Semua Bab The Alpha’s Rejected Human Luna: Bab 131 - Bab 140

“I’m offering you my temper,” he said. “For you to call out when it’s aimed in the wrong direction. My back is for you to lean on when yours is too tired. My stupid grumpy heart, which apparently decided you’re home and refuses to consider alternatives.”Laughter rippled, soft.“I’m offering to protect you,” he went on. “Not by locking you in a house or telling you what to do, but by standing next to you when you walk into danger anyway. By checking for traps, not blocking the door.”Naomi made a choked sound that might have been a curse and a sob in one.“I promise,” Cassian said, voice low but sure now, “to love your loudness. To listen when you whisper. To never use the word ‘mate’ like a chain around your neck. To buy you coffee every time we go into town and pretend not to notice when you steal half my fries.”“That’s in your vows?” I asked, laughing wetly.He smiled, crooked. “It’s important to be specific,” he said.He squeezed my hands.“I promise to argue with you,” he said.

My heart climbed into my throat. “Leo,” I whispered. He took another breath, like he was stepping off a cliff he’d been standing on for a long time. “Stay,” he said simply. “Here. With us. With me. Not because you owe us anything. Not because you don’t have options. Stay because this is where you’re… happiest. I think. If I’m wrong, tell me, and I’ll shut up.” The words were so very Leo. No flash. No poetry. Just a steady, honest offering. Once, I’d thought my life was going to be small. Clinic shifts. A modest apartment. Visits to my parents on holidays. Books and plants and maybe, one day, someone to share groceries with. Safe. Predictable. Contained. Then Lilah had gone off to “have an adventure,” and I’d come to check on her, and the entire shape of my world had changed. I’d seen magic and gods and curses, and a version of my best friend I’d never dreamed could exist. And somewhere in the middle of that, a gruff Beta with too many scars had started bringing me coffee. T

POV: Lilah The town looked smaller.Maybe it had always been this size—one main street, two traffic lights, a scattering of side roads pretending they were going somewhere—but now, after forests and pack lands and gods and curses, it felt… compressed.Like someone had taken my old life and hit “zoom out.”I watched it through the windshield as Ronan eased the truck off the highway and onto the familiar road, my fingers curled around the strap of Rowan’s car seat.They gurgled softly, half‑dozing, their little wolf‑stripe at the nape of their neck peeking out above the collar of their onesie.“Still time to turn back,” Naomi said from the back seat, one arm tossed over her eyes. “We can claim we got lost. Blame the GPS. Say the moon intervened.”“You insisted on coming,” I reminded her.“I insisted on emotional support and a milkshake,” she said. “The rest is negotiable.”Bella, beside her, clutched a small bouquet of wildflowers we’d picked near the pack lands, stems wrapped careful

POV: Lilah Three years later, I could tell time by paw prints.Little muddy ones up the porch steps, bigger ones streaking through the herb beds, a trail of damp prints across the kitchen floor that always, somehow, ended at the cookie jar.“Rowan Vale,” I called. “I see you.”A small head popped up from behind the counter.Not fully shifted—too young for that—but caught mid‑way. Ears pointed and furred on top of their head, human face dusted with faint down, eyes bright with mischief and that familiar ring of luminescence flashing around the irises.They froze, one cookie half‑out of the jar.“Hi, Mama,” they said.I folded my arms, trying to look stern and failing.“How many did you already take?” I asked.They frowned, concentrating, lips moving silently as they counted.“Two,” they said finally, holding up three fingers.“Very convincing,” Naomi said from the table, where she sat cross‑legged helping a pair of pups with colored pencils and a very chaotic pack family tree. “Your

POV: Lilah By the time most of the food had disappeared and the pups were more sugar than flesh, the festival fire had burned down to a wide, steady bed of coals.The big noise faded.Music shifted from “Naomi’s Extremely Questionable Mashups” to softer, older melodies—wordless wolf songs, the hum of human lullabies.Small pockets of people drifted to quieter corners.One of those corners was mine.“Story time,” Freya announced, dropping onto a log with the solemnity of a judge. “Officially. Unofficially, I want to hear again how Naomi almost got herself eaten at the bar.”“I did not almost get eaten,” Naomi protested, sprawling dramatically at my feet like an overgrown pup. “I flirted with danger. It’s different.”“Semantics,” Cassian said, taking a seat behind her and tugging her back to lean against his chest.Rowan bounced onto the log beside me, knees knocking into mine. Kade perched on the other side, lanky now but still with that quiet, intent gaze.A ring of faces, young and