CHAPTER 2: THE LUNA WHO WALKED AWAY

Selene's POV

The forest was quiet that night, except for the sound of my breathing and the crunch of leaves beneath my boots. The Blood Moon still hung above me, casting its red light through the trees. Every step I took felt heavier than the last, but stopping meant remembering—and remembering was the last thing I wanted to do.

I didn’t run. Running would mean fear, and I refused to give him that satisfaction. So I walked, one step after another, until the cheers and whispers of the pack faded into nothing but a distant hum swallowed by the wind.

The mark on my neck burned. His mark.

The bond that had once felt warm and alive now pulsed with a hollow ache, like a wound that wouldn’t close. I pressed my fingers against it, feeling the faint throb beneath my skin. Somewhere, miles away, he must have felt it too. I wondered if it hurt him.

Probably not.

When I reached the edge of the river, I knelt and touched the water. The cold seeped through my fingertips, numbing the sting in my chest. The reflection that looked back at me wasn’t the Luna everyone had cheered for just an hour ago. She looked smaller now, stripped of the crown and the smile she used to hide behind. Her eyes were swollen, her lips trembling.

The woman in the water looked like a ghost.

I whispered to her, “You’re free now.”

But the words didn’t sound like victory. They sounded like loss.

For years, I had been Selene—the obedient mate, the perfect Luna. I followed every rule, smiled through every doubt, silenced every pain. I told myself that love would come if I was patient enough. That if I just stayed, if I just kept believing, he’d finally see me.

But he never did.

I stayed loyal to a dream while he kept his heart buried in the past.

Now that dream was dead.

The wind shifted. I smelled rain and pine and the faint trace of wolves—patrols from the border, maybe. I couldn’t risk being found. So I stood, wiped the tears I didn’t remember shedding, and began walking again.

Hours passed. The forest thinned. The sky turned from red to silver. By the time I reached the ridge that overlooked the valley, dawn had begun to stretch across the horizon. My body ached. My heart ached more.

Below, I could see the village lights of another pack—neutral territory. Maybe they’d take me in. Maybe they wouldn’t. Either way, I couldn’t go back.

I wrapped my cloak tighter and whispered a silent goodbye to the place I once called home.

Goodbye to the girl who waited. Goodbye to the Luna who wasn’t enough.

And somewhere behind me, miles away, an Alpha stood in the ruins of what he’d destroyed.

Arden’s POV

The scent of roses still clung to the hall. It should’ve been gone by now, smothered by the smoke of torches and the chaos that followed her departure—but it lingered, stubborn, like she always had.

Selene.

Her name echoed in my mind long after she walked away.

I’d watched her leave. Every step she took felt like a sentence being carved into my chest. I told myself it was for the best—that this was the right thing to do. That the Goddess’s true choice had finally returned to me.

Lyra stood at the edge of the garden, her golden hair bright against the darkness. She was everything I remembered. The woman who once made me believe in love before war and loss hardened me.

But when I looked at her, something was missing. A warmth, a spark… something I couldn’t name.

Maybe I’d left it with Selene.

“She’s gone,” Lyra said softly, stepping closer. Her voice was sweet, too practiced. “It’s better this way, Arden. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Pretend.

That word cut deeper than I expected.

Selene had never been a pretense.

I remembered the nights she stayed awake waiting for me to come home from council meetings, the way she’d gently scold me for skipping meals, the way her laughter filled the house even when I barely said a word. She never demanded love from me—she just gave it freely, like sunlight.

And I, fool that I was, mistook it for comfort.

“She’ll be fine,” Lyra continued, tracing a hand down my arm. “She’s strong.”

I wanted to believe that. But the thought of her walking alone into the forest under the Blood Moon made my chest tighten.

“Arden?” Lyra frowned. “Are you even listening?”

I looked at her then, really looked—and for the first time, I saw her not as my lost love, but as the ghost of what I thought I wanted.

Something in me shifted. Regret, sharp and merciless, began to take root.

Selene’s POV

The next village was small—a border settlement that belonged to the Crescent Wolves. They were neutral, known for trading herbs and furs, not for politics or war. When I stumbled into their territory, dawn had already broken, and my legs could barely carry me any farther.

A young she-wolf spotted me first. Her eyes widened at my torn dress and the faint scent of Alpha blood clinging to me. “You’re from Silvercrest,” she whispered.

I nodded weakly. “Not anymore.”

She brought me to their healer, an older woman named Mira. Her hands were gentle but firm as she cleaned the wounds I didn’t even realize I had—scratches from branches, bruises from my fall.

“You’ve been rejected,” Mira said simply, not unkindly. “I can smell it.”

I didn’t answer.

She poured a dark liquid into a cup and handed it to me. “Drink. It will dull the pain. Not the kind in your heart, but it’s a start.”

I drank. The taste was bitter, but warmth spread through my chest. For the first time since that night, my body stopped shaking.

“You can stay here until you heal,” Mira said. “No one will ask questions.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

As she left, I lay on the small cot, staring at the ceiling. My mind drifted to the past—to the first time I met Arden at the training grounds, the way he smiled when I beat him in a sparring match, the promise in his eyes when he asked me to stand by him as his Luna.

Promises fade.

Love lies.

The Moon watches.

That night, under the faint glow of dawn, I made my own vow.

If fate ever brought him back to me, he would not find the same woman he left behind.

The Luna he let go would rise again—not for him, not for revenge, but for herself.

And somewhere, I hoped the Moon Goddess was listening.

Because if She truly never made mistakes…

then maybe She had just begun to set things right.