Alpha’s Regret After His Pregnant Luna Left novel Chapter 163

(Audrey’s POV)

I knelt in the freezing snow, my body numb from both cold and humiliation. Through the falling snowflakes, I could see Emma Shadowcrest at the upstairs window, her lips moving slowly and deliberately. Though I couldn’t hear her, I could read the words she mouthed with smug satisfaction.

“Defeated you.”

The triumph in her eyes burned hotter than any fire could warm my frozen limbs. Before I could look away, movement caught my attention as Mr. Shadowcrest hurried past, his tall figure a blur of dark clothing against the white landscape.

Within moments, the sounds of chaos erupted from inside the territory house. Objects crashed against walls, voices rose in argument. Even through the closed windows and falling snow, fragments of heated conversation reached me.

“… completely unacceptable behavior…”

“… Audrey Winter…”

“… Arthur Moonstone has already…”

“… pack forum exposures!”

Mr. Shadowcrest’s angry howl cut through the muffled sounds with perfect clarity. “She’s willful and spoiled. Must you join her foolishness? Letting her continue kneeling in the snow, if other packs find out…”

I couldn’t hear Mrs. Shadowcrest’s response, but the argument continued, growing more heated by the second.

Suddenly, the snowflakes stopped falling on me. At first, I thought perhaps the storm had ended, but when I looked up, I saw a large black umbrella hovering above me. Holding it was none other than Florian Stormhowl, his golden eyes unreadable as he stared down at me.

Without a word, without even a change in expression, he extended the umbrella handle toward me.

“Can you hold this?” he asked, his voice devoid of his usual sarcasm.

Before I could even finish my stuttered “Y-yes,” he had already placed the umbrella firmly in my trembling hand. In one fluid motion, he knelt down beside me in the snow and lifted me into his arms.

I was too cold, too stunned to protest. His body radiated warmth, a stark contrast to the ice that seemed to have settled in my bones. With unusually large, quick strides, he began walking away from the Shadowcrest territory house.

Behind us, rapid footsteps crunched in the snow. The Shadowcrest Alpha pair had emerged from their den, following our retreat with evident displeasure.

“Alpha Stormhowl!” Mrs. Shadowcrest called out, her voice sharp with authority. “What are you doing in our territory? You’re supposed to be visiting your pack elder in the Northern territories!”

Florian continued walking, not bothering to slow his pace or turn his head. “Rather than worrying about me,” he replied coldly, “you should think about how to clean up Emma Shadowcrest’s mess.”

“You can’t just take someone from our pack territory without permission!” Mrs. Shadowcrest’s voice rose an octave, indignation mixing with panic. “This is a violation of pack law!”

“I never have the habit of informing anyone before I do anything,” Florian stated simply, his pace never faltering.

We reached his car, parked brazenly at the front entrance of the Shadowcrest territory house. With surprising gentleness, he placed me in the passenger seat. The interior was blissfully warm, the heated leather instantly beginning to thaw my frozen limbs.

As he moved to close the door, Mrs. Shadowcrest’s hand shot out, grabbing the edge with surprising strength.

“Wait,” she demanded, her eyes fixed on me rather than Florian. “I have a question for her.”

The warmth of the car had begun to revive me, my senses returning as blood flowed back into my extremities. I looked at Mrs. Shadowcrest with a new detachment, a clarity born of understanding that nothing I did would ever satisfy this woman.

“I have no interest in answering your questions,” I said simply.

Something had shifted within me as I knelt in that snow. I had realized that no amount of compliance, no degree of yielding would ever be enough. Following my wolf instincts felt right for the first time in years.

My response ignited immediate fury in Mrs. Shadowcrest. Her face contorted with rage as she turned to her mate.

“Listen to her!” she exclaimed, gesturing wildly in my direction. “She’s the one who did it! Is she some kind of good person? To seem so honest, to cut off her mate, to create the healing formula for Emma, only to secretly use such dirty tricks!”

She swung back toward Florian, her finger pointing accusingly between us. “You can’t take her. She needs to answer for what she’s done!”

Without further explanation, he pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to me. “Password is 0822.”

I stared at him in surprise. “That’s… my moon-turning day.”

A mocking smile curved his lips. “It’s also Emma Shadowcrest’s. Convenient, isn’t it?”

Heat flooded my cheeks as I entered the password, feeling foolish for thinking it might have been personal. The pack forum loaded immediately, and what I saw made my jaw drop.

The top trending topics all centered around Emma Shadowcrest and Arthur Moonstone. Video clips, images, and testimonials had been leaked, exposing Emma as a packbreaker who had used underhanded tactics to break up a mate bond. Screenshots detailed how she had forced the original mate-me-to sever her bond, then kidnapped her-again, me-during a mate marking ceremony.

Most shocking was surveillance footage from Territory Security cameras showing Emma orchestrating my kidnapping, the very incident that the Shadowcrest pack had carefully covered up. The comments were overwhelmingly negative, pack members expressing disgust at both Emma’s actions and Arthur’s apparent complicity.

“Who leaked all this?” I whispered, scrolling through comment after comment condemning both Emma and Arthur.

Florian took back his phone, his golden eyes watching me carefully. “Your ex-mate seems quite devoted to you,” he remarked casually, “willing to drag himself down to force the Shadowcrest pack to let you go.”

“Arthur did this?” The idea seemed impossible. The wolf who had abandoned me time and again, who had aimed a silver gun at me, who had announced his mate marking so quickly after our severance-that wolf had destroyed his own reputation to help me?

“There were only two ways to rescue you,” Florian explained, his tone matter-of-fact. “Either take you directly from their territory, as I did, or use external pressure-like pack opinion-to force the Shadowcrest family to release you without harming you.”

I gripped the healing salve jar tightly, my mind whirling with confusion. Neither option made sense for Arthur. Why would he care what happened to me now?

Looking directly at Florian, I asked the question that had been nagging at me since he appeared with that black umbrella.

“What about you? Why did you come to rescue me today? And why are you so patiently explaining all this to me?”

His golden eyes met mine, unreadable as ever.