Broken but not Dead

Elena

***** Moments later *****

The first thing I heard was breathing.

Not mine.

Not the twins’.

A deeper, slower, unsteady rhythm, pulling me out of the fog that had swallowed me after the ritual. I didn’t open my eyes right away. My body felt heavy again, like someone had wrapped stones inside my skin. But the panic from earlier returned instantly, sharp and cold.

Lucian had collapsed.

I remembered the way his pulse had faded under my fingers. The way his body fell forward like a tree losing its last strength. My hands were shaking as I forced my eyes open.

The fire near us had burned down to glowing embers. Dawn wasn’t fully here yet, but the sky held a faint gray line between darkness and morning. The forest felt still… too still.

Lucian lay exactly where he had fallen.

Face turned slightly to the side, chest barely moving, one arm curled near his stomach as if he’d tried to stop the collapse but failed.

My heart jumped painfully.

I scrambled toward him on my knees.

“Lucian… hey… wake up…” My voice cracked halfway through.

He didn’t move.

I pressed my fingers to his neck, and relief shot through me when I felt a faint pulse. Weak, but there. Alive. But just barely.

My breath trembled out of me. “Thank the Goddess…”

I checked my stomach next. My palms shook as I pressed them over the soft curve. Two tiny rhythms answered me…. steady, calm, so different from the chaos before.

Alive.

Safe.

Saved.

Because of him.

I looked down at Lucian again. He had given everything for them. A stranger. A man who didn’t owe me anything. A man with no reason to risk his own life.

“Please wake up…” I whispered.

Almost like he heard me, his fingers twitched.

Just barely, but it was enough.

His lashes moved next, lifting slowly like it took strength to open his eyes. When the silver finally showed, it wasn’t glowing like before. It was dimmer, tired, but still there.

His voice came out rough. “You’re… awake.”

I let out a small, breathy laugh, part relief, part exhaustion. “So are you. I thought you died.”

He blinked slowly. “Almost.”

My chest tightened. I didn’t know this man, but the thought of losing him twisted something deep inside me.

He tried to push himself up, but he barely got his elbow off the ground before his arm shook violently.

“Don’t,” I said quickly, placing my hand on his shoulder to keep him down. “You’re too weak.”

“I’ll recover,” he muttered, but even his voice sounded too thin to believe his own words.

“Lie down.”

He studied me for a moment, as if surprised I was giving him an order after how everything began between us. But he didn’t fight me again. He stayed on the forest floor, breathing unsteadily, staring up at the faint light filtering through the trees.

Minutes passed like that. Neither of us spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, just heavy. Real. The kind of quiet that followed a night where both of us nearly died.

When he finally spoke again, it was softer.

“Do you feel any pain?”

I shook my head. “No. Not anymore.”

“And the children?”

“They’re calm.” A small smile tugged at my lips. “Alive.”

A long breath left his chest, like he had been waiting to hear that before letting himself relax.

“You held on well,” he said. “Most wolves would have passed out ten seconds into the ritual.”

“It felt like dying,” I whispered.

“Because it almost was,” he answered simply.

That honesty again. So blunt. So quiet.

I swallowed. “You didn’t have to save them, you know.”

His brows drew together faintly. “I did.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You didn’t. You could have walked away. You could have left me there.”

Lucian turned his head slightly toward me, those tired silver eyes meeting mine.

“I heard you,” he said. “And I heard them. Your fear wasn’t for yourself. It was for the children. That kind of strength… very few wolves have it anymore.”

I looked away because hearing that hurt in a place I didn’t want to admit existed.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I whispered.

“You did.” His voice softened. “You could have given up. You could have surrendered. But you ran. You fought. You protected them even when your wolf broke.”

I pressed my lips together hard.

He didn’t understand. Or maybe he did. Maybe that was what scared me.

He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. I moved to help him, but he lifted a hand weakly.

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

He wasn’t fine. But he was awake, breathing, and talking. That was enough.

I watched him for a moment, then asked, “Who are you really?”

His eyes flickered, but he didn’t answer immediately. He looked toward the dying fire instead, like he was thinking of how to explain something impossible.

“I’m… not from your pack,” he said finally.

I almost snorted. “I figured that out.”

“And I’m not from any nearby pack either.”

“Then where?” I pressed.

He looked at me again, and for the first time since I met him, something unreadable, almost guarded, settled in his expression.

