Chapter 6: Too Strong

POV: Arthur

Something was wrong with Evana.

I stood in the training field long after everyone else had left, staring at the spot where she’d thrown a warrior twice her size.

The memory wouldn’t leave me alone.

She’d moved too fast.

Too easily.

And when she grabbed him, I felt something.

A pulse.

Not physical.

But something deeper.

Something that traveled through the air and landed straight in my wolf.

Mine.

My jaw tightened.

I hated that word.

Hated how naturally my wolf had reached for it.

Evana was my wife.

My Luna.

That was all she was supposed to be.

An unwanted complication, forced on both of us the day our fathers signed an agreement neither of us had a say in.

She was, Quiet. Obedient. Easy to manage.

Instead she’d stood in the middle of my training field and made one of my strongest men look like a pup who’d never held a fight.

I turned toward the manor.

“Arthur.”

I stopped.

Damon. My Beta. He’d been watching me the whole time.

“You’ve been staring at that spot for ten minutes.”

“I know.”

He studied me. “You’re thinking about Evana.”

I gave him a look.

He raised both hands. “Not judging.”

“I’m not thinking about her.”

“Then you’re thinking about what she did.”

I didn’t answer that.

Damon sighed. “Her strength wasn’t normal.”

“I know.”

“Did you see her eyes?”

I sure did see everything.

For half a second they’d gone silver. Not the ordinary shift-silver every wolf in this pack carried. Something brighter. Older.

Damon lowered his voice. “There are stories.”

“I don’t care about stories.”

“You should.”

I turned to face him fully. “What stories?”

He hesitated. “My grandmother used to talk about dormant bloodlines. Rare. Hidden for generations until something triggers them.”

“Triggers them how?”

“Fear. Grief. Rage.” He paused. “The presence of a powerful mate, sometimes.”

My stomach tightened immediately.

“Superstition.”

“Maybe.” He glanced toward the manor. “But what happened today wasn’t.”

I wanted to dismiss it.

But I couldn’t.

Because I’d seen it myself. And worse, my wolf had reacted. The instant that warrior had come at her, something in my chest had screamed to move, to close the distance, to put myself between them before I’d even finished deciding to.

Not because she was my Luna.

Not because she was my responsibility.

Because she was,

I clenched my fists.

No.

I refused to finish that thought.

“Find out where she came from,” I told Damon. “Her family. Everything.”

He frowned. “There might not be much on record.”

“Then find what there is.”

I walked away before he could ask why it mattered this much.

But my mind had already gone somewhere else. Somewhere old.

I was fourteen. Standing outside my father’s study, hearing voices through the door, his, my mother’s, and a third man I never saw.

I hadn’t understood the conversation.

I remembered one phrase.

Moon-Blood.

A rare Luna bloodline. Powerful enough, according to the old records, to shift the balance of Alpha succession entirely.

At the time I’d filed it away as legend.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

I saw my mother waiting in the hallway when I came inside.

She looked at me. Her eyes narrowed.

“You’ve been investigating Evana.”

That was not a question.

“How did you know that?”

“Because you have your father’s expression.”

I hated hearing it.

“What do you know about her?”

There was silence.

“Mother.”

Her face stayed calm. But her shoulders didn’t.

“Some things are better left buried.”

“Not anymore mother.”

Her eyes hardened. “What happened today?”

“You already know.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Evana overpowered one of our strongest warriors.”

There was silence again. She looked away, a small movement, but it told me more than a full sentence would have.

“You know something.”

“I know enough to tell you to leave this alone.”

“No.”

Her gaze snapped back. “You don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”

“Then explain it.”

“Arthur…”

“What is she?”

Her face changed. For the first time in years, I saw real fear in my mother’s eyes. That was not a concern look on her face.

It was Fear.

“Don’t become attached to her.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Whatever is happening, do not let yourself become emotionally attached to Evana.”

Something angry rose in my chest. “I don’t care about her.”

“Your wolf does.”

My heart stopped.

“And that,” she said quietly, “is far more dangerous.”

I looked away. She’d noticed. The way I’d started tracking Evana’s scent through a room before I’d even seen her. The way I’d felt her hurt underneath her anger tonight, walking away from me after training, like it belonged to my own chest.

That wasn’t normal.

I looked back at my mother. “What do you know?”

She sighed, long and tired, like the question had been sitting behind her teeth for years.

“More than your father ever wanted you to know.”

My blood ran cold.

“What does that mean?”

She was already turning away.

And for the first time in my life, I understood my mother was hiding something from me.

About Evana.

About my father.

Maybe about what I was becoming, too.