When the Luna Walked Away

The night I bled into the earth, I stopped being his Luna.

I remember the cold sting of betrayal more clearly than the blood matting my fur. The rogue attack came swift and brutal, ripping through the silence like a blade. I was fighting—fighting for my pack, for my life, for the tiny heartbeat fluttering in my womb that Martin didn’t even know about.

He should have been at my side.

Instead, through the chaos, I saw him veer—not toward me, not toward the Luna he had sworn to protect—but to her.

Marcella.

Even now, the memory burns like acid. Her crimson hair was a flame in the moonlight, her scream slicing through the din. She faltered as a rogue lunged—and Martin ran. I watched it happen. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t look back.

He chose her.

Not once, not in a moment of peace or confusion. But in battle, when choices cut deepest.

I shifted mid-lunge, fur tearing through skin as my wolf took control. A rogue’s fangs snapped inches from my throat, but I met it with a snarl and steel-edged fury. My claws slashed, my jaws crushed bone. Still, I fought alone.

Nearby, he shielded her with his own body.

Alpha, I roared through the mind-link, pain blistering my voice. He didn’t respond. Maybe he didn’t hear me—or maybe my voice no longer reached him.

It was then I knew.

The pup inside me would never know his father’s love, only the shadow of his absence.

---

Hours before the ambush, I had ridden behind Martin, watching the way his shoulders tensed beneath his black coat.

He didn’t glance back at me, not once. Marcella, though—she rode beside him like she belonged there. Every brush of her hand, every flicker of her gaze, was met with a response. A smile. A softening.

She was newer to the pack than most. An outsider once, now seemingly his second heartbeat.

My fingers curled around the reins tighter. My wolf growled in my chest, restless. We were Luna. Or… we used to be.

I hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. The timing had never felt right. His attention was always on someone else. How do you share a joy when the person you love looks at another like she’s his future?

I had waited for a better moment.

It never came.

---

Back in the battlefield, blood soaked the ground like spilled ink.

The clash of teeth and snarls still echoed, but my fight was over. One of the rogues had gotten close—too close. Its claws slashed across my stomach and I fell, hard, the pain immediate and consuming.

But it wasn’t just the gash that stole my breath.

Something deeper broke inside me. A severing. A silence.

I pressed a trembling hand to my abdomen, my claws retracting as the shift faded. I didn’t need a healer to tell me. I felt it. The absence where there had been a spark.

No. The word was air and grief and denial.

My world tilted. My body ached, my heart bled, and still—he hadn’t looked back.

---

After that night, nothing remained.

Not my trust. Not my pup. Not the illusion of love I once clung to.

The bond between us, once strong and shimmering, now frayed like a torn banner in the wind. I don’t know if it can be mended. I don’t know if I want it to be.

All I know is this: I will rise from what he left behind.

Even if I have to become the very thing that haunts the night.