The Luna You Betrayed Is No Longer Yours

_Rowena’s POV_

The silence didn’t last long.

Kasper came into the meeting hall less than an hour after Brielle’s family was dragged away in chains, his face grim in a way that made my stomach drop before he even said a single word.

"We have a problem," he said. "A big one, and it isn’t waiting for us to catch our breath."

Alaric straightened immediately, all traces of the softness from moments ago gone. "Talk."

"Kyle’s capture set something off," Kasper said, spreading a map across the table. "Our sources inside Drake’s network say he knows we’re closing in on him now, that we’ve got his contact routes and his courier. He’s not waiting anymore, not playing the long game he’s been playing for months. He’s gathered a group of rogues, a large one by every account we’re getting, and intelligence suggests he’s planning to move against Ebon Moon before the full moon rises tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow," I repeated, the word catching in my throat. "That’s the day the wedding would have......”

"The wedding date," Alaric said, finishing the thought I couldn’t. "He knows the significance of it. This isn’t only about revenge for Kyle’s capture anymore. He wants to destroy this territory outright and wipe out Rowena’s bloodline entirely, striking while everyone assumed the biggest threat this week was a ceremony that was never going to happen now."

The room went quiet around me and I sighed, problems never end, does it?

I placed a hand over my stomach without thinking, an instinct I doubted I would ever lose again after everything that had happened in the last day alone.

"How many rogues are we looking at?” Alaric asked, his voice all business now, every trace of exhaustion pushed down somewhere he could deal with it later.

"Enough to be a real and immediate threat," Gideon now said. "We’re still gathering exact numbers from our scouts, but early reports put the force at a size we haven’t faced in years, not since before you took the throne."

Alaric was already moving, calling for maps to be spread wider, for his generals to be summoned, for every guard in the pack to be armed and positioned by nightfall. I watched him transform in front of me, the grieving, gentle man from an hour ago falling away completely, replaced by the Alpha King who had led this territory through worse than this before and come out standing.

"I’m fighting also,” I said.

He turned to me so fast I nearly flinched at the speed of it. "Absolutely not."

"Alaric.....”

"You’re pregnant, Rowena. You were poisoned less than a day ago. Your body is still recovering from something that nearly killed you. I am not putting you anywhere near a battlefield, and I won’t discuss it further."

"I’m stronger than most she wolves in this pack right now, and you know it," I said, holding his gaze steady, refusing to look away first. "Kyra is back. My senses are better than they’ve ever been, my strength is more than it’s ever been, even before Virella took her from me. You felt that yourself when you found me standing in there after everything Kyle did."

"That doesn’t matter to me right now. You’re carrying our child."

"And I will protect that child far better on my feet, fighting beside you, than sitting locked in some room hoping the walls hold against a force that wants to erase my entire bloodline." My voice stayed calm, because I needed him to hear that this wasn’t a request. "I’m not asking your permission, Alaric. I love you, and I respect you, but I’m telling you what I’ve already decided to do."

He stared at me for a long moment, his jaw tight, clearly fighting every protective instinct in his body that screamed at him to lock me away somewhere guarded and untouchable. I watched something shift behind his eyes, some old part of him losing a battle he already knew, deep down, that he couldn’t win against me.

"Promise me something," he said finally, his voice rough.

"Anything reasonable," I said.

"No unnecessary risks," he said. "You fight smart, not reckless. You stay close to Kasper or Pierre at all times, never alone out there. And the second Kyra tells you to pull back, you pull back immediately, no arguing with me about it afterward."

"I promise," I said, meaning it completely.

He pulled me into his arms, holding me tight for a long moment, his face pressed into my hair like he was trying to memorize the feeling of me still being there. "I can’t lose you," he said in an emotional tone, just for me. "Either of you. Not after everything it took to get here."

"You won’t," I said. "I intend to make sure of that myself."

By nightfall, the pack was already in position along the outer borders, guards spread out silently through the border, waiting in the dark with weapons ready and senses stretched.

I stood among them, Kyra steady beneath my skin, my senses pushed to the max and into the darkness listening for anything that didn’t belong to this land.

Finally, after waiting for so long, the attack came and it was before midnight.

They hit the south border first, a lot of rogues breaking through the line with a violence that told me exactly how much Drake wanted this to work, how much he had invested in destroying everything Alaric had built.

Why did he even target Alaric now? Because he was helping me?

It took lots of confidence to go against the Alpha King.

Howls filled the air, the sound of fighting also filling all around us too, there were sound of claws and teeth too.

I felt Kyra come forward inside me, ready and eager to take them on, no longer afraid.

"Stay close," Alaric said beside me, already beginning to shift, his shirt tearing as bones rearranged beneath his skin.

"I will," I said in a promising tone as I watched him with fascination.

The battle for Ebon Moon had begun, and I intended to make sure my family walked out of it whole.

And my family was part of Ebonmoon Pack now.