Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 62

POV: Adeline

Freya had been distant for two weeks.

Not cruel—never that. She was too kind for cruelty, even when she had every right to it. But the easy warmth we had shared before the revelation remained shuttered behind careful professionalism. She passed me the bread at meals without meeting my eyes. Answered my questions with words that held no music. Worked beside me in companionable silence that felt nothing like companionship.

Civil. Correct. Cold.

I understood why. She had defended me when others doubted, had vouched for me when Luca whispered his suspicions, had offered me friendship when I had nothing to offer in return. And I had repaid her trust with lies. With omission. With the kind of careful deception that made every shared moment feel retroactively false.

"Understanding isn't the same as forgiving," she had said.

I understood that too.

But understanding didn't make it hurt less. Every time she looked through me instead of at me, every time her smile reached everyone at the table except me, something inside me withered a little more. I had lost so much already—my pack, my mate, the life I had built before Ronan burned it to ash. I couldn't bear to lose this too.

I found her at the river.

She was sitting on the bank with her feet in the water, watching the current carry leaves downstream. The late afternoon light turned her dark braid to bronze and painted gold across the planes of her face. She looked peaceful. She looked like someone I desperately wanted to be allowed to sit beside.

"Freya."

She turned. Her expression smoothed into something polite and unreachable—the mask she had been wearing around me since the revelation.

"Adeline. Is something wrong?"

"Yes." I came closer, stopping at the edge of the bank where the grass gave way to smooth stones. "Something's been wrong for weeks, and I can't—" My voice caught. I forced myself to continue. "I can't lose you too."

The words hung in the air between us.

Freya's expression flickered—surprise, maybe, or the first crack in the wall she had built. But she didn't respond. Just watched me with those careful eyes, waiting.

"You lied to all of us," she said finally.

"I know."

"You let me defend you. Let me tell people they were wrong to doubt you. And the whole time—"

"I know." I sank down onto the stones beside her, not close enough to crowd, but close enough to make clear I wasn't going anywhere. "I was wrong. I was scared."

"Scared of me?"

The question held genuine hurt beneath its surface. I shook my head quickly.

"No. Never of you." I stared at the water, unable to meet her eyes. "I was scared of losing the first real friend I'd had since—"

The words stuck in my throat. Since Ash Hollow. Since everyone I loved became ash and memory. Since I learned that caring about people meant giving the world new ways to destroy you.

My voice broke.

"Since I had anyone at all," I finished, barely above a whisper. "Five packs threw me out, Freya. Five. Every time I started to believe I might belong somewhere, they found a reason to send me away. And when I got here—when you were kind to me, when you joked with me, when you made me feel like maybe I could be a person again instead of just a survivor—" I pressed my hand against my chest, where the old wounds lived. "I couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk telling you the truth and watching your eyes change. Watching you pull away the way everyone else had."

Silence. The river murmured over stones. Somewhere upstream, a bird called to its mate.

"You're an idiot," Freya said.

I looked up, startled.

Her expression had cracked open—not into anger, but into something rawer. Something that looked almost like grief.

"I know," I said.

"You should have told me." Her voice wavered. "I would have helped you. Would have helped you tell the pack, tell Aiden, figure out how to handle it together. Instead you carried it alone and let it blow up in everyone's faces."

"I know."

"Do you? Do you actually understand what you did?" She turned to face me fully, and I saw wetness gleaming in her eyes. "You didn't just lie to protect yourself. You took away my choice. I defended you because I believed in you, and you let me do it while knowing I was defending a lie. That's not friendship, Adeline. That's using someone."

The words landed like blows. I absorbed them without flinching, because she was right. I had used her faith as a shield without ever giving her the information she needed to make an informed choice about where to put it.

"You're right," I said quietly. "I took something from you. Your choice. Your trust. The chance to decide for yourself whether I was worth defending." I met her eyes, letting her see everything—the guilt, the grief, the desperate hope that I hadn't destroyed this beyond repair. "I'm sorry. Not just for lying, but for letting you stand up for me when you didn't have all the facts. That wasn't fair. And I can't undo it. All I can do is promise to never do it again."

Freya stared at me for a long moment. I could see her wrestling with something—the hurt warring with something softer, something that looked almost like forgiveness trying to break through.

"You really are an idiot," she said again.

"I know."

"You should have told me."

"I know."

"I would have helped you."

"I know."

"Stop saying 'I know'!"

The words came out exasperated, almost laughing, and something in the air between us shifted. The wall she had built didn't crumble—not entirely—but I felt it thin. Felt the first cracks spiderwebbing through the ice.

"I'm sorry," I said again. "I'm so sorry, Freya."

She made a sound that was half sigh, half growl.

Then she pulled me into a hug.

It was tight. Fierce. The kind of embrace that left no room for air or argument. Her arms wrapped around me like she was trying to hold me together through sheer force of will, and I clung back with equal desperation—clutching at her like she was a lifeline I hadn't realized I was drowning without.

"Don't lie to me again," she said against my shoulder. Her voice was rough. "I mean it. If you're scared, you tell me. If there's something you're carrying that's too heavy, you share the weight. That's what friends do. Understand?"

"I understand."

"Promise me."

"I promise." The words came out broken. "I won't lie to you again. No matter how scared I am."

She held on for another long moment. Then she pulled back, hands on my shoulders, studying my face with eyes that were red-rimmed but clear.

"Good." She sniffled once, then managed something that was almost her old smile. "Because if you do, I'll make your life miserable. And I'm very creative when I'm angry."

A wet laugh escaped me. "I believe you."

"You should." She released my shoulders and turned back to the river, but this time when she shifted, she made room beside her. An invitation.

I moved closer. Let our shoulders brush.

We sat there together as the sun sank lower, watching the water carry leaves downstream. Neither of us spoke. But the silence felt different now—not cold and careful, but warm and worn, like a favorite blanket that had survived being torn and emerged stronger for the mending.

The friendship wasn't the same.

It couldn't be—not after what I'd done, not after the breach of trust I'd carved between us.

But maybe it didn't need to be the same.

Maybe it could be something better. Something tested by fire and proven real. Something that knew what it was fighting for and chose to fight anyway.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

Freya bumped her shoulder against mine.

"Don't thank me yet. We still have a war to survive."

"I know."

"And you still owe me approximately a thousand conversations you should have had with me months ago."

"I know."

"There you go again." But she was smiling now—really smiling, the way she used to before everything fell apart. "Come on. Dinner's soon, and I refuse to let you eat alone anymore. It's pathetic."

She stood and offered her hand.

I took it and let her pull me to my feet.

For the first time since the spy's revelation, walking back to the dining hall didn't feel like walking into enemy territory.

It felt like coming home.