From Silent Princess to S-Rank Luna Chapter 08

From Silent Princess to S-Rank Luna Chapter 08

Three years later.

I stood in front of Solmere’s newly completed coastal landmark.

This was my first officially built project.

The white dome stretched along the shoreline, connected underground to full-moon refuge tunnels. During normal hours, it was a public community center. When the tides rose, it automatically switched to emergency shelter mode.

The model Cillian had shattered years ago was now standing in real sunlight.

As the youngest lead designer on the project, I’d taken home this year’s Academy Alliance Emerging Talent Award.

Next month, I’d be going to Europe for further studies.

Before I left, I went back to Stonehaven Pack to finalize my identity transfer.

Walking out of the County Registry Office, I held my new documents in hand.

[Pack Affiliation: Tidecross.]

(Independent Registrant: Maren Voss.]

When I reached the street corner, I stopped.

At the entrance to the marketplace, a few familiar faces stood.

My parents-hair gray now, backs bent-argued with a vendor over the price of discount groceries.

Nessa stood beside them, a young pup in her hand, her eyes hollow and distant.

I’d heard that after Nessa was expelled from Greywolf, no other academy would take her.

She eventually ran off with a rogue wolf. When she got pregnant, he disappeared.

She couldn’t hold down a steady job and had moved back to her parents’ house with the kid.

On the other side of the street, Cillian leaned against an old lamppost.

He wore a stained white shirt, a cigarette dangling between his fingers.

He’d never become Beta.

After Nessa’s scandal, he’d missed too many trainings, failed too many evaluations, and been

stripped of his candidacy at Northreach Greywolf Academy.

The brother who once stood tall in his crisp Beta-candidate uniform, bathed in sunlight-now

looked like nothing but exhaustion.

He seemed to sense something. He turned his head and looked straight at me.

Our eyes met.

Cillian’s hand trembled, the cigarette falling onto his shoe.

He flinched, trying to look away-but couldn’t stop staring.

My parents and Nessa followed his gaze.

They saw me.

The polished clothes. The expensive watch. The confidence and poise radiating from every inch of

The same light they’d once tried to take from me and give to Nessa.

My mother’s lips moved. She might have said my name.

Nessa instinctively hid her hands behind her back, trying to cover her rough, chapped fingers.

Cillian stepped forward-then stopped himself, his eyes suddenly red.

Regret. Despair. Pain. It all played across their faces like a tragicomic painting.

I looked at them.

And felt nothing. Like I was looking at strangers.

{ I didn’t walk over to mock them. I didn’t offer them any pity.

I just calmly looked away.

Turned around and walked toward the town car waiting at the curb.

As the door clicked shut, I heard a sound behind me-a raw, broken sob.

But I didn’t look back.

The car pulled away, Stonehaven Pack shrinking in the rearview mirror.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Rafe.

[Hey, big-shot designer-tonight’s celebration dinner’s all set. Everyone’s waiting for you to come

home.]

I looked at the screen and smiled.

Sunlight streamed through the window and fell on my hands.

Warm.

I typed back a smiley face.

“On my way.”

Behind me a home I’d once desperately tried to belong to, where I never found a place.

And ahead-my studio, my people, and the ones who were truly waiting for me.