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At Midnight, I Stopped Being His Luna

At Midnight, I Stopped Being His Luna

Cerita Pendek · Werewolf
Oleh:  Jasmine FlowerTamat
Bahasa: English
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10Bab
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Sinopsis

Tragic Love

Alpha

Luna

Girl Power

Winning Back the Wife

Everyone in our pack thought Alpha Rowan and I were the perfect mates. Every winter, the river along the northern border froze over, giving rogue wolves a way into our territory. Rowan led the patrols himself. Most years, he stayed until after New Year’s. For three winters, something had kept me from joining him. The first year, his mother was poisoned with wolfsbane. I fought through a blizzard to save her and lost the pup I had carried for five months. The second, a rogue ambush left more than a dozen patrol wolves wounded. I stayed to treat them and missed my chance to travel. The third, I learned my grandmother was dying just as I was about to leave. This year, a few weeks before New Year’s, I found out I was pregnant again. I told no one. I took the healer’s report north, hoping to surprise Rowan. Outside his border residence, I saw a three-year-old boy sitting on his lap, calling him Daddy. The woman beside the fireplace brought over a freshly baked cake. “Won’t your Luna be angry when she finds out?” Rowan shook his head, perfectly certain. “I’ll make it up to her. She loves me too much to leave.” I stood outside with one hand over my still-flat stomach. The report I had brought him slipped from my fingers into the snow.

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Bab 1

Chapter 1

I didn’t bend to pick it up.

Through the window, I watched Mara push three candles into the cake.

“December sixteenth. Our Noah is three.”

The boy wrapped his arms around Rowan’s neck.

“Daddy, you promised I could come home when I was three.”

Mara smiled.

“Once the Luna registers Noah as her son, I’ll only be a maid in the pack house. Will he still be allowed to call me Mommy?”

Rowan’s expression cooled.

“We settled this three years ago.”

“You saved my life. I’m giving you a home and a job. Noah will be registered under Elena’s name. Don’t expect anything more.”

“Of course not.”

Mara glanced toward the window. Her eyes met mine for a moment, and her smile deepened.

“I’m only worried that seeing Noah will remind Elena of the pup she lost that day.”

“Especially since Noah was supposed to be her baby’s name.”

“Enough.”

Rowan’s voice turned sharp.

My knees gave way.

Three years earlier, before he left for the border, I had laid his hand against my stomach.

“If it’s a boy, can we call him Noah?”

He had bent to kiss me.

“Whatever you want.”

Days later, his mother was poisoned. I made it to the healing center through a blizzard and saved her life.

I couldn’t save my baby.

When I woke, the pain was so bad I couldn’t straighten my back. Still, the first thing I asked was, “Is Rowan safe?”

While I was losing our child, Mara was giving birth to another Noah.

I stepped backward and missed the snow-covered stair.

Rowan heard the noise. He was outside in an instant, catching me around the waist before I fell.

“Elena?”

He stripped off his coat, wrapped it around me, and checked my wrists.

“What are you doing here? Are you hurt?”

Mara followed with the boy in her arms.

“Luna, please don’t blame Rowan. He only spends one birthday a year with Noah—”

“Mara, be quiet. Take him inside.”

He waited until she was gone before turning back to me.

“In the spring before Noah was born, rogues surrounded us during a patrol at the northern border. I thought I was going to die. Mara saved me. That night—it happened once.”

“Noah is my responsibility.”

He closed his hands around mine.

“I always intended to bring them back when he turned three. Mara will work in the pack house. Noah will be registered as your son.”

“I’m giving them somewhere to live. That’s all.”

“Why hide him from me for three years?”

“Mother said you couldn’t take another shock after losing our pup. Your father agreed. We thought keeping it from you was the best way to protect you.”

My fingers went cold inside his.

“My family knew?”

After a moment, he nodded.

All those coincidences that had kept me home suddenly made sense.

They hadn’t needed to invent emergencies. They only had to place someone who needed me in my path. They knew I would stay.

Rowan looked almost relieved now that the truth was out.

“Elena, I promise Mara will never be Luna. She won’t have any say in pack affairs. She’ll be a maid. Noah will be yours on paper.”

“You’re my mate. The only one I acknowledge. The woman I love.”

Mara got a home. Noah got his father’s protection.

I got to be the woman he loved, as long as I kept making room for everyone else.

I pulled my hands free.

“Rowan, I want to dissolve our mating.”

His face changed.

“No.”

He caught my wrist, carefully enough not to hurt me.

“If you can’t bear having Mara at the pack house, she won’t come. She and Noah can stay here. I’ll arrange for someone to look after them.”

“But I will not end our mating.”

He drew his coat more tightly around my shoulders.

