Darrian's POV
☆☆☆☆☆
I hadn't slept.
The early morning light slanted through the windows of my office, cutting through dust and silence like blades. I stared at the maps sprawled across the table-territory lines, patrol schedules, supply chains. Everything I was supposed to care about. Everything that should have kept me focused.
But my mind wouldn't stay on the war.
It kept drifting back to her.
Heather.
Broken. Quiet. Fragile.
Not Luna material.
Not strong enough to carry the weight of my name.
Not like Mikaela.
Mikaela didn't flinch when warriors raised their voices. She didn't back away from confrontation. She fought. She trained. She'd ruled the females of the pack for years without a title. Without a bond.
She was confident, composed, everything a Luna should be.
And when she came to my room last night-offering herself without words, eyes full of hunger and heat-I let her in.
I needed the distraction.
The weight pressing on my chest, the storm in my head... I needed something to drown it all out.
I didn't mark her. I couldn't.
But I wanted to.
My wolf snarled at the thought even now, restless in my mind. She's not ours, he growled. She never will be.
I slammed my fist on the table.
I hated this.
This war I hadn't asked for. The mate I wasn't sure I wanted. The growing pull between instinct and duty, heart and honor.
Heather.
She haunted me. Even in silence. Especially in silence.
Her presence was like a whisper I couldn't ignore, lingering in the air of every room I entered. Her scent still clung to the corridor outside her door, faint and maddening. Sweet and painful.
She hadn't left her room since that night.
She'd seen Mikaela.
I didn't need to ask. I felt it.
The bond between us was weak, but not broken. There were flashes of her pain bleeding through, soft and sharp like thorns in my chest. I'd shoved them down. Buried them under strategy and sparring and orders barked across the training field.
But they didn't go away.
They festered.
I told myself it didn't matter.
She was weak. Too fragile for the role fate had thrown at her feet.
How could I lead a pack through war with a Luna who hid from confrontation? Who starved herself out of grief and insecurity?
Mikaela would never do that.
She would stand beside me and bare her teeth.
So why was I still thinking about the girl hiding behind closed doors?
Why was I still dreaming of her?
Ronan walked in without knocking. He always did.
"We need to shift patrols along the eastern ridge," he said. "Scouts picked up the scent of rogues moving near the boundary."
I nodded, not really hearing.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "You're distracted."
"No, I'm-"
"Don't lie to me, Darrian." His voice dropped. "This war is coming, and you're somewhere else. You haven't even looked at her since the Mikaela incident."
I gritted my teeth. "That's none of your concern."
"The hell it isn't." He leaned over the table. "She's your mate. You think you can avoid her, punish her with silence like this is some fucking game?"
"I didn't ask for her," I snapped.
Silence.
The words hung between us like a crack of thunder.
I hadn't meant to say them aloud.
Ronan stared at me, disappointment hardening his face. "You think she asked for this? For the bond? For the abuse? For being dragged into a new pack and finding you in another woman's arms?"
"I didn't mark Mikaela."
"But you wanted to," he said bitterly. "And that's the worst part."
My chest twisted.
He wasn't wrong.
"I need a Luna who can stand beside me, Ronan," I said quietly. "Someone who won't falter under pressure. Heather... she's so damn fragile. She looks at me like I'm the blade that might cut her."
"And you still want her."
I didn't respond.
He shook his head and left.
Hours later, I found myself walking the hall outside her room.
I didn't knock.
I couldn't.
I told myself it was for the best. I needed clarity. I needed to prepare for war. I couldn't afford emotional entanglements. Heather was too much of a risk. Her presence cracked open parts of me I'd long buried-guilt, compassion, shame.
I wasn't built for softness.
Not anymore.
So why did my wolf still ache when he couldn't feel her?
Why did I keep imagining her beside me-not Mikaela-when I thought of claiming my place on the battlefield?
Why did the idea of marking Heather terrify me more than the coming war?
I paced the corridor like a caged animal, jaw tight, fists clenched at my sides. Every time I walked past Heather's door, the bond tugged at me-faint, hesitant, but there. A tether I didn't want and couldn't sever.
I could sense her pain, even if she didn't scream it aloud.
I felt the way her energy had dimmed, like the last flicker of a dying flame. My wolf whined in the back of my mind, restless and angry. Not at her-but at me.
Go to her, he growled. We hurt her. Fix it.
But I didn't move.
I couldn't face her.
Because part of me still believed she was too weak for this life, and part of me hated myself for believing it. She'd suffered more than any woman should. She bore scars not even time could erase. And yet... she was still breathing. Still here.
Maybe that was a strength I hadn't understood.
Or maybe I just didn't want to admit that she stirred something in me Mikaela never could.
But I was Alpha.
And Alphas couldn't afford weakness.
Not even if it came in the form of a girl with haunted eyes and a heart full of fire buried beneath all that silence