A Warrior Luna's Awakening (Freya and Caelum) novel Chapter 149

Chapter 149

Caelum’s POV

2

+8 Pearls

The applause that followed my presentation rang hollow in my ears. For a moment, I thought I had survived it–the quiver in my voice, the crack in my delivery. The officials clapped, and Director Leo’s words had sounded like salvation.

Then Freya’s voice cut through the air.

Cold. Sharp. Inescapable.

“Caelum Grafton,” she called me by name, not title, not Alpha, but with a blade on her tongue. “I never thought you’d stoop so low–not just clinging to my patent, but stealing the proposal I wrote before I left your Forgeworks.”

The hall went still. The weight of her words crashed over me, drowning the scraps of approval I had just managed to clutch.

My lips pressed tight, but instinct forced me to speak, to salvage what pride I could. “This,” I said, holding up the document in my hand like a shield, “is a SilverTech proposal. Freya, you may have left, but what you created while under my banner belongs to the company.”

Even as I said it, the lie scalded my tongue.

Her laughter was not laughter at all–it was venom. “So that’s what you’ve become. A male who doesn’t even bother with honor anymore.”

Heat clawed up my neck, burning across my face. “Careful,” I snapped, voice shaking though I tried to force steel into it. “If you keep slandering me like this, don’t blame me for discarding every shred of history we shared.”

Her eyes, those storm–born eyes, only mocked me. “History?” she said. “Caelum, you never once gave me loyalty in all those years. If you were capable of honor, would our bond have rotted the way it did? The only one you’ve ever shown care for is Aurora.”

My throat seized. The hall turned, eyes shifting again to Aurora–my fragile shield, my chosen distraction–and she wilted under the weight of their judgment.

Freya pressed on, relentless. “And besides,” she said, lifting her chin, “this proposal? It was unfinished when I left.”

The words pierced through me like a spear.

“Unfinished?” I repeated, stunned. I had studied every line of that document, lived with it for weeks. To me it had been complete–more than complete. The blueprint of our next conquest.

But Freya only nodded, cold and merciless. “Yes. The patent mentioned there–my patent–is three years old. Useful, yes, but outdated. Technology evolves. So too do the claws raised against it. The interference systems now prowling the skies can cripple those drones. Without a countermeasure, without the new layer of anti–disruption protocols I had already begun, your machines are nothing more than iron carcasses waiting to fall.”

I couldn’t breathe.

The applause that had carried me seconds ago withered into silence. My heart pounded in my chest like a drum of doom. I had gambled everything on this–everything.

heart as silver Str yoll

If she spoke truth–and my wolf knew she did–then the very weapon Lhad paraded as Silverfang’s edge was no more than dull steel.

Her voice pressed the weight harder. “Had our bond not broken, I would have finished the work, strengthened the pack’s weapon, sealed its dominance. But you tore us apart, Caelum. You took what was mine, and so now you may choke on it.”

My blood iced. I could feel the eyes upon me–wolves, humans, Alphas, and officials alike. The scent of disbelief rippled through the chamber.

“That’s her work?” someone muttered near the front.

The host gestured, and I realized too late that I was still standing at the podium, frozen, shamed. My legs felt like stone, but I forced them to move, each step dragging as though the eyes of every wolf in the chamber were weights tied around my limbs.

Not just this project. Not just the isle. SilverTech itself could bleed out in the dirt. My rivals would smell weakness, the Consortium would abandon me, the funding chain would snap. From Alpha of the Forgeworks to beggar in the ashes–it would all unravel.

No. I couldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t.

My wolf roared inside me, clawing at my ribs, demanding I fight, demanding I tear the smug triumph from Freya’s throat. But I couldn’t–not here, not before this many eyes.

So I forced my rage down, forced my breathing–steady.

I lifted my gaze and fixed it on her–Freya Thorne, the mate I had cast aside, the female who had just gutted me with truth in front of every pack and every man of power.

Her shoulders squared, her expression unreadable, but I knew her well enough to see it–the glimmer of fire, the satisfaction she took in my fall.

The convocation droned on around us, other voices, other projects. I heard none of it.

Because already, my mind was spinning. Already, I was searching for a way to claw my fortune back from the pit she had

thrown it into.

Tonight, the summit would end with a banquet, with donations and dances before the wolves departed the isle.

And I would find her there.

One way or another, I would not let Freya Thorne be the death of me.

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