“Far from here,” he said simply.

It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the truth either.

Before I could ask more, he spoke again.

“You need to leave this forest before the warriors find the trail again.”

His words struck me like a slap of cold water.

The warriors.

Chase’s men.

The reason I was here at all.

I suddenly remembered their faces, their scent, the way they lunged at me like I was prey.

I felt my stomach twist.

Lucian saw it. “They won’t stop.”

My throat tightened. “I know.”

He turned fully toward me, despite the strain it clearly caused. “If they find you now, injured and weakened from the ritual, you won’t survive.”

“And the twins?” I whispered.

His jaw tightened. “Especially them.”

A cold wave washed over me.

I didn’t want to think about what Chase or Seraphina would do if they learned about the babies.

I had seen the way Seraphina looked at me the night of the rejection….. victorious, smug, like she finally got what she wanted.

She would kill them.

I knew it.

My wolf knew it.

Lucian’s voice broke through my thoughts. “We need to move when the sun rises.”

“We?” I asked.

He nodded once. “You can’t travel alone in your state. And I… made a choice when I bound their blood. Whether you want me beside you or not, I’m tied to this now.”

The truth of his words settled into my chest like a weight.

“What choice?” I whispered.

He didn’t look away.

“To protect what I saved.”

My chest squeezed painfully. There it was again, that strange, unexplainable ache I didn’t want to feel.

I leaned back against a tree, closing my eyes for a second. The exhaustion from everything, the rejection, the escape, the hunt, the ritual…. all of it crashed into me at once.

Lucian watched me, and I felt it.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I laughed under my breath, a small, bitter laugh. “That my life feels like it ended last night.”

His brow lifted slightly. “It didn’t.”

I looked at him again, eyes stinging. “It sure feels like it.”

His gaze softened. “Your life didn’t end. It changed.”

Changed.

That word hurt.

Because he was right.

But it wasn’t just the ritual. It wasn’t just the escape. It wasn’t even the twins.

It was Chase.

The man who was supposed to love me.

Protect me.

Be mine.

Instead, he humiliated me.

Threw me away.

Chose another woman.

Ruined the last pieces of my wolf.

And he didn’t even know he created life inside me.

My hands shook as I pressed them over my stomach again.

Lucian watched silently, like he understood without needing explanation.

“You don’t have to go back,” he said.

Those words were soft, but they landed like thunder in my chest.

I opened my mouth, maybe to say no, maybe to say I had no choice, but the truth slammed into me with sudden clarity.

I did have a choice.

I didn’t owe Chase anything.

Not my loyalty.

Not my body.

Not my heart.

Not my life.

Not these children.

He lost every right to all of us the moment he rejected me.

A long breath left my chest, shaky and slow.

“I’m not going back,” I said quietly.

Lucian nodded, as if he expected that.

But inside me, something shifted.

Something final.

Something irreversible.

I wasn’t Chase’s Luna anymore.

Not his mate.

Not his responsibility.

Not his threat.

I was done.

Done begging.

Done hoping.

Done breaking.

I lifted my chin and whispered it again, not to Lucian, but to myself.

“I’m not going back to Silverfang. Ever.”

The words felt like ripping a chain out of my chest, painful but freeing.

Lucian’s voice came out steady. “Then you choose survival.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “I choose survival.”

“And not love?” he asked quietly.

I swallowed hard. I knew what he meant. Chase’s love. The love that destroyed me.

“No,” I whispered. “Not love.”

Silence settled around us again, but this time it felt different.

Not empty.

Not broken.

New.

Like the first breath after drowning.

I looked at Lucian, this strange, powerful man who had saved my children, who risked his life to protect what wasn’t his.

I didn’t trust him.

But I didn’t fear him either.

He sat with his back against a rock, still pale, still breathing slowly, watching me with tired silver eyes that saw more than a stranger should.

“Rest,” he murmured. “We leave when the sunlight is strong.”

I nodded and shifted closer to the warmth of the fire.

Not touching him.

Not leaning on him.

Just near enough to feel… safe.

For the first time in years.

As the sky brightened and exhaus

tion finally dragged my eyes closed, one truth echoed through me like a heartbeat:

I was no longer a broken Luna.

I was a mother fighting to survive.

And I would never bow to Silverfang again.

Not for Chase.

Not for the pack.

Not for anyone.

Survival was my path now.

And I would walk it until the end.