Rewriting the Bond: An Email to My 18-Year-Old Luna Chapter 06

Rewriting the Bond: An Email to My 18-Year-Old Luna Chapter 06

## Cassian’s POV

I dreamed for what felt like forever.

In the dream, I saw Maeve. Eighteen years old.

She was in an oversized hoodie, hair pulled up in a messy bun, waiting for the boy I used to be under the sycamore tree by the front gate.

My younger self walked over, and Maeve reached for him first, lacing her fingers through his.

“Cassian, I aced my finals this time. Can you believe it? That’s all because of you and your study sessions. What do you want as a reward?”

When she smiled, everything about her face softened. Her eyes crinkled, bright as sunlight.

Then I watched my younger self lean down and kiss her.

“I don’t need a reward. I just need you right here.”

Maeve smacked his arm, face flushed, and the two of them took off running down the sidewalk, laughing the whole way.

In college, I picked up off-the-books security gigs alongside her and handed over every cent I made.

Maeve tried to push it back every time, and I’d just grin and say, “I’m the Stormfang heir. You think I need the money?”

The truth was, the Pack elders had cut me off months before. I was working three jobs just to stay afloat.

Four years of college, and the Stormfang Pack tried every trick they could think of to tear us apart. I didn’t budge.

I would’ve given up the heir title for her without blinking.

Back then, I would’ve burned it all down for her.

But later, everything changed.

It probably started after Maeve got pregnant.

Being pregnant changed her. Her moods swung wildly, and she cried over everything.

Every late night I came home, she’d be on the couch, crying.

If I forgot to text back, she’d call ten times in a row, sobbing, accusing me of not loving her anymore.

At first I had the patience to talk her down. Then I just got tired of it.

I’d wear myself down at work all day, drag myself home, and walk straight into another fight. I was done.

That’s when Serena slipped in.

She wasn’t just a childhood friend. She was my partner in pack affairs.

She was sharp, level-headed, and composed. She didn’t cry. She didn’t lose her temper over nothing.

Every time Maeve and I fought, Serena was the one who’d smooth everything over.

With Serena, I didn’t have to fight the Pack anymore either.

Bit by bit, she filled the space Maeve used to hold.

The day Maeve found out, the shock sent her into early labor.

I stood outside the delivery room listening to her scream, and for the first time in my life, I knew I’d done something unforgivable.

After Sia was born, I got on my knees in front of Maeve and begged her for another chance.

Maeve told me to go to hell, crying the entire time. But she stayed. For the pup.

After that, her whole world was Sia. I barely existed.

Sia was always sick, and Maeve dragged her from one hospital to the next, desperate for answers.

Our entire text history was nothing but payment requests. Every call, the same thing. Money.

When Sia was two.

Maeve showed up at my door, eyes raw and red. “Are you still seeing Serena?”

“I smelled my custom perfume on her. The one you gave me.”

I didn’t deny it.

Serena and I had never stopped. Not for a single day in those two years.

I expected tears. Screaming. A fight. But she didn’t give me any of it.

She turned around, walked out, and the next morning a dissolution contract was on my desk.

I refused to sign. She took me to the pack court.

Two years of pack court battles, custody, assets, everything. Neither of us gave an inch.

I won.

The day the verdict came in, I didn’t feel anything close to relief.

Maeve walked out calm and quiet. The way she looked at me, there was nothing in it.

No love. No hate. Just nothing.

For a second, something hollow opened up inside my chest.

I understood it now.

The woman who loved me was gone long before she ever left.

And none of that mattered now. It was all too late.

I opened my eyes, pressed my hands over my face, and broke down. Right there in the hospital bed, I sobbed like I hadn’t cried since I was a child.

The last time I saw Maeve, she’d come tearing in like a wild thing, telling me Sia was dying.

And I didn’t believe her. I thought it was another performance, another way to shake me down for money.

While my pup was dying, I was exchanging vows with another woman.

“Sia… I’m sorry…”

“Maeve… I’m sorry…”

I wasn’t a good father. I was an even worse mate.

A knock at the door.

My Beta, Lucien Hayes, walked in and handed me two files.

One was the report Serena had forged. The other was real.

With every page I turned, the blood drained a little more from my face.

The woman I’d trusted, the one I thought was smart, caring, and understood me better than anyone, had been falsifying my pup’s medical records all along.

I never knew how sick Sia really was.

I hurled the files across the room.

I called Serena.

“Serena. I want a severance.”

“Cassian, after everything we’ve been through…”

“Severance.”

“I won’t! Cassian, everything I did was because I love you! I love you. I’ve always loved you more than she ever did…”

I hung up.

I told Lucien to call the pack lawyers. Then I had Serena’s things thrown out of the house.

They buried Sia and Maeve on the same day at Moonstone Cemetery.

It rained.

I stood in front of their headstone with no umbrella, letting the rain soak me through.

“Maeve, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry. Can you hear me?”

“I shouldn’t have doubted you. I shouldn’t have frozen that card. I shouldn’t have gone to that goddamn ceremony…”

“I should’ve been there. I should’ve been at the hospital holding Sia’s hand. I should’ve… loved you the way you deserved.”

“I’m sorry, Maeve. When I was eighteen, I swore I’d spend my life loving you. And I… I couldn’t even do that.”

I dropped to my knees and pressed my forehead against the cold stone. The rain and the tears ran together until I couldn’t tell which was which.

“I failed you. I failed at everything.”

…

I covered every wall with photos of them.

Every night I fell asleep holding photos of them, pretending they were still there.

I kept everything of Maeve’s. I couldn’t throw any of it away.

Going through her things, I found the old phone.

I opened it and found the emails, the ones between Maeve and her eighteen-year-old self.

I read the eighteen-year-old Maeve writing, “Cassian loves me. I believe him.”

I read my eighteen-year-old self swearing, “I’ll spend my whole life loving her.”

I stared at those words until something cracked open inside me, and I didn’t know if the sound coming out of my throat was laughter or sobbing.

Then I reached the last email. Maeve, begging her younger self to leave me.

[Please. Don’t fall in love with him. Don’t mate with him. Don’t… let my pup die again.]

I tried to picture what she must have felt, typing those words. I couldn’t.

I shattered.

I picked up the old phone and started writing to the eighteen-year-old Maeve.

I told her I was sorry. I told her I was wrong. I told her that every day since she’d been gone, missing her got worse, not better.

She never wrote back. Not once. I kept sending them anyway.

It was the only thing I had left.

Maeve, is there any version of this where you could forgive me?