Chapter 6

• Aurélie POV
• “I said, you’ll have to banish me too.”
• My voice slices through the courtyard, steady and cold, as I lock eyes with Damien’s thunderous stare.
• “That’s impossible,” he growls, every muscle in his body trembling with fury.
• Geneviève has the audacity to place a delicate hand on his shoulder, leaning in like venom dressed in silk.
• “Damien, please don’t fight on my account,” she purrs, dripping false innocence.
• The growl that rips from my throat isn’t just mine it’s my wolf’s too. It shakes the air, loud and primal, the kind of sound that makes lesser wolves bow their heads. Geneviève’s wolf whimpers instinctively. She may have once been a Luna, but with her pack dead, her crown turned to ash. She is nothing now.
• I turn my back to both of them, my fingers wrapping tightly around Fabrice’s arm, ready to walk away before I suffocate on the poison in the air.
• “Are you leaving with him?” Damien’s voice is sharp, glacial.
• “If you insist on banishing Fabrice,” I answer, unflinching, “then yes. I won’t leave him behind.”
• “I told you she had feelings for him,” Geneviève whispers, smug and vile, earning even Damien’s irritated growl.
• “He must be banished,” Damien snaps, “but you cannot leave the position of Luna. You are my wife.”
• I laugh, but it’s hollow, cracked. “What’s the point, Damien? For two years I’ve tried to make you love me… to make you see me. But I can’t be what you want. I can’t make you happy. Why keep pretending? Why keep destroying each other?”
• If heartbreak had a sound, it would be the silence that follows. I can feel the eyes of the pack piercing into me, watching as the last pieces of my heart are shattered at his feet.
• “Even so,” he growls, his eyes flashing, his wolf fighting to surface, “you will not be with him. You are this pack’s Luna. You will obey me.”
• I no longer have the strength to fight for a man who never saw me. Not when she is here. Not when his child grows inside me, needing protection even from its father.
• Tears burn my cheeks. Quiet, but lethal.
• “What if I wasn’t your Luna anymore?”
• Gasps ripple through the gathered wolves. I wipe the tears away, steeling my wolf.
• “What do you mean?” he mutters, as if he already knows.
• “I, Aurélie, Luna of the Bloodnight Pack, reject my position as the Alpha’s wife and Luna.”
• A phantom pain tears through me a bond snapping even though it was never sealed with a mark. It’s like being ripped apart from the inside. The ache is worse than the fall down the stairs. It’s the sound of a soul breaking.
• “Aurélie” he steps forward, but Geneviève’s claws keep him rooted.
• I turn away, linking my arm with Fabrice’s. My spine is iron now. I walk into the Alpha mansion without looking back. His roar shatters the air behind me, feral and enraged.
• “I won’t let you leave me!” His voice explodes into the night, followed by the unmistakable sound of him shifting, the echo of paws slamming into the earth as he disappears into the darkness.
• Inside my room, Fabrice closes the door gently. “Aurélie?”
• “Pack. Essentials. We’re leaving.” My hands tremble as I drag out a bag, shoving clothes into it with frantic precision.
• “Home?” he asks.
• “Yes. Darkvale. Until I figure out my next step.” Adrenaline carries me now sharp, cold, unforgiving.
• He reaches for my elbow, grounding me. “You don’t have to do this, not for me. Fight for your title. Don’t give it up. Don’t let her win.”
• “I don’t want it anymore, Fabrice,” I whisper. “You were right. He’ll never love me. I just want to love my child.”
• Leaving the pack is a storm of pain. Pack members plead with me, voices cracked with desperation. My heart screams to stay, to fight, to believe there’s still something left between Damien and me. But my mind knows better. My mind whispers the cruel truth: staying means endless heartbreak.
• Élodie chases after me, begging me to wait. She swears he’ll wake up, that he’ll see Geneviève for the poison she is. But I keep walking. My head wins.
• We travel without stopping. All I want is to see my parents. To breathe. To stop bleeding inside.
• When we arrive at Darkvale, Fabrice alerts the warriors through the pack link to open the gates. My parents are already waiting. I stumble from the car straight into their arms and finally—finally let myself fall apart. My cries are ragged and raw.
• Fabrice stays close as I spill everything. My father’s fury burns like wildfire; my mother has to hold him back. Fabrice admits his guilt, but they’ve always loved him they know this isn’t on him.
• “I’ll take men to Damien tomorrow,” Father growls.
• “No,” I whisper. “It’s done.”
• I meet Fabrice’s eyes. He nods, giving me silent permission. “I’m pregnant,” I confess, my voice trembling as a single hot tear slides down my cheek. My parents exchange a silent link, then turn back to me with fierce love.
• “We’ll protect you. You and the child,” my father says, the tension in my chest unraveling slightly.
• The week passes in fragments of quiet. Fabrice brings me vitamins, though my appetite is gone. Damien calls, but I never answer. What is there left to say?
• Mum suggests a trip to the lake. I agree. Fabrice insists on coming, and I’m secretly grateful.
• The lake calms me. The gentle ripple of water, the distant rustle of wind it reminds me that not everything in this world is cruel. I know I will always carry Damien’s mark, even if it isn’t visible. I will always love him. But now, I have a child to live for.
• The drive back should have been uneventful. But when I reach out through the mind-link to the border patrol, there’s only silence. The empty gate greets us like an omen. A chill claws down my spine. My wolf howls in warning.
• “It’s too quiet,” Fabrice mutters. His eyes mirror the dread in mine.
• He opens the gate manually. As we approach the inner border, a fire burns bright against the night sky.
• “What is that?” I whisper.
• He doesn’t answer.
• The closer we get, the more the world twists. Fabrice slams the brakes, his arm shooting out to stop me. And then I see.
• Bodies.
• A pyre of my pack, stacked and burning. Flesh turning to ash. Parents. Warriors. Family.
• A scream rips out of me, animalistic and raw. I bolt from the car, ignoring Fabrice’s desperate shout. My feet pound the ground toward the only place that matters. Home.
• I tear through fields and blood-soaked earth. Survivors cry in clusters, their wails shredding the night.
• “Luna,” a warrior tries to stop me, but my grief makes me unstoppable.
• “What happened?” I rasp.
• “Ambush. Too many,” he manages.
• I push past him. Inside, hell waits.
• My father lies headless. His severed head rests grotesquely beside his body. My mother my gentle mother has a silver sword buried in her chest, the emblem of the Bloodnight pack carved into its hilt. A crown. A wolf. A blood moon.
• The world fractures. I collapse, the air ripped from my lungs.
• How could he? How could Damien do this?
• I grip the blade, letting it carve my palm open. Blood pours freely, mingling with the blood of the woman who gave me life. But the pain is nothing compared to the void inside me.
• “Damien,” I whisper, my voice cracking into a growl, “you’ll never know what’s yours.”
• The promise bleeds from me dark and unbreakable. My heart dies here, on bloodstained ground.
• And what’s left of me… is something he should fear.