“There’s another storm coming tonight. Stay here. I’ll take you home myself tomorrow.”

I looked at him, then nodded.

“All right.”

The tension left his face.

As he led me inside, Noah asked softly, “Daddy, who is she?”

“Someone Daddy could never bear to lose.”

Rowan heard agreement in my answer. He thought staying for the night meant staying his Luna.

Two hours later, when the house was asleep, I went back outside. I retrieved the gold gift box and tucked the report inside it.

Then I joined a supply convoy heading south and left the border alone.
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10 Bab
Chapter 1
I didn’t bend to pick it up.Through the window, I watched Mara push three candles into the cake.“December sixteenth. Our Noah is three.”The boy wrapped his arms around Rowan’s neck.“Daddy, you promised I could come home when I was three.”Mara smiled.“Once the Luna registers Noah as her son, I’ll only be a maid in the pack house. Will he still be allowed to call me Mommy?”Rowan’s expression cooled.“We settled this three years ago.”“You saved my life. I’m giving you a home and a job. Noah will be registered under Elena’s name. Don’t expect anything more.”“Of course not.”Mara glanced toward the window. Her eyes met mine for a moment, and her smile deepened.“I’m only worried that seeing Noah will remind Elena of the pup she lost that day.”“Especially since Noah was supposed to be her baby’s name.”“Enough.”Rowan’s voice turned sharp.My knees gave way.Three years earlier, before he left for the border, I had laid his hand against my stomach.“If it’s a boy, can we call him N
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Chapter 2
Two days later, I reached the Blood Moon pack.Rowan’s mother was waiting outside the pack house. She hurried toward me as I climbed down from the truck.“You went north?”“You know about Mara and the child?”I took my suitcase upstairs without answering.She followed me into my room. When I continued to ignore her, her voice hardened.“Well, there’s no point keeping it from you now.”“After you lost your pup, the healers said you might never conceive again. Rowan is an Alpha. Blood Moon cannot go without an heir forever.”“Mara saved his life and gave him a son. Is that so terrible?”“She won’t take your position. She’ll live here as a maid. Once Noah is registered under your name, everyone will still honor you as his mother.”I finally looked at her.She didn’t seem to notice what it cost me to listen.“Yes, we kept you from going north these past three years. But the poisoning was real. The ambush was real. Your grandmother really was dying. No one lied about any of that.”“You chos
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Chapter 3
On the fourth day after I left the border, my bedroom door opened while I was sorting my research notes.Rowan stood on the threshold, snow still melting on his coat, his eyes bloodshot.Relief crossed his face when he saw me.“Why did you leave without telling me?”He came straight to me and gripped my shoulders, looking me over for injuries.“I woke up and you were gone. I thought something had happened to you in the storm.”“The outpost said you’d joined the convoy, but the weather knocked out communications. I couldn’t find out whether you’d made it home.”His voice was rough.“A two-day journey took us four. Thank the Goddess you’re all right.”Downstairs, I heard Noah.Rowan’s mother greeted him with tears in her voice. “My darling grandson. You’re finally home.”Rowan glanced toward the door, then back at me.“Mother wanted to see Noah. It’s temporary, until I arrange somewhere else.”He spoke as though that settled it. Once again, he had decided what I would have to accept.The
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Chapter 4
Over the next eleven days, I registered Mara as an employee, prepared a guest room, and arranged a New Year’s Eve welcome dinner in honor of the woman who had saved our Alpha’s life.Everyone decided I had accepted the situation.As the days passed and I kept cooperating, even Rowan’s unease faded.On the afternoon of December thirty-first, a royal courier delivered the last of my documents.I carried the folder to Rowan’s study. Before I reached the door, I heard his mother.“I thought Elena might make a scene. I even worried she would dissolve the mating.”“Three years ago, she never would have accepted this so easily.”Rowan was quiet for a moment.“She hasn’t changed. She loves me. She knows I only feel responsible for Mara.”He sounded certain.“Elena gets angry. She gets hurt. But she won’t leave me.”His mother laughed softly.“She’s finally learned what it means to be a proper Luna.”I remained outside.Neither of them knew that once these papers were sealed, I would leave Bloo
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Chapter 5
Rowan POVFor a moment, I thought she was somewhere in the house.The curtains moved in the draft. Her cup stood beside the washbasin. If I turned quickly enough, she might be behind me, telling me I had tracked snow across the rug.I reached for her through the bond.Nothing answered.“Where is she?”The housekeeper stopped in the doorway. Her gaze dropped to the milk soaking into the carpet.“She left before dawn, Alpha. Royal transport.”I picked up the papers.My signature. My blood seal. The last page in the folder she had handed me without trembling.I had asked whether she had checked everything.She had.Outside, a guard caught my arm before I reached the truck.“The north road is closed.”“She isn’t going north.”For the first time in three years, I had no idea where Elena wanted to go.The gate log gave me the answer. Royal district. Eastern crossing.I drove until the engine protested, then abandoned the truck at the snowbound approach to the river and ran.The royal ferry w
