He Thought I Became His Perfect Luna, I Had Only Stopped Loving Him Chapter 10

He Thought I Became His Perfect Luna, I Had Only Stopped Loving Him Chapter 10

Stellan was sent back to his pack.

And I started living.

Hadrian was kind. Genuinely kind, the sort that came without strings attached. He respected my boundaries, supported my work, and gave me space when I needed it without making me ask twice.

Everyone assumed something was happening between us.

Even Iris, who should’ve known better, sidled up to me one evening while I was writing and raised

an eyebrow.

“Aelwen. Hadrian. Honestly. You’re not even a little tempted?”

I kept writing for a second before I looked up.

Outside the window, the cherry tree in the yard had just started to bloom. Tiny white-pink buds,

barely open.

“The day I left the hospital, when Hadrian showed up, I’d called him in advance,” I said. “I knew

Stellan would be there. I needed him to see that I’d moved on, so he’d stop coming back.”

Iris stared at me.

“You-”

“I’m grateful to Hadrian. That’s real.” I set down my pen. “But gratitude isn’t love. And anyway…”

I thought about how to say it.

“Love is never the whole of life.”

“Being alone is fine. It’s actually fine.”

Iris looked at me for a long moment.

“Yeah,” she said finally, “I think I believe you.”

I threw everything I had into the work.

I joined Silvanor’s team formally, took on the Royal Research Fellowship, and settled into the pace of a life built around something that was mine alone.

The field moved. I moved with it. Fast.

Three years in, I finished what would become my defining paper: a new treatment framework for

wolf venom recovery that no one had managed to map before.

The award ceremony was held on the Winter Solstice.

I stood at the podium in a white suit I’d designed and tailored myself. The spotlight was warm on

my face.

“This award belongs to every person who was reborn from the place where everything fell apart,” I said, holding the crystal award in both hands. “To every woman who decided she was worth more than what she’d been given.”

The applause came in waves.

Cameras caught the glint of tears at the corners of my eyes.

But my smile didn’t waver.

Bright as anything.

After that night, the name Aelwen Bramlock carried a new weight. Independent. Unbreakable.

Rebuilt from scratch.

I didn’t chase that meaning.

I just went home, made tea, and kept working.

Occasionally, Iris brought news from the old pack. I let her talk. I listened without asking her to stop, but also without leaning in.

It was like hearing news about strangers.

Stellan had done odd jobs after losing his Alpha status. Small work. The kind nobody expected from

him.

Rhoslyn had lost her grip on her own mind eventually. She’d been admitted to a psychiatric facility.

I heard these things and kept breathing.

Five years after I won that award, Iris came to visit.

We sat in the kitchen with coffee. The cherry tree outside was blooming again, same as it did every

spring, reliable as anything.

Iris wrapped her hands around her mug.

“There’s something I should probably tell you.”

“Stellan died,” she said.

My hand paused on the stack of files I was sorting through.

Just for a second.

“What happened?”

“Rhoslyn got out.” Iris’s voice was low, careful. “Escaped the facility. Nobody knows exactly how. She got hold of some gasoline, and in the middle of the night she went to the Greywick family estate

and set it on fire.”

A beat.

“By the time anyone got there, the whole building had gone down. Stellan. His parents. And Rhoslyn, who never made it out.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

Outside, a breeze moved through the cherry tree. Petals fell, pale pink and white, drifting slow, like snow that couldn’t decide whether to land.

“What a pity,” I said softly.

I meant it, in some distant way.

“That house had so many flowers.”

I turned back to the files and kept sorting.

Iris watched me.

She didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then: “You’re really okay.”

Not a question.

I straightened the last folder. Looked at the clean desk.

“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.”

The sunlight through the kitchen window fell across my hands.

I leaned back in the chair, tilted my face slightly toward the warmth, and closed my eyes for just a

moment.

Serene.

Satisfied.

Beautifully alone.