All Chapters of The Alpha's Regret: Chasing Back His Rejected Luna: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

~ CASPIAN ~ True to my words, the delegates are assembled already. Faster than I expected. Word travels quickly when fear and danger are involved. The atmosphere in the hall is tense, and everyone looks anxious as they stare at the delegates from the Moonclaw Rogue Pack. I enter and take my seat. Callan settles down too. The meeting begins. “Thank you all for gathering so quickly.” My voice is loud enough to silence the restless murmurs. “There’s a threat we must address before dawn tomorrow. Jocelyn Valdez of the Moonclaw Rogue Pack will now speak.” Gasps intensify the tension in the air. When Jocelyn stands, the atmosphere shifts. More whispers spread. I can see the way some of them are looking at her with suspicion, but more look at her with something else. Respect. Curiosity. Fear, maybe. After what happened this morning, I don't really blame any of them for acting the way they're acting now. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she starts, straightening her shoulders. “I'd like to apo

“A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.” - Aragorn, The Lord Of The Rings #3 The Return Of The King. ~ CASPIAN ~ Night finally comes. The sun has long faded away, now replaced by a moon shining so brightly over the war fields just beyond the pack river. The fields separate the river from the boundary on the east side, and everyone—including Jocelyn—is already out here. This is where we make our stand. Everywhere I look, our warriors are lining up in their formations. The creature responsible for the attack on my pack that first bloody night—the one that murdered the boy by the river—must have seen these fields. We believe the attack will happen right here because there is no way we're going to let those monsters into the heart of our pack. The rest of the pack members, including everyone else who can't fight, have already been escorted earlier into underground bunkers built for times lik

“We can look at the darkness and let it consume us, or we can recognize that it’s only temporary, trusting that once it passes, the light will return.” - Crestoria Vossendi Kildarion, The Prison Healer #3 The Blood Traitor. ~ JOCELYN ~ It’s nice meeting you in flesh, little Phoenix.” His words scrape down my spine like icy claws, his voice as deep as the grave, all too familiar just like in my dreams. Dreams he invaded with threats that made me wake up sweating and shaking. Hearing his voice now, in the flesh, on the battlefield where blood already paints the dirt black, makes my stomach twist. He is here, standing in front of me as though he owns this night, as though he owns me. But he doesn't. He is a curse to our world, and I won’t tremble before him. Not when Sarah, Elian, Caspian, and everyone else is out here fighting, bleeding, dying. Not when the fate of more than one pack hangs on the outcome of this battle. “You should have stayed in the dark where you belong!” I spit

“No one is going to give you a prize for not crying. No one is going to praise you or reward you for bottling it all up. So, just cry when you feel like it.” - Yoon Shi Woo, Moorim School: Saga Of The Brave ~ CASPIAN ~ After the procession is over, families gather behind the pyres of their fallen. Some are carrying flowers. Others are holding their children too close, as if letting go for even a moment might invite Thanox to strike again. Their faces are streaked with tears, their voices crying out names that will never be forgotten. A hush settles over the place when the Head Elder begins delivering the tribute of passage. “Today, we’re gathered not as the living and the dead, but as a people bound by war, death, and sacrifice. Last night, the darkness came for us. He tried to break us, to tear apart everything we’ve ever fought for. And many of our own… they fought bravely and gave their lives so the rest of us could still be here this morning. They reminded us that our strengt

~ JOCELYN ~ A long silence stretches between us. His words are still hanging in the air, burning my chest like a fire I can’t breathe through. I want to scream at him. I want to tell him that none of it matters, that the pain he caused me can’t be erased by tears and late confessions. And yet… I can’t move. I can't talk. I can't even look at anything else in the room. All I can do is stare at him. At the man who ripped me apart five years ago, the same man who is now standing here before me, broken, baring his heart as if it’s mine to shatter all over again. My fingers curl into fists at my sides, trembling with pain… and something else. Something I’ve been fighting against since the moment his blue eyes found mine at the funeral. That same something that has haunted me through the years no matter how hard I tried to kill it. Love. I hate that I still love him. I hate that I want to touch him, to feel him, to remember what it was like to be his light before everything went to dar