The Alpha King's Contracted Luna (Ava and Grayson)

-Ava's POV-

1 froze.

For a second, I forgot how to breathe, how to think, how to do anything but stare. My heart thundered so violently it hurt, my pulse pounding in my ears like war drums.

And then-when I finally moved, when I blinked-

He was gone,

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A fresh wave of grief slammed into me, knocking the breath from my lungs, crushing me beneath its unbearable weight. My entire body shuddered as the hope that had briefly flared within me was torn away, leaving nothing but an aching, gaping void. The wind howled, rattling the trees, kicking up loose leaves and dust, but I barely registered it.

Because he wasn't there.

Because it had only been my mind playing cruel tricks on me, dangling the impossible in front of me before yanking it

away.

A choked sob tore from my throat, raw and broken. I collapsed forward, my forehead pressing against the cold, damp earth as tears poured freely down my cheeks. I cried until my voice was hoarse, until my lungs burned, until there was nothing left inside me but emptiness.noveldrama

Until the world blurred.

Until everything faded into nothingness.

Until I was just an empty, shattered thing kneeling in the dirt, holding onto a love that no longer existed.

I didn't know how much time passed. Minutes. Hours. Maybe longer. The sky had darkened, the last remnants of daylight bleeding into the horizon like a dying ember.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, I felt someone sit beside me.

At

first, I didn't react. I was too exhausted, too hollow, too consumed by the weight of my grief to care who it was. But then, with every ounce of strength I could muster,

I turned my head-just enough to glance at the figure beside me.

It

was Raina.

My grandmother sat there, her back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap, her silver hair catching the dim light. She wasn't looking at me. Her gaze was fixed on the tombstone, her expression unreadable. She didn't speak, didn't reach for me, didn't offer any empty words of comfort.

She just sat there, silent.

And so, I looked away.

The two of us sat in that silence for what felt like forever, both lost in our own thoughts, our own pain.

Then, finally, she broke the silence.

"Death is a tedious thing, isn't it?”

Her voice was quiet, almost contemplative, like she wasn't speaking to me but

rather to the universe itself.

I didn't have the uength to speak, and even if i did, i didi kwen **

What could i say!

That i wasn't fair!

That I wanted to scream at the sky and demand to know why Grayson was taken from me? Why die had the sy

That I would trade anything, everything, to have him back

None of it mattered. None of it would change the reality of the ect, torty, gin front of me

So, I said nothing

Another silence settled between us, thick and suffocating, wrapping, woed meenutade ute. Torn, Ken syke again, her voice barely louder than the whisper of the wind

"If you could take it all back," she murmured, her words dow, carted. " you could wwwynything that waynth for we the loss, the pain and know that this exact moment was waiting for good mood you have cars sex toonzekerer's Would you have chosen not to love him, knowing that he would di

A shudder ran through me, and I sucked in a shaky breath. My fingers day, who the cold dirt beneda me, denching to tightly that my nails bit into my palins,

"How do you expect me to answer that?" My voice came out hoarse, raw with put, "How could I not have loved him? How could I not still love him?"

Raina sighed a sound that held too much weight, too much understanding, "Loving, tám does not make his death my less

real."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it didn't help. The tightness in my chest only grew, upecang until it felt impossible to breathe,

"You will carry this pain," She continued, her voice Meady, certain. "But pain is not proof of weakness. It is proof of love. And love, no matter how brief, is never wasted"

Her words should have meant something, Maybe, one day, they would. Maybe, years from now, I would look back and find

comfort in them.

But right now, they meant nothing

Because none of this would ever be okay.

I wasn't strong enough to move forward,

And I wasn't strong enough to focus on the fact that the realm no longer had a king, That Damien was still out there, waiting in the shadows, biding his time. That

it was only a matter of time before he struck again.

I should have cared. About the realm. About the crown. About all the people

focusing on the fact that I carried his heir.

But I didn't.

I didn't care about any of it

I parted my lips, ready to tell Raina to leave-to beg her for just one moment of solitude-when a sharp, searing pain exploded in my chest. It felt familiar. The kind

that I hadn't been able to understand where it came from

11:02 Wed, 5 Mar

I gasped, trying to breath but the breath never came.

Then I started coughing, and the sharp, metallic taste of copper flooded my mouth. Another cough tore from my throat, harder this time, and then-blood. Dark, crimson streaks spilled onto Grayson's grave.

My stomach twisted violently, nausea rising as something deep inside me- something old, something, terrible-stirred.

And then, all at once, it hit me.

White-hot pain. Burning. Tearing.

Spreading like venom through my veins, like fire licking at my bones, like something inside me was breaking apart.

A strangled scream ripped from my throat, I doubled over, my nails raking against

the dirt as my body convulsed, every nerve igniting with unbearable heat.

Raina's voice cut through the haze, sharp with panic, "Ava!"

I barely heard her.

I barely heard anything over the deafening roar of whatever was inside me-

whatever was clawing its way out.

The pain reached a breaking point and then it exploded.

A blast of energy shot from my body, a force so violent that the earth trembled beneath us. The graveyard quaked, cracks splitting through the ground like the world itself was coming undone.

I gasped, my body seizing, my breath stolen by the sheer force of whatever was happening to me. My limbs locked, my skin burned, my head pounded with something ancient, something raw and just as suddenly as it started, my body started shaking.

Violent. Out of control. Unstoppable.

I barely had time to draw another breath before the pain surged again, hotter this time, sharper, dragging me under like a tidal wave.

Then, with one final, agonized scream-

The pain stopped.

So sudden. So absolute. Like a flame snuffed out in an instant. Silence fell, thick

and unnatural. The world had gone still.

Too still.

My breath came in ragged gasps, my chest rising and falling unevenly. My fingers

twitched against the earth-or at least, I thought they did.

Because I couldn't feel the dirt anymore.

I couldn't feel anything.

A cold dread slithered through me.

"Raina?" My voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.

Nothing.

11:02 Wed, 5 Mar MO

A sharp pang of uncase shot through my chest. I tried again, stronger this time.

"Raina"

Still nothing. I turned my head, searching for her, searching for anything-but then,

I heard it.

A voice.

My voice, "I might have actually missed you."

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My breath caught in my throat. Slowly-too slowly-I turned my head and I saw her.

The other version of me, standing there, smiling.

I opened my mouth-to tell her that I wasn't in the mood for this, to tell her to go away, to tell her to allow me wake up because I was hurting so much right now but she spoke first and her smile... changed.

It softened, dimmed, something almost sad flickering behind her eyes, "Come on,"

She said quietly. "We have one last adventure to go on together."

I blinked, my heart pounding, "What?"

She tilted her head, watching me like she was waiting for me to understand

something I couldn't quite grasp.

"The curse," she murmured. "It's lasted long enough, don't you think?"

I didn't get a chance to answer before she spoke again, “We're going to get

Grayson and we're going to break this damned curse."

She took a step closer, her eyes burning with something electric, something final,

"Then you two are going to end this. Once and for all.”