Page 87 of Claiming His Rejected Mate

But Eldon moves.

He drops low, twisting at the last second, and Kieran’s strike barely misses.

Then, a flash.

Eldon throws something.

A smoke bomb!

The battlefield erupts in a thick, choking fog. The smoke is everywhere, burning my lungs, clouding my vision.

When it clears.

Eldon is gone.

Silence falls over the battlefield.

The last of the rogues are either dead or captured.

Moonfang has won.

But Eldon has escaped.

The victory is bittersweet, but when I turn, when I see the warriors standing strong, when I see Kieran’s eyes on me—

I realize something else.

The way the Moonfang warriors are looking at me.

Not with contempt or hesitation.

But with respect.

With acceptance.

I see it in their postures, in the way some of them nod toward me. In the way Kieran looks at me.

I inhale sharply, the reality of it settling deep in my bones.

I am now Moonfang. And they see me not only as a warrior, as one of them, but now as their Luna.

Chapter 27

Hazel

The scent of blood still lingers in the air three days after, thick and metallic. I’m outside for the first time in days as I watch the battlefield breathing in uneasy silence.

The bodies are being cleared, the wounded are being tended to in the healer’s tents, but the weight of war is still fresh, pressing heavy on my shoulders. Victory doesn’t feel like triumph—not when Eldon escaped.

He will return one way or another.

I know it.

And this time, he will come back with more numbers, more savagery. We have to get back to the drawing board.

Thinking of that, Kieran fills my mind. The moment we had on that same table in the war room. And his fury and ruthlessness on the battlefield. The way he always had his eyes on the kill. It sends blood rushing between my legs.

One of the healer’s apprentices changes my wound dressing. Ayana is right next to me, also being tended to. I grit my teeth every time I have to watch Ayana’s wound be dressed. Getting tended to outside isdifferent. It feels like I’m some green goddess recuperating after done Olympian war.