The Luna’s Choice Chapter 02
“Bella…” Julian caught my wrist.
The second his fingers brushed the uneven scars there, he jerked back as if he had been burned.
His brows pulled together. He did not hide the disgust in his eyes fast enough.
When his gaze met mine, a rare flicker of guilt crossed his face.
“I’ll have the driver take you. The apartment has great lighting. You’ll like it.”
I nodded calmly.
Halfway there, the driver suddenly glanced back at me.
“Luna, the Alpha wants us to return.”
When I walked back inside, smoke hung thick in the air.
Every maid stood frozen along the wall in terror while Julian stared at a scorched pot with a dark expression.
The moment he saw me, he hurried over and pulled me into the kitchen.
“Bella, that soup you used to make for me. Teach me how to make it.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Sweat broke out across his forehead as he forced himself to turn on the gas burner.
He was fighting his fear of fire, carefully making a bowl of hot soup for the woman he loved.
Kaven had posted a story.
[On a cold winter day like this, if someone brought me a bowl of hot soup, I’d marry him on the spot!]
So Julian, who had never lifted a finger in a kitchen, was clumsily fumbling with soup just because of a joke in her story.
A few days earlier, I had slipped and fallen in this very kitchen. Julian had stood far away as if he had not seen me at all.
Later, he posted the security footage of my struggle to his story, hiding it from me.
His caption was, [Rolling around on the floor like a stupid pig.]
Silently, I remade the soup for him.
He focused hard as he typed every step into his notes app.
When his phone rang, he answered almost without hesitation.
By accident, I saw the contact name he had saved for Kaven.
My Luna.
“If Kaven is his Luna,” my wolf asked from deep inside me, “then what are we?”
When Julian walked out onto the balcony with his phone, I took out mine without thinking and called him.
The line was busy.
He had blocked me.
I laughed at myself, low and bitter. Then I stopped bothering the driver, ordered an Uber, to my original destination.
When I arrived at the Blackwood estate, Julian’s mother, Margaret, seemed to have expected me.
She was already sitting on the sofa, waiting.
Her sharp deep-blue eyes, clouded with years of weariness, settled on me.
She sighed and reached out her hand.
“Come here, my child.”
“Are you still determined to leave? Not even for the pup, would you be willing to…”
I placed my hand in hers, my gaze calm.
“Margaret, according to our agreement, once I give birth to the Blackwood Pack’s Alpha heir, every debt from the search for my mother and the handling of her remains will be cleared.”
“My due date is in three days. After the pup is born, let me go.”
Ten years ago, Julian and I met in a small bar near the Blackwood border.
He was the reckless heir of a powerful pack. I was a temporary dishwasher in the back kitchen.
With just one look, our wolves recognized each other as fated mates. He insisted I would become his marked mate no matter what.
I fought fate.
I rejected him.
But he pursued me for a year and a half, stubborn to the point of neglecting pack business.
When Margaret came to find me, my mother had already walked into the Forbidden Grounds, leaving behind no trace or proof of life.
Margaret looked at me, her voice full of helplessness and favoritism toward her son.
“You are the only woman Julian has never been able to forget. You are the fated mate the Moon Goddess gave him. I hope you will mate with Julian, pull back the Alpha who was meant to become an outstanding leader, and give the Blackwood Pack an Alpha heir. In return, I will send pack warriors into the Forbidden Grounds to search for your mother. Dead or alive, they will bring me an answer.”
My wolf and I agreed without hesitation.
After our mating ceremony, our devotion to each other was so intense that the forum even opened an entire board just to talk about us.
Then, later, he suddenly stopped believing in fate.
Like all the women he had dated before me, I became nothing more than an old stain pressed against his heart.
Margaret saw that my decision would not change. At last, she relented.
“After you give birth to the heir, I’ll personally arrange for you to leave.”
When I walked out of the estate, the Pack Forum had already exploded over a video.
It was a story Julian had posted.
In the video, he smiled with open affection.
“A formal apology to my darling. I promised to bring her soup at this exact time, and I was one minute late.”
“My punishment is making soup for her for the rest of my life.”
The comments under my own profile had already turned vile.
[So she really was a fake Luna. The Alpha has never posted a public love confession like this for her!]
[A mistress acting that arrogant? Our Luna Kaven has been way too patient with her.]
[PR queen? Please. She’s just a cheap bitch.]
I didn’t even care anymore.
Just as I was about to lock my phone, a message from an unknown number popped up. The tone was as commanding as ever.
[I’m coming to your place tonight. I’ll be home late.]
