The Warrior Luna's New Bond After Divorce

Chapter 4

Ruby’s POV

I sigh at her arrogance, at my own blindness. My wolf is sealed, but the training isn’t. She never would have won against me.

I let the chain slip from my fingers and step to the side. I drive a short cross up from the floor. My fist lands under her right cheekbone with a dull pop. Her eyes go glassy.

I catch her by the back of her dress and ease her down to the floor. Breath flutters against my wrist, shallow and fast. Then she goes still.

“Foolish,” I whisper. Not just for her coming here alone, but me for thinking I was safe or wanted here.

I used to mistake warmth for safety, a ring on my hand for a promise no one could break. The dungeon just makes it honest. I’m not his Luna here. I’m a fighter who forgot to keep her guard up.

The knife lies near my foot, silver ugly in the dim light. I kick it under the cot. The whistle has spun to rest by the wall. I scoop it, twist its chain so it can’t sound by accident, and slip it beneath my tunic.

A ring of keys shines at her hip. I strip it free and listen.

The hall hums with an electric buzz. I slip through the door, pull it quietly shut, and turn the key back into the lock from the outside.

Heel to toe, I follow the wall. Far ahead, two voices rise over some petty argument. At the corner, I count breaths, then slip past while one guard turns aside to sneeze and curse the wind. Stairs lift in a tight spiral, and my palm slides along the cold iron rail to steady myself.

At the top, the air turns colder. I slip through the scuffed service door into a yard cracked with frost. I hug the wall and cross the open strip of ground at an angle, keeping low. The lights buzz loud enough to hide my steps.

No alarm yet. But silence is a liar. I’ve learned that. It waits until you believe it.

I find a faint game trail. I stick to the darker undergrowth where ferns and dead branches break a clear line of sight. I can’t shift, and I won’t outrun a patrol in the open, so I use what I have. Angles, cover, and quiet.

Behind me, the keep wakes up. Shouted names. The clank of a gate pin. Boots falling into rhythm. The whistle at my chest taps my sternum. I almost blow it, then don’t. What if I blow it and those after me come instead?

The slope gets steeper. The ravine cuts a black mouth through the territory. I angle toward it; water slows chase, and the far bank means choices.

A heavy step snaps a branch behind me, too heavy for a guard. Another step follows, slow and sure, like the ground already belongs to them. The air tightens. I know the rhythm, I know that pull along my spine.

Jake.

The name hits like someone striking a bell. I remember the first night by the battlefield fire, the way he cupped my burned knuckles and called me brave. I held that version of him like a relic. Seeing him now, half-shifted, claws out, forces the two versions of him together until it hurts.

I sink into a crouch, fingers brushing the needles, mapping exits. The brush stirs, and he slips into view between the trunks, gold bright in his eyes and claws half out.

He roars, a raw sound that tears through the quiet of the forest and charges straight at me. I bolt for the spruce whose branches sweep the ground and scramble up into its cover, hauling myself hand over hand. I’m tucked about eight feet up now, the trunk thick as both my thighs together.

Below, Jake hits the clearing hard, claws scoring the needles as he spins, hunting for me in the shadows. He stops under the spruce, nostrils flaring, head tilted like he’s listening for my heartbeat. His gaze lifts and his eyes meet mine.

“There you are,” Jake says, almost too calm. “Get down.”

The word tugs under my skin, a thin hook of Alpha command. I grind my teeth and press my forearms harder into the trunk until the sting clears my head.

“You used to ask,” I say, voice low. “Back when you remembered I was a person.”

His jaw tightens. “Back when you remembered you had a duty.”

“No,” I say. My voice shakes, but I stand my ground.

His mouth curls. “Don’t make me drag you. You’re done with this tantrum. Come down and walk back with me, or I’ll make you.”

“You married a warrior,” I tell him.

“I married a bloodline,” he answers, like it’s kinder to say it plain.

“You married a womb,” I say, and the truth lands between us with a more complex sound than any branch he’s broken tonight.

I shift my weight along the limb and glance past him. Through the break in the trees, I can see it now. The edge where the ground drops away. It’s close. From this branch to the needles, three strides to the brush, three more to the edge if I don’t trip. The river flows far below, fast enough to carry me if I can slide to it.

“Last time,” he says. “Down.”

I don’t give him time for any more words. I swing, drop from the branch, and hit the needles in a crouch. My knees jar; pain jumps up my legs, but I’m already moving. I cut left around scrub grass, push through the brush, and run for the open where the earth simply ends.

“Ruby!” His shout breaks into a snarl, and the ground thunders behind me.

I don’t look back. I count: one, two. Then throw myself forward on three. For a blink, I’m flying, nothing under me but cold air and moonlight, then my boots slam a narrow bed of rock. The impact bursts sparks behind my eyes. I catch myself on hands and toes and start to slide, little stones hissing under me toward the drop.

He lands almost on top of me.

Claws rip across my back, hot and fast. The pain is white and everywhere. Air leaves my chest in a hard grunt. I taste iron. My palms skid; the rock gnaws skin from my hands. I pitch onto my side and the world tilts, the river opening its mouth below.

I spit blood and crawl. Not fast, not strong, just stubborn. Elbows, heels, elbows again, dragging myself toward the rock face where the rock rises an inch and might keep me from rolling clean off. Every breath scrapes. Every heartbeat is a hammer.

“Give up,” Jake says from above, voice steady like we’re discussing dinner and not my life.

He always sounds reasonable when he wants something. It’s the tone that convinced me to step back from the unit, the one that turned a warrior’s life into a Luna’s calendar. I thought compromise would make room for both of us. Turns out there was only ever room for him.

He paces along the lip ten feet above me, his shadow moving with him. “Stop struggling and come back. You know what you’re for. Bear my child and be done playing soldier.”

I look up at him. For the first time, I see him without the soft edges I kept giving him. His eyes are bright and cold. My blood is on his claws. The hate that rushes in isn’t loud, it’s heavy.

“No,” I say. It comes out quiet, but clear enough.

The wind off the ravine slips over my skin and into the torn places on my back. My fingers find a thin crack in the stone and hook in. It runs six inches, just enough for two knuckles. It trembles under me. Jake crouches, ready to jump down to finish whatever this is.

A sound lifts through the trees. Far off at first, then threading closer. Three short calls, a pause, then two long. My code.

Someone heard me.

Hope flares so sharp it almost hurts. I drag air into my raw throat and try to answer. The howl scrapes like glass on the way out, but it still carries.

Jake’s head snaps toward the sound. His lips peel back from his teeth. “Enough,” he growls, and the command swells again, heavy as a hand on the back of my neck. My grip slips. My arms shake. The edges of the world blur.

Hold, I tell myself. Just one more breath. One more second.

My body doesn’t listen. It goes loose all at once, like a knot coming undone. The rock slides out from under my fingers. The sky narrows to a thin strip of silver between the trees. I hear the answering roar again, closer now. Many voices layered together, and I try to call back, but my mouth won’t shape the sound.

Come on! Please!