A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 30: Stupid

The rain hadn’t stopped.

Sheets of it came down in cold, stinging lashes, soaking every inch of fabric and earth until the land between the lakefront and the actual river bank had turned into a mire of sludge.

Still, the work continued.

It had to because the Blackmoon pack was densely populated. There wasn’t any other patch large enough to house all the Curzons together!

Autumn tightened a shawl around her shoulders and adjusted the rain cap on her head as she helped Dax unload another batch of blankets(hardly dry, they were getting rapidly soaked) from the cart.

Around them, tents were being set up hastily along the riverbank.They were flimsy shelters against the cold bite of the coming night. The Curzons were gathered in huddled silence beneath a patch of trees, their eyes wide with mistrust and silent desperation.

No one was speaking. Not really.

The Blackmoon warriors moved like ghosts, carrying supplies, tying ropes, lighting fires, but there was no chatter, no camaraderie, no warmth.

Even Kael, whose grin and jokes usually lit up any situation, kept his mouth shut tight. His brows furrowed low as he tied a tarp over a pole, his shoulders hunched with weight that wasn’t just rainwater. novelbuddy-cσ๓

The Curzons did not help.

Not because they did not want to, but because they did not know how. Or maybe they were too afraid to try.

Autumn caught the eye of a boy no older than fifteen. He was barefoot, soaked through, his arms wrapped around his little sister, who was trembling violently. His lips moved like he was praying or whispering promises,unsure.

When Autumn took a step towards them with a blanket in hand, the boy flinched and pressed his sister tighter against him, his gaze darting like he expected a blow.

She froze.

"This is what fear looks like," she thought, her heart cracking open in her chest. "Hollowed out and waiting for the axe."

It wasn’t the first time she had seen fear. She had grown up with it. But this...this silent dread among the Curzons, and the tense, grim acceptance in the Blackmoons...was something else entirely.

Something larger.Because it was just not about self...this was about the community...lives...many, too many...all tied together.

It was like something that breathed between the trees like a beast.

They had followed Kieran’s command. That much was clear. No one questioned it. No one dared. He had brought the Curzons into their territory like a savior. He had declared them under his protection, and the warriors had obeyed.

But obedience was not peace.

There was a hum beneath the silence, a vibration in the marrow of every bone, as if the entire forest knew war was stalking just beyond the river bend.

Autumn knelt beside a broken crate and began sorting through torn canvas, her fingers clumsy and cold. She could feel the stares. Not just from the Curzons, but from the Blackmoon pack as well. She was not one of them, not really. Not yet. And now, after today, maybe never.

She had pleaded for the Curzons. Argued with Kieran. Risked everything.

And he had listened.

But what did that make her now?

A fool? A traitor? Or something worse...someone naive enough to believe she could save both sides without losing either?

A Blackmoon soldier trudged past, his jaw clenched. "War is coming," he muttered to his companion, not caring if Autumn heard. "And for what? An exiled rogue and her old pack?"

Her hands stilled over a strip of fabric, her vision blurring as tears stung.

She did not regret it. She could not.

Not when she looked at that boy holding his sister like a shield against the world. Not when she remembered the way the Curzons’ faces had changed when Kieran hadn’t ordered their deaths, but instead granted them shelter.

But the guilt... the guilt had roots.

Because she wasn’t sure if they had saved the Curzons, or just given them a little more time before they burned.

And the Blackmoons...they were preparing to bleed for it.

Dax came to stand beside her, his voice low but rough. "The eastern tents are flooding. We need to move some of the elders to higher ground."

She nodded and stood up, brushing the mud from her knees. "I will help."

His eyes lingered on her for a breath too long. "You okay?"

Autumn opened her mouth, then closed it. What was she supposed to say?

That her heart felt like a battlefield?

That she wasn’t sure who she was trying to save anymore...or if it even mattered?

Instead, she just said, "Yeah," and followed him into the rain.

Behind them, the Curzons clung to each other, caught between fear and a fragile hope. The Blackmoons moved through the storm with shoulders squared and jaws set, loyal to their Alpha, even as the sky promised more darkness ahead.

And Autumn walked the narrow line between them, soaked to the bone and swallowed by a silence too heavy to breathe through...wondering what would be left of them all when the storm finally passed.Will it even pass or sweep them along?

***

The rain had finally eased to a whisper by the time Autumn slipped back into Mango’s hut, her clothes clinging to her skin, her hair a damp tangle down her back. The fire in the hearth had burned low, but it gave her some warmth.

Her limbs were sore from hours of hauling supplies and directing panicked people into their tents.

Mango glanced up from the herbs she was crushing by the fire. The old woman’s face was unreadable, but her eyes were tired.

"Everyone settled?" she asked without turning.

Autumn nodded, pulling the cap from her head and squeezing the rain out of her hair. "More or less. Some of the Curzons still look like they are waiting to be slaughtered in their sleep."

Mango hummed softly, then fell quiet. " So, you remembered after all? You are a Curzon? That’s... a little surprising to be honest! "

Autumn lingered by the door for a very long moment, the silence prickling at her skin. Finally, she asked, her voice low, hesitant, "How is Kieran?"

Mango paused. Then, with a quiet shake of her head, said, "I think he is fine. He was in his study. Hasn’t left since he came back."

"Fine?" Autumn repeated inwardly, letting the word echo in her mind. The kind of "fine" that meant brooding. The kind that meant torment tucked behind locked doors. The kind of "fine" that only Kieran could wear like armor while bleeding on the inside.

"Okay," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else, and turned towards her room.

She peeled off the wet layers one by one, letting them fall to the floor with soft, heavy thuds. The cold clung to her skin, making her shiver, but her blood was stirring, warming in a way that had nothing to do with fire.

She looked up...caught sight of herself in the tall mirror across the room. Damp strands of hair clung to her cheeks. Her lips were pale, her eyes darker than usual.

She did not look weak, but she did not look proud either.

"It had always been him."

He was the initiator. The breaker. The one who stepped in, who took what he wanted, who pulled her into that endless, dangerous gravity of his with a single look or touch. It had always been Kieran who owned the chaos between them.

But tonight, as the rain whispered against the roof like the prelude to war, Autumn felt something different. Not guilt. Not grief.

Need.

A wild, unsteady urge to be something for him...comfort, solace, release. He bore the weight of a people, of a war, of sins neither of them had yet confessed. And she...

She could be his distraction. His tether. Or maybe his undoing.

"Before the storm comes," she thought, "let me be the eye of it."

She crossed to the closet and opened it slowly, eyes scanning over the clothes she swore never to wear.

There, in the corner peeked a red velvet. Dark and soft as sin. It clung in all the right places, whispered promises against skin.

She slipped into it, letting the fabric glide over her hips, tug snug across her chest. No bra. No shame.

She fastened the side slit, letting it rise just enough to reveal the line of her thigh. Then she ran her fingers through her damp hair, tousling it until it looked like something wild, not defeated.

A bit of balm on her lips. Nothing more.

Standing before the mirror again, she took a long breath.

"This is stupid," she whispered. "So stupid."

But her hand did not stop when it reached for the door. Her feet did not hesitate as they padded across the floor.

Because tonight was not about pride. It was not about clarity.

It was about how she felt...in that moment.

About him.

And as Autumn stepped into the dim hallway, walking towards Kieran’s study with the wind singing behind the walls and the whispered rain promising blood by morning...she had never felt more dangerously alive.

Only a wild, reckless urge to go to him. Not to talk. Not to argue. But to be there in a way words could never manage.

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