Page 89 of Moonlit Fate

“I saw you there, spying on their stronghold,” he said. “I can help you retrieve the rest of the amulet. Come tonight, at the stroke of midnight. I’ll ensure the way is clear.”

I remained motionless, a statue carved from skepticism and the remnants of hope. My father’s offer dangled before me, ripe with potential yet covered with the poison of past betrayals.

“Why should I trust you?” The question tasted of raw wounds and the ash of burned bridges. “After all this time, after everything...”

He never wavered, and I glimpsed the man who once taught me the ways of our kind, a mentor before he became my judge.“I have let you down your whole life,” he said, a rare crack in his stoic armor. “This is one way I can make amends.”

Beneath the surface of my skin, a battle raged. My wolf howled for acceptance, for the paternal approval it had been starved of. All the while, my human side erected walls.

“Helping me now won’t erase the past,” I pointed out.

“Perhaps not,” he said, the faintest trace of sorrow threading through his words. “But it might pave the way to a future where the past no longer casts such a long shadow.”

He stood then and held out his hand. I considered not shaking it, but in the end, I grasped it firmly.

“I will consider coming,” I said. “You’ll either see me… or you won’t.”

He nodded once and walked out. The silence left in my father’s wake was a living thing, throbbing with unspoken words. I stood at the threshold of my den, the evening breeze whispering over my skin.

The murmurs of my chosen family drew me back from the precipice. Each face held a story interlaced with mine. We were a patchwork quilt of outcasts who had found solace in one another’s company. I didn’t need to speak for them to know my turmoil.

“Atticus?” Lyza’s voice was soft with concern as she rested her hand lightly on my forearm.

“Trouble always did have a way of finding you,” Joren said from his perch by the fireplace.

I managed a half-hearted chuckle. “Some things are worth the trouble.”

“Whatever’s going on, we’ve got your back,” Lyza assured, squeezing my arm before letting go.

“Thanks.” I sighed. “I need to see Aria.”

Understanding flashed across their faces. No further explanation required. With a nod, they dispersed, giving mespace to transform. My body contorted, bones and sinew reshaping beneath my inked memories. The shift was second nature, a liberation of the wolf’s form that allowed me into the wilder side of my existence.

Fur bristled against the cooling air as I set off toward the manor.

An unsettling sight met me.Aria’s silhouette against the twilight sky, her body racked with sobs. Her cries pierced the quiet, a dagger through the veil of night, each one a serrated stab against my soul.

My wolf growled, but she didn’t respond. She only continued to scream at the empty air, her anguish a force that threatened to drag us both under. Desperation clawed at me as I shifted and approached. When my skin touched Aria’s, she calmed slightly, trembling against me.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“Larkin has taken Seren,” she said between sobs. “We must rescue her.”

Larkin, the thorn in our sides. But this wasn’t about him; it was about Seren, about Aria.

“We will get her back,” I promised, my arms tightening around her. “Tonight.” The rogue in me was no stranger to rescue, to defiance.

She nodded, yet her gaze didn’t meet mine. Worry crept in, whispering doubts and fears. Was she pulling away from me? My throat tightened at the thought. A life without Aria was a life devoid of color.

I scolded myself internally. I was reading too much into her anguish. She was shaken, not withdrawing.

“Father,” Aria greeted as Ragnar emerged from the woods.

He gave me a nod of acknowledgment, then turned to Aria. “Do you want to explain why the staff are in an uproar and you’re out here screaming? It isn’t the most becoming behavior for the future alpha. I would appreciate it if you could provide me with an explanation.”

Aria began to explain Seren’s abduction. I didn’t know why I did it—perhaps it was the cold greeting, concern that Aria was pulling away, the visit from Caius and the uncertainty behind his motives, or a combination of everything that influenced my actions—but I sent out a tentacle of my power, reaching Ragnar’s mind with practiced ease, and probed his mind. It was a silent dance of mental fortitude, a delicate intrusion cloaked in the softest velvet of intention.

His thoughts were open and unguarded, stalwart and commanding. In the depths of Ragnar’s being, I found fear—fear for Aria, fear that echoed my own. But more than that, there was respect for me, tangled in worries that I might not be the ally Aria needed in these treacherous times.

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