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Silas mutters a soft, “Same,” and follows him inside.

That leaves me with Theo, alone on the patio, the foam still popping at our feet.

“Bold of you,” he murmurs, “to take the fall for me.”

I glance at him. “Don’t mistake it for kindness.”

He smiles.

“Oh, I never do.”

I turn to him fully now, arms crossed over my chest, irritation tightening every word. “Can you juststop?”

Theo’s eyes flicker, curious. “Stop?”

“The smug. The smirking. The cocky commentary every time someone breathes near you. Five minutes. Can you manage five whole minutes without acting like the world’s most punchable riddle?”

He considers me, slow, like I’ve just asked him to rewrite his goddamn DNA. “I could,” he says, drawing out the syllables like sin, “but that might kill me. I’m fragile, you know. Delicate ego. No filter. The usual.”

I exhale hard, trying not to throttle him with my bare hands. “Gods, do youevershut up?”

He leans against the railing, arms folded now, too, mirroring me like it’s a game he just decided to win. “Only when I’m sleeping. Or distracted. Usually by moaning.”

I blink. He grins wider.

“Case in point,” I say, disgusted. “Do you even know how exhausting it is being around you?”

His gaze rakes over me, not lewd, not entirely, but it lingers, like he’s cataloguing the damage and the cracks underneath. “No,” he says simply. “But I imagine it’s somewhere between thrilling and devastating. Depending on the hour.”

“Are you ever serious?” I ask, biting each word out. “Ever just...real?”

Something in his expression shifts. Not gone, not vulnerable exactly, but paused. Like a flicker in a reel.

“I was once,” he says. “Didn’t work out.”

I stare at him. Waiting for the punchline. He doesn’t give one. Not right away.

Then, just as I start to believe I saw something close to human in his too-blue eyes, he smirks again. “Besides, I don’t think you’d like me serious. You’dwantto like it. But then it would get messy. Real always does.”

I grit my teeth, trying to find a reply that doesn’t end in a crime. “Messy doesn’t scare me.”

“Oh, I know,” he says, straightening up. “But losing control does. And darling, I’d make you loseeverything.”

I push past him. Done. Finished. Over it. But his chuckle follows me like a hook in my spine. Smug. Infuriating.

And just the slightest bit broken.

Luna

The rain doesn’t fall, it assaults. A relentless deluge that ricochets off the windshield in waves so thick it might as well be night. The world beyond the glass is little more than smeared light and the vague outline of trees bending under the weight of the storm. My wipers are already fighting for their life, and it’s not helping. If anything, the frantic sweep of rubber against glass just makes it worse. Still, I keep going, creeping forward with my fingers tight on the wheel, every inch of me soaked in the kind of stillness that comes before something breaks wide open.

Not a word I like anymore.

I’ve told them I’m fine several times now. But they keep coming through the bond anyway, overlapping voices and layered concern, like an orchestra of obsession all trying to play the same damn song in different keys.

“Luna.”That’s Lucien, sharp, clipped. Not an order. Not yet. But it’s there, coiled under his voice like a threat waiting for an excuse.

“Pull over. Let one of us come get you.”That’s Orin. Soft. Weighty. Like he’s already ten steps ahead and seeing the outcome I haven’t caught up to yet.