Fractured Memories

Braxton stayed in the yard long after the others drifted away. The air still carried her scent, clinging to the dirt and sweat, searing him from the inside out.

He had never hated her. Not once. He had loved Emry from first glance; adored her even.

But the way she looked at him, the venom in her words—Moon Goddess, sometimes it almost convinced him that maybe he should.

The truth was simpler. And far crueler.

He remembered the first time he saw her, two children tumbling across the pack house floor in a tangle of laughter and mischief. She had been wild even then, eyes bright with fire, untamable. And he had adored her, the way pups adored sunlight—without question, without thought, with a hunger that became a need.

But he had learned early what happened when you loved something too much.

His mother’s scream haunted him still. The night rogues had torn her down in the forest, her blood staining the snow while he hid in the roots of a hollow tree. He’d been eight. He had pressed his fists to his ears, trying to block out the sound, but it hadn’t stopped. It never stopped.

By dawn, he was an orphan with nothing but scars carved into his memory and a wolf inside him that would never stop hungering for vengeance.

That was the night Eastin’s father had pulled him into the pack house, bloody and half-starved, and promised him a place. It was the night Eastin became more than a friend—he became brother. And Emry…

Emry became untouchable.

He couldn’t lose her. Not like he lost his mother. Not like he lost his father before that, to war with a rival pack. Not like every scrap of family that had once made him whole.

So he protected her the only way he knew how—by being harder than her, sharper, unyielding. When she ran headlong into trouble as a pup, he dragged her back. When she picked fights with wolves twice her size, he sneered and told her she’d never win. When she tested her limits, he stood in her way and made her hate him for it.

Because hatred meant she’d fight harder. Hatred meant she’d sharpen her claws on him instead of the world that wanted her blood. Hatred kept her alive.

Even now, she didn’t see it. She thought his barbs were arrogance, his orders control. She thought he despised her.

But by the Moon Goddess, she was everything he’d ever fought to keep safe. And one day soon, she’d realize just how bound to her he really was.

Until then, he would bear her hatred like armor. Better her anger than her absence.

EMRY POV

Emry lay sprawled across her bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling beams above. The Moon Goddess’s light spilled in through the curtains, but instead of comfort, it carried her backward—into memories she wished she could forget.

She hated the instant connection she felt the first time she met Braxton. She hated even more how that made the sting of his arrogance and condescension all the more difficult to bear. The initial connection had since turned to ash in her mouth, like the foul taste of rejection.

Braxton had always been there. Not like Eastin, whose presence was warm and steady, but like a shadow she couldn’t outrun.

When they were children, she remembered climbing the tall oaks near the riverbank, her bare feet gripping bark as she hauled herself higher. Eastin cheered from below, proud of every branch she conquered. But Braxton—always Braxton—shouted at her to come down.

“You’ll fall,” he’d barked, his face pale beneath the dirt smudges of training.

“I won’t!” she’d shouted back, chin jutting proudly.

But when her foot slipped and she scraped her knee, he hadn’t offered comfort. He’d hauled her down, muttering, “I told you so.”

She remembered sneaking into sparring practice as a girl, demanding to train with the older wolves. Eastin had laughed, humoring her, throwing soft punches she could dodge. But Braxton had stepped in, knocking the wooden sword from her hand.

“You’ll get yourself killed,” he’d growled, tossing the weapon aside. “Go play at being Luna somewhere else.”

The words had burned more than any bruise.

Again and again, the pattern repeated—her striving, his interference. Every victory she clawed for herself ended with Braxton standing in the way, telling her she wasn’t ready, wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough.

And maybe worst of all, he never broke character. He never teased her like Eastin did, never softened his words with affection. He just watched her with those sharp amber eyes, cold and steady, as if she were a problem he had to contain rather than a person he believed in.

Hatred had come easy after that. It had protected her from the sting of his judgment.

Now, lying in her bed as the moonlight traced lines across her walls, Emry clenched her fists against the ache in her chest.

He thought he knew her. Thought he could dictate what she was capable of, what she deserved. He was always undermining her at every turn, telling Eastin she wasn’t ready, that she wasn’t strong enough, or smart enough to stand in as Luna.

But she would prove him wrong. She would show him she wasn’t fragile, wasn’t some duty to be carried or some weakness to guard.

She would make him choke on his arrogance.

Even as her mind replayed the fire in his eyes that morning, the way his voice had dropped low when he told her not to falter, she pushed it away. She could not let go of her hatred, she could not falter and allow him to win whatever game he was playing. Whatever cruel lessons he thought he was teaching her—it didn’t matter.

Because she hated him. And she always would.