Chapter 162
[ 1,000 words ]
Emilia’s POV
That night, Sebastian didn’t come home. I waited up until my eyes burned from staring at my phone, watching the minutes tick past midnight. When I finally tried calling, it went straight to voicemail. Again. And again.
Not until late-night did my phone buzz with a text: Drank too much. Crashed at Fynn’s place.
“Oh,” I typed back. One word. Two letters. That was all I could manage.
I wasn’t going to pick a fight over text. I wasn’t going to fire off a string of questions like some clingy mate who couldn’t trust her Alpha for one night.
I tossed my phone onto the nightstand and stared at the ceiling until the room filled with gray morning light.
When I dragged myself downstairs, Mila was already in the dining room. She glanced up from her tea and smiled. “Emilia, dear. Are you free today?”
I blinked, still half-asleep. “Uh… yeah. I don’t have anything planned. Why?”
“Perfect. Come with me to the Sacred Grove. It’s been far too long since I visited the Moon Goddess’s shrine.”
The Sacred Grove. Every pack had one. A piece of ancestral land where the veil between the mortal world and the divine was supposed to be thinnest. Ours was tucked deep in the mountains on the edge of Silver Moon territory, where the trees grew so thick that sunlight barely touched the ground.
I nodded. “Sure. I’d love to.”
The truth was, I just needed to get out of the house before my own guilt smothered me.
The drive up the mountain was quiet. Mila sat beside me in the back of the car, her hands folded in her lap, her face calm. But I could feel the tension coming off her.
When we finally got there, the Sacred Grove opened up in front of us like a dream. Massive stone pillars carved with old wolf symbols stood in a circle around a central altar, where a statue of the Moon Goddess looked down with eyes that seemed to follow your every move. The air was thick with pine and wildflowers, and somewhere in the distance, bells hung from the trees chimed low and steady.
Mila walked up to the altar with practiced ease and pulled an offering from her bag. Silver coins, fresh herbs, and a small vial of sacred oil. She knelt before the statue, her lips moving in silent prayer.
I stood back, feeling like I didn’t belong. This place was sacred. Holy. And I was… well, I was a fraud.
Mila’s voice was soft but firm. “Thank you, Moon Goddess, for blessing me with such a wonderful daughter-in-law. She saved my son. She saved our family. I swear to you, I will protect her and honor her as long as I live.”
My throat tightened. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve her faith, her kindness, her love.
Mila turned to look at me. “Emilia, you’ll stay with us forever, won’t you?”
“Yes,” I said right away.
“You won’t let him get hurt, will you?”
I hesitated.
“…Yes,” I whispered.
“Good.” Mila stood and gestured to the altar. “Then kneel down and swear it. Before the Moon Goddess. Swear that you will never leave my son, and that you will never let him come to harm.”
My stomach dropped. “Mila, I…”
“Please, Emilia.”
Her voice cracked, just slightly, and that was all it took. I dropped to my knees on the cold stone, my hands shaking as I pressed them over my heart.
“I swear,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I swear before the Moon Goddess that I will never leave Sebastian. I will never let him be harmed. I will protect him with everything I have.”
The words felt like chains around my ribs, pulling tighter with every breath.
Mila nodded, satisfied. “Good.”
We walked through the garden outside the shrine in silence. Mila moved ahead of me, her steps slow, while I trailed behind her like a prisoner on the way to the gallows.
Finally, she stopped and turned to face me. Her face was calm, but her eyes were hard. “You’ve sworn before the Moon Goddess now. I hope you understand what that means. Whatever your reasons were for marrying my son, whatever secrets you’re hiding, you will never leave him. You will never hurt him.”
It hit me like a slap. “Mila…”
“I know, Emilia.” Her voice was gentle, but there was steel under it. “I know you had your reasons. And I forgive you. I do. But you need to understand something. My son has already been broken once. I watched him suffer for three years, and I will not… cannot… watch it happen again.”
Tears blurred my vision. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted…”
“I don’t need your apologies,” Mila cut in. “I need your promise. Promise me you will never tell him the truth.”
I stared at her, my chest heaving. “You… you want me to keep lying to him?”
“Yes.” Her voice didn’t waver. “Because if he finds out, it will destroy him. Do you understand? It will destroy him.”
“But I can’t…”
“You can. And you will.” Mila stepped forward and gripped my shoulders, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “I know my son better than anyone. If he learns what you did, he’ll lose the last bit of faith he has left. He’ll shut down. He’ll stop believing in love, in people, in everything. And I can’t… I can’t watch that happen again.”
Her voice broke, and suddenly she wasn’t the calm, elegant Luna anymore. She was just a mother, terrified of losing her child.
I broke too.
I threw my arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.”
She held me tight, her own tears soaking into my hair. “You don’t fix it, Emilia. You live with it. You carry it. And you make sure he never, ever finds out.”
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