Alpha Begged, Luna Walked Chapter 02

Alpha Begged, Luna Walked Chapter 02

I let myself imagine, just for a moment, how Magnus might have answered that question ten years ago.

Probably trust.

Because that’s what he always said, with that edge of impatience in his voice.

“Nova. Can’t you just trust me? Eden and I are innocent.”

“She’s my Beta. We work together. Don’t look at her like she’s the enemy,she’s fought hard to get where she is.”

I tried to believe him. I told myself it was just pack dynamics, wolf instincts, nothing more.

But their eyes never lied.

Neither did their actions.

To clear a path for Eden, Magnus replaced the old Beta,the one who’d watched me grow up, who still called me Alpha Daughter out of habit.

The first time I really understood was the morning of his inaugural Alpha Council.

I’d woken early to press his shirt. I chose a sapphire tie and knotted it carefully around his collar.

Eden walked in without knocking.

She selected another tie,silver, dark-woven and held it up like a trophy. “Alpha. For such a formal council, this one suits your presence better.”

Magnus didn’t hesitate. He reached up and loosened the knot I’d just finished.

Through the mirror, he saw my face. “Don’t misunderstand. Eden’s been at my side longer. She knows the protocol for these events better than you.”

I looked down at the blue tie coiled in my palm.

I wasn’t misunderstanding.

The witch had finished wrapping the crystal — my parting gift to him.

Before I left, I gave her one final instruction.

“The Council no longer needs to support Magnus Vancroft.”

From the cottage, I went to the sea.

Ten years of asking. Ten years of waiting for the ceremony he’d postponed. I wore white today and smiled for the camera. Another gift for him. Another full stop.

My phone rang.It was Eden.

“We’re heading north for the hunt. Can you pack his things? I’ll pick them up later.”

A pause. A light, satisfied laugh.

“Don’t bother with the underwear, though. I bought new ones. He likes the fit.”

The cramping from the procedure sharpened. I bit my lip until it b1ed, silent.

This was how it always went. Eden needling. Me breaking.

Last week, she’d said, “Nova, you know how pregn@ncy changes a woman’s body. Everything loosens. I suppose that’s why Alpha never wanted me to carry. Lucky you.”

I’d tr@shed her office.

The media had a field day. Alpha Magnus’s mate and his Beta at war. Luna Nova, hysterical. Threatening to jump.

Magnus ordered me to recant publicly, immediately.

“What right do you have to act like this? We haven’t even completed a mating ceremony. Keep pushing, and that pup comes out of you straight into someone else’s arms. You’ll never see it.”

He’d made his choice long before that conversation.

The photographer clicked his tongue. “Darling, you keep crying. It won’t photograph well.”

I smiled. “It’s fine. It’s not for me.”

At home, I packed his bag for the northern hunt,carefully, methodically.

The last time.

Then I packed my own.

Two things only a damaged painting and an urn.

I found the painting under the bed, where I’d hidden it years ago. My hands shook. Tears blurred the frame.

I’d hidden it because Magnus wanted to give it to Eden, just because she liked it.

He’d forgotten whose portrait this was. He’d forgotten what my mother had done for him.

She was seventeen when she brought him to the pack,a stray boy with nothing. She made him my guard.

He followed me like a shadow through university, graduation, my first posting at the pack house.

She’d wanted me to be Alpha, a daughter to carry her legacy.

But my father,faithless in life, faithless in death,collapsed under a peony bush with his mistress’s scent still on his collar. His by-blows crawled out of the woodwork, claws bared.

I was twenty-two, unprepared, and utterly alone.

They stripped my title, my inheritance, my place in the pack. What they didn’t take, they called debt.

I left with nothing but a handful of loyal elders and enough zeros on a ledger to make the Moon herself look away.

My mother fell in the war that followed.

No money. No status. The pack hospital wouldn’t touch her. A village witch kept her alive with cheap herbs and hope.

Magnus stayed.

I screamed at him. Begged him to leave. He wouldn’t.

Debt collectors hunted me through every city. One night, they cornered me and talked about black market prices.

Magnus fought for me, b1ood on the concrete.He sold plasma until his veins collapsed. He killed rogue for territory scraps, came home with his ribs showing.

“No one touches you,” he said.

“Not while I’m breathing.”