The Luna He Erased Chapter 05

The Luna He Erased Chapter 05

Thornhaven smelled like rain and fresh bread.

It was a neutral city-wolves, witches, humans, all minding their own business, no Alpha’s flag flying over anything. My apartment was the third floor of a brownstone where nobody knew my name or my ex-husband’s face.

I taped the ultrasound photo to the refrigerator. Two tiny bodies curled toward each other like parentheses.

I found a rhythm. Morning walks. Prenatal teas from the witch on the corner. Long afternoons in the public library reading things that had nothing to do with medicine or Kane or the life I had amputated.

My wolf was weak – the rejection had cost her – but every day she stood a little steadier. So did I.

I applied to the Thornhaven Academy of Healing. Not as a practicing healer; my wolf wasn’t ready. As a lecturer. Anatomy. Venom pathology.

The headmistress, Madam Thorne, was a no-nonsense she-wolf in her sixties with cropped silver hair and a reputation for

making first-year students cry.

She reviewed my credentials in silence.

“You’re overqualified,” she said flatly.

“I know.”

“Your research record is exceptional. And this case study-venom purge via triple blood transfusion.” She looked up over

er glasses. “That’s the Blackwood case. It’s being taught in every healing academy on the continent. The journals credit a

Healer Doran.”

“I know,” I said. My voice didn’t waver.

She studied me for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“I don’t know what happened to you, Healer Whitlock. But I know what running looks like. And I know what talent looks ike.” She closed the file. “You start Monday. And when your wolf is ready, I want you in my surgical wing.”

I walked out with a teaching contract and the first real smile I’d worn in months.

That evening I ate takeout straight from the carton – something Kane would have found appalling – and watched the sun set over an unfamiliar skyline that owed me nothing and demanded nothing.

Then my phone buzzed. My mother.

“Are you sitting down?” she asked.

“What happened?”

“It’s everywhere, Sage. The gala. Someone livestreamed the whole thing. The rejection. His collapse. Eighty million views.

They’re calling you the Blood Moon Luna.”

My stomach dropped. “And him?

A pause. “He hasn’t been seen in three weeks. The pack says he’s ‘recovering. The tabloids say his wolf went half-feral the night you left. They say he tore the gala hall apart with his bare hands after you walked out. They say it took six Betas

to hold him down.”

I closed my eyes. I refused to feel anything about that.

“There’s more,” my mother said carefully. “He’s hired trackers. The best money can buy. Sage – he’s offering ten million to

anyone who finds you.”

“He won’t find me. Maeve buried my trail under three warded trusts.”

“For now.” Her voice tightened. “Just… be careful. A bond-rejected Alpha isn’t a man anymore, baby. He’s a wound looking

for its knife.”

We hung up. I stood at the window, hands on the small swell of my belly, watching strangers pass under the streetlights.

Then my news app chimed, and I made the mistake of looking.

The Lunar Times, glossy cover, Celeste radiant in crimson:

“CELESTE DUVALL: THE WOMAN WHO SAVED ALPHA BLACKWOOD – Her Exclusive Story of Love, Loyalty, and the

Unstable Wife Who Ruined the Blood Moon Gala.”

Six pages. Photos of Celeste at his hospital bed. Celeste “coordinating with the healing team.” Me, in a single line, buried In the last paragraph: “Blackwood’s estranged wife, a healer, was reportedly involved in aspects of his care.”

Aspects of his care.

I had pumped that woman’s lover’s poison through my own heart.

She was wearing my story like a stolen pelt.

And for the first time since I left, I didn’t want distance.

I wanted blood.