A Warrior Luna's Awakening (Freya and Caelum) novel Chapter 154

Chapter 154

Freya’s POV

+8 Pearls

Even if it meant trading wound for wound, I wanted to hit him again. To drive my fists into Cassian until he understood that not everyone bowed to the Ironclad patriarch.

“You-” Silas’s voice cracked with shock, his dark eyes flashing wide.

Cassian only laughed harder. That laugh–deep, coarse, gleeful in its cruelty–scraped against my nerves like claws against stone. “So eager, little wolf? You want to strike me that badly? Tell me why?”

I bared my teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “No reason. Except you deserve it.”

The amusement in his eyes dimmed to a glower, sharp as broken glass. “For Silas, then? Is that it?”

“So what if it is?” My voice carried, steady, certain.

Cassian leaned closer, menace dripping like venom. “What if I told you that even the Whitmor legal pack cannot shield you from this? Do not forget, girl–Silas may hold the Alpha’s seat now, but I am still his father. His rule is not unshakable. His crown not yet forged in steel.”

Silas’s body stiffened, the air around him sharp as winter air. His voice dropped to a growl. “If you so much as touch her, I will not spare you.”

It was not the kind of threat wolves tossed lightly. I felt the truth of it resonate in my bones: the vow of a wolf ready to set the world aflame, even if it consumed himself.

Cassian’s smile deepened, cruel and assessing. “For this girl? You’d burn everything down? Tell me, son- -she is worth that?”

Silas’s answer was swift, without hesitation. “She’s worth everything.”

For an instant, Cassian stilled, and I thought–gods above–he saw himself reflected in his son. Perhaps in that heartbeat, he glimpsed an old ghost, the man he used to be before the rot.

Then his grin returned, feral and mocking. “Of course you are my son. Hah! But have you thought, Silas? You are my blood, my heir. My fate coils in yours. Whatever path you think you choose, it will spiral back to me. You will become me. And when that happens–no love will save you. That girl will cast you aside like carrion once she sees the beast within.”

Silas’s face tightened, shadows cutting across his expression.

And Cassian did not relent. His words fell like curses, sharp enough to scar flesh. “This woman may care now, but when she learns what you truly are–how dark, how twisted–you think she will still want you? She will recoil in disgust. You are not made for love, Silas. You never were. The moment you let yourself believe otherwise, you stepped into damnation. Your delusion is the sin you carry.”

“Enough!”

I didn’t think–I only moved. My fist still ached from earlier, but my wolf howled for more. I closed the distance in a flash, grabbing Cassian by the front of his jacket and yanking him down to my eye level. The scent of iron and arrogance clung to him, suffocating.

The to himsel

“How dare you?” My voice was raw, cutting. “You’re his father. How can you say such things to him?”

Cassian’s smile thinned, cruel satisfaction radiating from him. “Because I know my own son. Because I birthed him into this curse A child like him is not meant for love.” His gaze slid past me, back to Silas. “You hear me? Even she will leave you, one day. They always leave.”

felt Silas freeze, his entire body locked tight. His father’s voice was a whip, lashing against old wounds that had never truly healed. I could see it–the way those words crawled beneath his skin like maggots, the way he fought not to flinch.

But my anger was greater.

“I will not leave him!” My snarl split the air, feral and ringing. “So you can shut your mouth, old wolf.”

“Freya,” he whispered, voice breaking. “You would… truly love me? You wouldn’t leave?”

I pressed my lips together, hesitation fluttering at the edges. My heart thundered with what I had just shouted. I hadn’t planned it; the words had come like a howl from deep within my chest, too wild to contain.

I should have denied it. Should have softened it into something safer.

But the truth was–I wanted to believe it.

I grew up under Arthur and Myra’s unwavering love, surrounded by warmth, by the certainty of family. I knew what love was supposed to look like. To me, it had always been shield and anchor. And so when I looked at Silas–at a man who had grown under nothing but venom, a son torn apart by a father’s scorn–couldn’t help but rage at the injustice.

How could Cassian call him unworthy, when he had endured so much and still stood, still protected, still cared?

1 saw the tremor in his hands, the fear shadowing his eyes. Not fear of his father. Fear of me.

Fear that I would look at him and see only the monster Cassian painted.

“I won’t leave you,” I said at last, my voice steady, though my heart stammered. “Not for his lies. Not for his curses. You’re not him, Silas. And you never will be.”

His breath caught, his chest rising as though the words had struck harder than

any fist.

For a long moment, silence wrapped around us, thick with wolf–scent and unshed truths. And I prayed silently–to the moon, to fate–that my vow would be enough to drown out Cassian’s poison.