The Reluctant Luna Contract

Amanda

“You cannot be serious.” My grandmother’s voice is as brittle as the dead leaves clinging to the branches outside our window. She slams an iron pot onto the hearth, the clang echoing the tremor in my own bones. “To give yourself to that… that brute.”

“I am saving us, Nana,” I say, my own voice a low and steady thing I do not recognize. I will not let it shake. “Look outside. The blight has crossed the river. The pups are coughing from the dust in the air. We have nothing left to trade.”

“There are always other ways.” She turns from the fire, her eyes, usually so full of warmth, are two chips of flint. “We are Silverwood. We endure.”

“We are dying,” I counter, the words tasting like ash. “Little Maris can barely keep food down. Your own joints ache from the damp rot in the wood of our walls. I have tried every remedy. Every poultice from every root I know. The earth itself is sick, and I cannot heal it.” I take a breath, holding her fierce gaze. “He can.”

“Alpha Thorn of Blackmoon is a beast,” she spits the name. “Cold. Cruel. They say he has a heart of stone. That he has not smiled since his first mate was killed. What kind of life will that be for you?”

“It is not about my life,” I say, walking to her and taking her work-worn hands in mine. They are trembling. “It is about all of ours. Their offer of grain, lumber, and healers… Nana, it is a king’s ransom. And I am the price.”

Her fight seems to drain out of her all at once, leaving behind the stooped shoulders of an old woman who has seen too many winters. She pulls one hand free and cups my cheek. “My clever girl. Always thinking. Always fixing. Your mother was the same.” A single tear escapes and traces a path through the flour on her cheek. “She would not have wanted this for you.”

“She would have wanted our people to live.” The finality of it hangs between us in the small, smoky room. This is it. The last argument. The last morning in the only home I have ever known. There is nothing left to say.

She helps me pack. Not my few simple dresses, but small, important things. A pouch of dried silverleaf for fevers. A sachet of crushed lavender from our garden to help with sleep. A small, smooth river stone I’ve had since I was a child. Each item is a piece of home, a tangible weight against the hollow fear in my chest. When she presses a tiny, hand-carved wooden wolf into my palm, her voice is a whisper. “So you do not forget who you are.”

I clutch it tight. “I won’t.”

I say my goodbyes at the edge of our territory. My father, our Alpha, pulls me into a stiff, formal hug that betrays none of the sorrow I know he feels. The others offer quiet words, their eyes full of a painful mix of gratitude and pity. They see me as a sacrifice. A lamb being led to a much stronger wolf. Maybe they are right.

Two guards from Blackmoon escort me. They do not speak. The journey is a blur of unfamiliar trees and darkening skies. The air changes as we cross the border into their lands. It grows colder, heavier. The trees here are ancient and enormous, their branches blotting out the sun, creating a world of deep green shadows. Silverwood feels a thousand miles away, a dream of dying sunlight.

The Blackmoon packhouse is not a home. It is a fortress. Hewn from dark stone and timber, it rises from the earth like a fist, imposing and utterly without welcome. I am led inside, not to the great hall, but to a small antechamber. And then I am left to wait.

Minutes stretch into an hour. The silence is a pressure against my ears. No one comes. No one offers me water or a kind word. The message is clear. I am cargo. A delivery to be processed. Just as the humiliation begins to burn, the heavy oak door swings open.

He is larger than I imagined. Broader in the shoulder, taller by a head than any man in my pack. Alpha Thorn does not walk into the room; he consumes it. His presence is a physical force, a drop in temperature, a tightening in my throat. His hair is as black as a moonless night, and his eyes are the color of a winter storm. He stops several feet away, his gaze sweeping over me once, dismissive and cold.

“You are the one from Silverwood,” he states. It is not a question. His voice is deep, a low rumble that seems to vibrate through the stone floor.

I lift my chin, refusing to be cowed. My grandmother’s parting gift feels warm in my clenched fist. “My name is Amanda.” I pause, the next words catching in my throat. “I am your intended.”

A muscle feathers in his jaw. For a moment, I see something flash in his eyes. Something raw and dangerous before it is locked away again behind a mask of ice. He takes a step closer, and I fight the instinct to step back.

“Let us be clear,” he says, his voice devoid of any warmth. “This is a treaty. A political arrangement to keep your pathetic pack from starving. You will have comfortable quarters. You will want for nothing material. But you are not my mate.”

I stare at him, the word ‘pathetic’ ringing in my ears. My entire world, my home, my family, dismissed in a single, cruel word.

“You will not share my bed,” he continues, his voice dropping even lower, each word a carefully placed stone building a wall between us. “You will not have my mark. And you will not expect anything more from me. Do you understand?”

I cannot find my voice. I can only nod, a tiny, jerky movement. All my courage, all my resolve, shatters into a million pieces. This is my cage. And the beast has just locked the door.

He gives me one last, unreadable look. “Good.”

Then he turns and walks away, leaving me alone in the heart of his fortress, the profound, chilling weight of my promise settling over me like a shroud.