Chapter 6 Aftermath

• Darius’s POV
• “She’s gone.”
• I barely look up from the papers on my desk. “What do you mean, gone?”
• My Beta, Holt, shifts uneasily at the door. “No sign of her since the ceremony. Her scent trail leaves the territory completely. She didn’t go to the healer. Didn’t go home. Just… vanished.”
• I lean back in the chair and blink once.
• Gone.
• It shouldn’t surprise me. Raelin was never one to stay where she wasn’t wanted.
• Still, I’d expected—something.
• A confrontation. An argument. A slap across the face. She’s always been fire and edge and sharp fucking teeth. I thought she’d fight for me. Scream. Demand to know why. Maybe even beg. Not disappear like a ghost in silk.
• “You checked the perimeter?” I ask tightly.
• “Three times,” Holt says. “She didn’t even shift. She left on foot. Fast.”
• I clench my jaw. That doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t just leave.
• Would she?
• After everything?
• After us?
• “She’ll be back,” I mutter.
• “She won’t,” Mira says, breezing into the room like she owns it. She’s wrapped in one of my robes, smug as ever. “She’s weak. Can’t handle humiliation.”
• “She’s not weak,” I snap, sharper than I mean to.
• Mira stops mid-step.
• I sigh. “She’s emotional, not weak.”
• Mira smirks. “Same thing.”
• I shoot her a look. “Don’t push it.”
• She waves me off and heads toward the corner table, picking up the keys to the Luna quarters like she’s entitled to them. Like Raelin didn’t sleep there last night.
• Like she doesn’t even remember this was never supposed to be her place.
• “I’ll start moving in tonight,” Mira says casually, already unlocking the drawer that holds Luna correspondence scrolls.
• “You’ll wait,” I say.
• She freezes.
• “I said,” I repeat, voice low, “you’ll wait.”
• She turns to face me, a hint of anger breaking through the polished smile. “I thought this is what you wanted.”
• “It is.”
• But it sounds flat even to my own ears.
• Mira walks to me, slow and syrup-slick, placing both hands on the desk. “Then act like it. Raelin’s gone. You rejected her. Publicly. You claimed me. You think I’m going to live like a side piece while the rest of the pack wonders if I’ll ever be Luna?”
• I rise slowly. “You don’t get to make demands, Mira.”
• “I’m not demanding,” she says with a tight smile. “I’m stating facts. The pack needs stability. A Luna in place.”
• She’s not wrong.
• But it still doesn’t feel right.
• “She’s not coming back,” Mira continues, her voice going softer, sweeter. Manipulative. “You saw the look in her eyes, didn’t you? She broke. All that fire? Snuffed out.”
• No.
• No, I remember the look in Raelin’s eyes. It wasn’t broken.
• It was deciding.
• She didn’t crack. She didn’t shatter.
• She chose to walk away. From me.
• Mira moves to the door, her hips swaying like she thinks this is already hers. “I’ll have the quarters cleaned before dinner.”
• She leaves without another word.
• The room feels colder without her—without either of them.
• I sit slowly, fisting the edge of the desk. My knuckles ache.
• Raelin didn’t just leave.
• She didn’t fight for me. Not once. After years together—after battlefields and blood and late nights with her head on my chest—she looked at me and saw a man not worth chasing.
• And that?
• That burns more than it should.