Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 103

POV: Adeline

Luca’s injuries were healing slowly, which would have been fine if he’d respected the idea of healing as anything more than an irritating delay between battles. Unfortunately, he treated the deep gash along his side and the cracked rib beneath it as minor inconveniences, the kind of thing one could ignore by sheer force of will.

By the second day of him limping onto the training field as if nothing had happened, I’d had enough.

I found him near the far edge of the clearing, attempting to demonstrate a defensive maneuver to a younger warrior while obviously favoring his left leg. He moved with that familiar controlled precision, jaw tight, not a single complaint leaving his mouth; the only signs of strain were the slight hitch in his breath and the stiffness around his eyes that anyone else might have missed.

“Luca,” I called, crossing the field.

He ignored me for exactly three heartbeats, finishing his instruction before turning to face me with that flat, unimpressed look he wore like armor.

“Luna,” he said, dipping his head in a half-bow that managed to be both respectful and vaguely mocking. “Shouldn’t you be resting? You’ve been collecting the whole pack’s emotional baggage for days.”

“And you’ve been dragging your half-healed carcass across this field for two,” I replied. I stepped directly into his path as he tried to walk past me. “Sit down before I make you.”

One of the younger wolves nearby coughed into his fist to hide a laugh. Luca’s eyes narrowed just a fraction.

“You couldn’t make me,” he said, tone mild, which was exactly how he sounded right before a fight got serious.

I folded my arms, tilting my head. “Want to test that?”

For a second, something like reluctant amusement flickered in his gaze, gone almost before it appeared. He glanced down at my stance, then at the spot where I’d placed myself between him and the rest of the field.

“Is this how it’s going to be now?” he asked. “You ordering me to sit like a disobedient pup?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because you are currently acting like one.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. For a moment, I thought he might keep pushing, might walk around me just to prove he could, even if it meant aggravating his injuries and collapsing later where no one could see. Then he let out a low, annoyed sound that might have been a growl and dropped down onto the nearest bench with more force than strictly necessary.

He sat. Grumbling. But he sat.

I moved to stand in front of him, crossing my arms again as if to keep from putting my hands on my hips like Freya would have. “You’re not impressing anyone by pretending you’re fine,” I said. “We all saw you take that hit. Elara said you’d need at least a week without training if you wanted full strength back without complications.”

“Elara worries,” Luca muttered. “It’s her job.”

“And it’s your job to make sure you still have a body that functions when the next crisis hits,” I countered. “You saved lives out there. Including mine. You don’t get to fall apart quietly afterward just because you don’t know what to do when you’re the one who needs help.”

His gaze flicked up sharply at that, something harder and more complicated in it than his usual tactical calculation. He looked, for a moment, like I’d struck something he’d kept carefully shielded.

“I’m fine,” he said, but the words lacked their usual solidity.

“You’re not,” I said, gentler now. “And that’s allowed. Let someone take care of you for once.”

He stared at me, as if trying to decide whether this was some kind of trap. “I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted finally, voice low, grudging.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why we’re practicing. Step one: sit. You’ve done very well with that so far.”

A reluctant huff of air escaped him—too sharp to be a laugh, too amused to be a sigh.

Before I could press further, Freya appeared at the edge of my peripheral vision, balancing a tray with two bowls and a loaf of bread, her steps deliberately casual. Her dark braid swayed as she walked, and her expression was the particular brand of innocent that meant she was up to something.

“Well, well,” she said, setting the tray down on the bench beside Luca. “Look at this. Our very own Beta, voluntarily sitting. Someone alert the elders; miracles are happening.”

Luca’s face did something complicated—one part annoyance, one part embarrassment, and something softer that he smothered almost instantly.

“I’m only sitting because your Luna threatened me,” he said.

Freya snorted. “And yet you’re still sitting. Fascinating. Eat.” She nudged one of the bowls closer to him, then glanced at me. “You too, before you go back to pretending you don’t need actual food to function.”

“I never said—”

She raised a brow.

I took the other bowl.

Luca eyed the food like it might bite him. “I don’t need—”

Freya cut him off with a look that could have silenced rowdier wolves than him. “You bled all over the field for us,” she said, her voice losing some of its teasing edge. “Let us put soup in you. It’s not that complicated.”

He held her gaze for a heartbeat, then looked away first, picking up the bowl with a resigned exhale. His fingers brushed hers briefly as he did, and for the first time in a long time, I saw Luca look genuinely unsettled—like someone had moved a piece in a game he thought he was winning.

“Fine,” he muttered. “One day. Then I’m back to work.”

“Deal,” I said before Freya could turn it into something else.

Freya smiled, just a little too pleased. “We’ll see,” she murmured under her breath, but not so quietly that I missed it.

I sat beside them, bowl warm between my hands, watching as Luca took his first, reluctant sip. The line of his shoulders eased a fraction. The field around us buzzed with the sound of other wolves training, the distant rhythm of hammers against wood, the heartbeat of a pack recovering.

For the first time since the battle, I saw Luca not just as Aiden’s sharp, uncompromising shadow, but as someone who had carried as much as anyone else and had no idea how to set it down without being told.

We would help him learn.

One day of rest. Then another. Quietly, stubbornly, together.