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Chapter 6
ElenaMy first patient at the Royal Infirmary was a kitchen apprentice with a burned hand.He stared at the name on my door.“You’re the new chief healer?”“Unless you know something I don’t.”He laughed nervously. I pulled up a stool and asked him how he had burned himself.By lunchtime, I had forgotten to wonder whether Rowan had called.The work was demanding. There were treatment protocols to review, younger healers to supervise, an entire wing asking for equipment. But when I requested help, people came. No one called needing an assistant a failure of devotion.At my own examination that afternoon, the obstetric healer moved the listening crystal across my stomach.A rapid beat filled the room.I gripped the edge of the bed.“That’s the baby?”“Strong and steady.”I closed my eyes.For weeks, I had been carrying fear so tightly that relief almost hurt.Gabriel found me later in the courtyard behind my aunt’s house. She had lived in the royal district for twenty years and insisted
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Chapter 7
RowanI stayed in the royal district for four days.Elena declined the flowers. She declined the meals. The mediator accepted my details and gave me an appointment for the following week.“There is no appointment available sooner,” she said.At Blood Moon, people rearranged their days when I entered a room. Here, I was a man asking for a time slot.Then the message came from home.Noah had been feverish for two nights. The healer was monitoring him. He kept asking when I would return.I packed immediately.At the inn door, a court clerk recognized me.“I saw your former Luna at the riverside this morning. Vale was showing her the houses there. Perhaps she’ll be moving out of her aunt’s soon.”I stood with my bag in my hand.I told myself I only needed to find out where she was going. I had a right to know where my child would live.By the time I reached her aunt’s house, Elena had gone to work.I waited.When she returned, it was nearly dark.“I thought you were going home,” she said.
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Chapter 8
Elena POVA package arrived from the northern settlement in early spring.Inside was an old draft of a letter and a note from Mara.He wrote this before sending the final version to Blood Moon. I kept it because I thought it proved he had chosen me. I was cruel to you about the name and the amulet. I knew what they were. I’m sorry.I don’t expect you to answer. This should never have been mine to keep.The letter was dated five days after I lost my first baby.I received the dispatch about Elena. The border is quiet enough for me to return, but Mara’s fever hasn’t broken and Noah is weak. Mother and Elena’s father are with her. Elena will understand. I’ll write when things settle here.I read it twice.I had known he knew about the miscarriage. I hadn’t known he could have come home.For years, I had imagined an impassable road, an attack, a duty that made returning impossible. There had been sick people near him and a grieving woman far away. He had chosen the people whose need he cou
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Chapter 9
My daughter was born in late summer.Nina stayed on my left. My aunt stayed on my right. When the healer laid the baby against my chest, the whole room seemed to narrow to her warm cheek and furious little mouth.“Hello, Ivy,” I whispered.I had chosen the name myself.Rowan met her the next afternoon, at the time we had agreed. He washed his hands twice and looked almost frightened when I showed him how she liked to be held.He cried quietly.I watched him without wishing the sight belonged to a different life.Gabriel arrived later carrying dinner for four and a bag of clean laundry. He didn’t ask to hold Ivy until I offered.Over the months that followed, he became someone I looked for at the end of the day. We argued about books, walked along the river, and learned to eat supper one-handed while the other person held the baby.He had work of his own, friends I hadn’t met, opinions that occasionally annoyed me. Our lives came together slowly enough that I could see what I was choosi
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Chapter 10
The next New Year’s Eve, I met Rowan at the royal ferry landing.Gabriel and I were taking Ivy to my aunt’s winter house. Rowan had come for his holiday visit before heading north to Noah.Ivy reached for him as soon as she saw him.“Hello, little sprout.”He lifted her carefully, letting her pat the carved wooden wolf tied to his coat.“Noah made that,” he told me. “With considerably more enthusiasm than accuracy.”The wolf had one enormous ear. I smiled.Our visits had become predictable. Sometimes awkward, sometimes warm, always arranged in advance. He returned Ivy when he said he would. If the border roads closed, he called before we were left waiting.Those things mattered to her.They did not restore our mating, and he no longer behaved as though they should.Gabriel checked the ferry board.“We have ten minutes. I’m getting pastries. Any requests?”“Something without cinnamon,” I said.He raised an eyebrow. “A challenge. I accept.”Rowan watched him go.“Are you happy?”“Yes.”T
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