A Warrior Luna's Awakening (Freya and Caelum) novel Chapter 116

Chapter 116

Caelum’s POV

Aurora and I returned to the hotel suite.

Finished

Since leaving the banquet hall, I hadn’t said a word. Silence clung to me like a second skin, and with every step I took, my chest grew heavier.

Aurora noticed. Of course she did. Her voice broke the air, sharp with a note of frustration.

“Caelum, Freya Thorne is outrageous. Barely divorced, and already flaunting herself beside Silas Whitmor. Jocelyn told me she’s been clinging to him ever since she set foot in Ashbourne. And these past few days–they’ve been inseparable, as if she’s desperate for the entire realm to know she has ties with the Ironclad Coalition.”

Her words hit me, though not in the way she expected.

I bowed my head, staring at the floor, letting her tirade wash over me. My chest burned, but I kept my tongue still.

“Caelum?” Aurora’s voice rose, impatient now.

I startled. “Ah? What… what did you say?”

She bit her lip. Her pale blue eyes narrowed on me. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been distant ever since the banquet /ended. You’re not even listening.”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m just… tired.”

But even as I spoke, the words rang hollow. The truth pressed against the back of my throat, threatening to claw its way out.

Her next question landed like a blade.

“You’re thinking about Freya, aren’t you?”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Aurora pressed on, relentless. “Of course you are. You shared three years of a bond with her, even if it ended in the Lunar Severance Phase. I just never thought she’d fall into another Alpha’s arms so quickly. I honestly believed she cared about you -at least a little. When I returned, I didn’t want to intrude on your marriage. But clearly, I was wrong about her. She’s shameless.”

As she spoke, Aurora lifted her hands, cupping my face gently, forcing me to look into her eyes. “Caelum, if it were me… if I truly loved someone, I would never stray. My heart would belong to him alone. For life.”

Her gaze softened, and her eyelids fluttered closed. Slowly, deliberately, she leaned closer, her lips parting, drifting toward

mine.

My body tensed. A wolf’s instinct surged inside me, warning and urging in equal measure. I knew what she was offering. If I accepted–if I let the kiss happen–our fates would be sealed. It would be the unspoken promise that we belonged to one another, that I was finally ready to let Freya go.

And once, before the bond… before Freya became my Luna, perhaps I would have kissed Aurora without hesitation. She had been a figure from my youth, a dream I never dared to claim. Back then, her attention would have felt like a gift from the Moon Goddess herself.

But now…

Now her face blurred, and all I could see in my mind was Freya. Her eyes–storm–gray, unflinching even when the world turned its back on her. Her voice, low and steady when she challenged me in the council chamber. Her scent, the one my wolf still recognized as home, even after the bond was severed.

My chest ached.

I turned away. “It’s late, Aurora. You should rest.”

Her eyes flew open, shock flashing like lightning. “What?”

If I hadn’t agreed to the severance…

If I had fought harder….

Would it be me standing at her side tonight? Would it be me she leaned on instead of Silas Whitmor?

The thought burned. I shook my head violently, as if I could scatter it into ashes.

“No,” I muttered under my breath. “I can’t think like that. I can’t regret.”

Aurora had saved my life once. I owed her more than gratitude. She deserved loyalty, devotion, recompense for what she had risked. She was the one I should give my heart to now, not Freya–the woman who had left me.

Yes. That was what I needed to remember.

Still, even as I whispered the words, a hollow ache lingered in my chest.

The truth I didn’t want to admit whispered back to me, a voice I couldn’t silence:

Caelum, you are lying to yourself.

I clenched my fists.

“Freya, I don’t regret,” I said aloud, the words spilling into the quiet of the room, meant for no ears but my own.

But even as I spoke them, my wolf stirred uneasily within me.

Because deep down, I knew it wasn’t true.