Chapter Three: The Deal

“Say that again,” Luna said. “Slower. Because I want to make sure I heard the Alpha of the Northern Territory correctly.”

Magnus didn’t flinch, didn’t backpedal, didn’t offer her the out she was silently begging for. “I said I want to claim you. Not out of pity. Not to spite my son, though I won’t pretend that won’t be a satisfying side effect.” His jaw ticked. “Because a bond like the one you had with Kane doesn’t happen by accident, and rejecting it doesn’t erase what your wolf is capable of. I’ve watched you patch up half this pack with hands steadier than warriors twice your age. I’ve watched you carry grief that isn’t yours to carry. I don’t offer things lightly, Luna. I’m offering this.”

“This,” Luna repeated. “You mean me. You’re offering to claim me, like I’m a title you’re picking up because your son dropped it.”

Something flickered across Magnus’s face the first crack in his composure since she’d met him at the border three days ago. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“Do I?” She stepped back, putting space between them, needing the air to think clearly. “I just had my mate bond ripped out of my chest in front of the entire pack. Now his father is standing in the woods telling me he wants to claim me instead. Do you understand how that sounds?”

“Like the truth,” Magnus said simply. “Which is usually why it sounds insane.”

Luna pressed her palms against her eyes. Her wolf was doing something traitorous and unhelpful humming, low and warm, every time Magnus’s voice dropped into that gravel register, every time his eyes tracked her like she was something worth tracking.

“I need time,” she finally said.

“You can have it.” Magnus’s voice gentled, just slightly the first softness she’d heard from him. “I’m not going to drag you to an altar tonight, Luna. I’m asking you to stay. Not as my mate. Not yet. As pack. Under my protection. And if, in time, you feel what I think you’re already starting to feel ”

“You don’t know what I’m feeling.”

His eyes dropped, deliberately, to the fast pulse visible at her throat. “I have a fairly good idea.”

Heat crawled up her neck. She hated that he was right.

“Kane will lose his mind,” she said instead, deflecting.

“Kane,” Magnus said, and for the first time, something cold slid into his voice, “made his choice in front of the whole pack. He doesn’t get to unmake it because it’s inconvenient that I noticed what he threw away.”

Luna studied him really studied him, the silver threading through his dark hair, the scar that cut through one eyebrow, the sheer, settled weight of a man who had led a territory through two wars and never once looked like he doubted himself. Kane had been golden and easy and safe.

Magnus looked like a decision she couldn’t take back.

“If I stay,” she said slowly, “it’s on my terms. I’m not a peace offering. I’m not a trophy in whatever this is between you and your son. I stay as pack. Nothing more. Not yet.”

Something that might have been the beginning of a smile touched the corner of Magnus’s mouth. “Understood.”

She turned to walk back toward the territory, and that was when the wind shifted, carrying a new scent through the trees familiar, achingly familiar, laced with fury.

Kane stepped out from the tree line, gold eyes blazing, staring between his father and the woman he’d rejected three days ago like he was looking at a betrayal he hadn’t seen coming.

“Tell me,” Kane said, voice low and shaking, “that I did not just hear what I think I heard.”