What is she doing?” she hisses. “Calling a rebellion?”
Kade doesn’t answer. Because even from here, he can feel it—the bond. The pulse of pack magic. He’d thought it broken or at least weakened beyond repair when his father passed away, but it isn’t. It’s alive. It’s thriving. It’s answering her.
“She’s defying you,” Izel says sharply.
He turns his head just enough to silence her. “She’s reminding them what a Luna sounds like.”
The admission surprises even him.
He watches as the wolves kneel. She marches with confidence, and for a moment, she looks like the stories his father told him—the High Lunas who could command storms with their voices.
He’d seen Freya naked often when they made love, so he had noticed the mark on her back—the crescent shape that mirrored the High Luna in the mural of the Queen’s Wing.
He’d dismissed it as a coincidence. But now he isn’t sure anymore.
Something cracks open in him, small and painful.
“She has no right,” Izel spits.
Kade remains quiet. He knows she has every right.
When he looks again, Freya has already descended from the ridge. The crowd parts around her like water. Wolves bow as she passes.
He realizes with sudden clarity that he’s watching not his wife, but the Luna he once swore to serve—and he no longer knows if he still deserves to.