Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Meadow woke to the forest.

The scent hit her so suddenly, so vividly, that she startled awake with a soft gasp trapped in her throat. Pine. Earth. Smoke. The unmistakable wild warmth that only meant one thing.

Ethan.

Her heart catapulted into her ribs as her senses sharpened. For a disorienting second, she was certain she was dreaming. Her body was warm. Too warm. A solid heat pressed against her back, steady and alive. The slow, calm rise and fall of breathing that was hot her own.

She lay perfectly still, afraid that if she moved, the moment would shatter.

Then she felt his arm.

Heavy. Secure. Real.

Slowly, afraid, reverent, trembling, she turned her face toward the source of that warmth.

He was there.

Home.

Sleeping.

The sharp lines of his face softened by rest. His eyelashes dark against his skin. His chest bare. Familiar. Untouchable for five

endless days.

For a brief moment, the world stilled.

Time folded in on itself.

Five nights of loneliness. Five days of worry. Five sunsets where she had whispered for his safety into empty air.

All of it collapsed into this one perfect truth,

He had come back to her.

Tears blurred her sight before she could stop them.

She hadn’t realised how tightly she had been holding herself together until that single moment of release. Relief poured through

her so violently it made her chest ache.

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Chapter 71

She did the only thing her overwhelmed heart could think of.

She leaned forward and pressed a gentle, reverent kiss to his bare chest.

It was soft.

Innocent.

Full of everything she could not say.

You’re here.

You’re alive.

You came back to me.

Then panic shot through her.

She had broken the stillness. Touched him. Claimed a moment she had not been invited into. Her breath hitched as she tried to pull away, quietly, carefully, so she wouldn’t wake him.

Too late.

Her startled movement stirred him.

And he felt the kiss.

Before she could escape the bed, his arm came around her waist and pulled her sharply, deliberately, back into him. The sudden possessive warmth made butterflies explode inside her chest, the impact of his body against hers stealing the air from her lungs.

“That isn’t how you welcome your husband,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and amusement as his eyes opened.

The sound of him wrecked her.

Deep. Warm. Alive.

She froze.

Then she smiled.

Not carefully.

Not shyly.

But with her whole heart.

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Chapter 71

The smile that bloomed on his face in response was slow, dawning, touched with surprise and something dangerously tender.

While she had thought him asleep, her body had betrayed her truth, that she cared. That she had missed him. That she wanted him

near.

It touched him deeper than he expected.

For the first time since the accident, since the loss, since the endless stretch of guilt and self-loathing,

Maybe… she would have chosen me after all.

Without warning, he pulled her in and crushed his lips to hers.

The kiss was not gentle.

It was hungry.

Needy.

Five days of restraint snapped like thread in a storm. Meadow gasped into the kiss, her hands gripping his shoulders as she responded without reservation. Their mouths devoured each other like they had been starved, and in a way, they had.

For breath.

For touch.

For confirmation.

When he broke the kiss, he travelled to her neck instead.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Nibbling. Kissing. Breathing her in as though he were memorising her scent into his soul. His hands stayed firm at her waist, anchoring her to him like he feared she might vanish if he loosened his grip.

Then,

His wolf stirred.

Not a whisper.

Not a memory.

A living, answering presence.

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Chapter 71

Sharp.

Warm.

Awake.

Ethan froze.

The world seemed to tilt beneath him.

In seven years, he had not felt Echo like that. Not like this. Not so alive. Not so responsive.

Not answering him.

Answering her.

The shock stole the breath from his lungs.

It stopped him cold.

Then,

“Ethan.”

His mother’s voice sliced into his mind through the link.

He groaned under his breath, frustration flaring violently at the interruption, the fragile miracle of the moment tearing at its edges.

Sensing the shift in him, Meadow pulled back, her lips curved into a breathless smile, her eyes glowing with warmth and arousal.

“We need to get ready for breakfast. You know Luna Amber hates tardiness,” she signed, still visibly affected.

He could smell her desire.

It clung to her skin.

Breakfast was the last thing on his mind.

“What if we skip it altogether?” he said impulsively.

The question slipped from his mouth before discipline could stop it.

She smiled, tempted, but shook her head.

“I want to remain in bed with you, Alpha, but Luna won’t be happy. She asked of you yesterday and was worried,” she signed.

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Chapter 71

The word Alpha struck him differently this time.

A distance.

A wall.

A reminder of power instead of partnership.

“You know you can call me Ethan,” he said quietly.

Her cheeks flushed instantly.

He found the reaction unbearably cute.

Calling him Alpha kept him placed above her.

Calling him Ethan meant standing beside him.

He wanted that more than he was ready to admit.

“Come to bed,” he murmured. “I’ll see my mother later.”

She hesitated only a breath before slipping back into the sheets with him.

Meadow didn’t know what Ethan had in mind.

But she felt the shift.

The openness.

The warmth.

And she hoped, oh, how she hoped, that this tenderness was real.

That he would try with her.

That this wasn’t just a moment.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna