Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

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Ethan kept looking at her with open admiration, and the look made her heart beat differently. It was one thing to be wanted by him. One

thing to be loved by him in the bedroom or held carefully in the quiet of the cabin. It was another thing entirely to be looked at with

respect. With pride. That reached her in a place she did not know was still so hungry.

m

“Were you trained at the academy?” he asked how ”

r hands.

She nodded faintly and lifted her

“Partial combat classes. The usual drill before we graduate.”

Ethan stared at her for a beat.

That was all?

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No specialised training. No warrior path. No intensive programme. Just the standard combat classes every graduate passed through? His

shock deepened rather than eased. He had seen wolves trained for battle do less with more. He had watched fully built warriors hesitate

longer, strike sloppier, take more punishment before finding the throat. What Meadow had done out there was not ordinary. It was

efficient. Instinctive. Brutal in a way that felt native, not learned.

“How did you learn to move that fast?” he asked.

She had no answer for him.

How could she? Meadow herself did not fully understand it. She knew she had always been different in small ways. Her leap was higher

than it should have been. Her jaws were stronger. Her hits landed harder. Her speed was not normal. But she had spent years hiding that.

Deliberately slowing herself down during practice at the academy so no one would look too closely. So no one would ask questions. So no

one would find a new reason to focus on the mute girl and her strange wolf. She had made herself average on purpose. Smaller on

purpose. Forgettable on purpose.

Nightshade had not cared about any of that in the clearing.

Nightshade only saw Ethan under threat.

Ethan kept studying her, thinking harder now. If she had that kind of potential, then why was she never chosen for the warrior

programme? Whitewood was not stupid when it came to recognising useful wolves, Or at least it should not have been.

“Why didn’t they choose you for the warrior programme?” he asked.

Meadow smiled at him then, and there was something sad in it. Not self-pity. Not bitterness sharp enough to cut. Just the tiredness of someone asked a question whose answer had been obvious to everyone around her for years.

“A mute wolf would be useless in battle.”

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12:02 Wed, Jun 17

Chapter 123

The sentence broke his heart.

She signed it simply. Matter-of-factly. As if she had repeated that truth to herself enough times it no longer needed dressing up. That

made it worse. Ethan felt something twist hard inside him. There it was again. Another place where the world had looked at her and

decided limitation before possibility. Another place where they reduced her to what she could not do and ignored everything she clearly

could.

He hated it.

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He hated how easily people did that. How comfortable they were with dismissing someone once the label was fixed in place.

“So, what did they sign you up for?” he asked softly.

He already knew every wolf was usually guided toward a task, a field, a place in the pack they could grow into after graduation if they

chose to pursue it. Meadow looked at him and signed with a calmness that made the answer hurt more than if she had looked wounded.

“Nothing. No one wanted me in their field. I tried to sign up as a chef, but no one would take me under their wing. I guess

communication is key in everything, and I am limited in that area.”

Ethan sat there looking at her, and the truth of her life settled into him in a different way than it ever had before. He had known she

suffered because of her condition. He had seen the broad shape of it. But broad shapes were not the same as details. Hearing it like this

made it real in a way that stung. She had been pushed out of everything. Not only battle. Not only leadership. Not only social life. Even

ordinary paths. Even something as simple as wanting to be a chef. There had always been a wall waiting for her.

He reached up and touched her cheek.

His thumb moved over her skin gently.

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“Thank you for saving my life out there, Meadow. You are not useless. You are the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. Do

not let those hurtful comments take away your shine.”

The words melted something in her at once. Meadow leaned into his hand without meaning to. She wanted to hold onto every part of

what he just said because she had gone too many years hearing the opposite in one form or another. Useless. Burden. Inconvenient.

Limited. Too much trouble to carry. Hearing Ethan speak to her like she was light rather than weight made her chest ache in a good way.

Then his expression shifted slightly, more earnest,

“Promise me you will put some effort into your therapy.”

Meadow nodded immediately.

She wanted that too. Truly. She wanted a solution if there was one. Wanted to know if her voice could ever be reached. Wanted clarity.

Maybe even freedom. There were still parts of her own mind that felt foggy to her, Strange blank places around memories that should

have edges but didn’t. Fragments. Feelings. Faces. Sometimes she thought she was close to something. Then it slipped.

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Chapter 123

The brown wolf’s face in her dream had not slipped,

That stayed.

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Both the human face and the wolf form had tormented her all her life in that half-dream, half-memory way she could never explain. It

followed her like a shadow she could feel but not fully name. She hoped one day she would remember everything. Clearly. Fully. And when that day came, she hoped she would be strong enough to tell Ethan all of it.

For now, she gave him the promise with her nod.

Then, because she wanted him to know something important too, she lifted her hands again.

“I enjoyed the fight.”

Ethan blinked at that.

There was no shame in the way she signed it. No pretending otherwise. Meadow wanted him to know how it felt. There had been fear, yes,

but there had also been something else. Something almost exhilarating. Satisfying. Nightshade did not regret what she did, and neither

did Meadow.

She kept signing.

“Nightshade wanted to remain outside with you and your wolf.”

That made Ethan frown slightly.

His claws had come out. He had marked her with his scent in the woods. Echo had stirred hard enough for both of them to feel it. But his

wolf still had not truly surfaced. Not fully. Not enough. Ethan narrowed his eyes a little as he looked at her.

“You felt Echo?”

He sounded shocked.

Meadow nodded.

“We felt him faintly, and his forest scent filled our senses, I think Nightshade likes him.”

That softened him immediately, More than he wanted to show.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna