A Warrior Luna's Awakening (Freya and Caelum) novel Chapter 133

Chapter 133

Freya’s POV

+8 Pearls

Caelum just stood there, staring at me and Aurora. His throat worked, as though something heavy and jagged was lodged there, strangling his words.

Aurora’s face flushed with humiliation, her hair plastered against her cheek, seawater dripping down the cheap fabric of her uniform. Yet still, she snapped with that shrill, defensive bite of hers.

“Freya, I saved Caelum’s life. Everyone knows it. You can’t rewrite what happened just because you can’t stand it. You can’t

smear me.”

الاسلام

I laughed, short and sharp, the sound cutting across the hush of the pier. “Smear you? Aurora, you flatter yourself. You’re not worth the effort.”

I dragged her by the wrist back to the shoreline and released her with a violent shove. She hit the sand hard, collapsing in a heap. Sand clung to her wet clothes, to her face, to the once–pristine braid down her back. She looked every bit the pathetic thing she was, sprawled out with the ocean clinging to her skin.

My own clothes were damp from where I had waded in, but no one watching would dare call me disheveled. I carried the sea like a cloak, the storm like a crown, and I let my wolf prowl just beneath the surface.

Aurora scrambled up, her eyes darting frantically to Caelum, clinging to him like a lifeline. “It doesn’t matter what she does. Caelum trusts me! Don’t you?”

Caelum finally blinked, as though waking from a trance. His gaze slid to hers–hesitant, conflicted–and then his jaw tightened. “Yes,” he said. “I trust Aurora.”

The words landed like blades.

He had already chosen her, long ago. The fool in me had just refused to see it.

Aurora exhaled in relief and turned to me, triumphant. “You see? He trusts me. You’ve humiliated yourself, Freya. You’re nothing but a spectacle now, a bitter wolf howling at shadows. And that emerald ring–give it back. Stop behaving like a thief who steals what isn’t hers.”

I tilted my head, letting my voice drop to a blade’s edge. “That ring was bought with shared resources while he was still bound to me. That makes it mine by right. So tell me, Aurora–who is the thief here?”

Her smugness faltered. I took a step closer, my gaze locking with hers. “Hear me well, Bluemoon brat. Any time I see you flaunting jewels bought during my binding with Caelum, I will take them back. One by one. I will strip you bare if I must. Do you understand?”

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Around us, the crowd whispered, eyes narrowing, some already sneering at her. She had no defense, not when the truth gnawed at her heels. Even she knew it.

I turned then, ignoring her, and walked straight to Caelum. My pulse thundered, but my voice came calm, deliberate. “You wanted an end between us, didn’t you? Then where are the rings, Caelum?”

His body stiffened. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his hand opened.

Two rings sat in his palm. Simple, cheap metal bands, bought at some marketplace stall years ago. Our marriage tokens. They looked so small there in his hand–so laughably fragile, so pitifully unworthy of the vows I had given.

I stared at them, and suddenly a bitter laugh broke free.

I laughed at the girl I had once been, the girl who had thought Caelum Grafton was a mate worth bleeding for. I laughed at how blind I’d been, giving him my trust, my loyalty, my everything–only to realize he had never given me his

Without hesitation, I plucked the rings from his hand. My claws itched to pierce the cheap metal, but instead, I walked to the edge of the dock and flung them into the sea.

The bands spun once in the air, caught the light for a heartbeat, then vanished beneath the waves. The tide seized them, pulling them into its dark belly, gone forever.

1/2

11:30 AM P P

I knew Caelum was watching us, watching me leave him behind. And I knew he felt it–the hollow emptiness, the realization that what he had lost was not just two worthless rings.

He had lost me.

–

Later, I changed into dry clothes in the rest chamber. The saltwater still clung faintly to my skin, a reminder of the storm I had unleashed, but I welcomed it.

When I opened the door, Silas was there, leaning against the frame, arms crossed. His wolf–shadow was impossible to ignore -looming, protective, unwavering.

“You…” I blinked at him. “Why are you still here?”

His eyes caught mine, sharp as obsidian. “Waiting,” he said simply. Two syllables, nothing more–but in them was a weight I could not mistake.

Waiting for me.

For a heartbeat, I forgot how to breathe.

Then I pulled my shoulders back. “We’ve wasted enough time. The cornerstone ceremony begins soon–we should go.”

Silas inclined his head in agreement, and together we strode toward the gathering. My wolf stretched within me, no longer shackled by Caelum’s shadow, and for the first time in too long, I felt the stirrings of something fierce.

Freedom.

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