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Elias throws his hands up in mock surrender, lounging deeper into the couch like a king in exile. “What did I do? I didn’t make her fun, Lucien. That was all her.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I cut in sweetly, tilting my head just enough to seem innocent. “Is fun a problem now?”
Lucien turns his glacial gaze on me, but it doesn’t hit like it used to. There’s no bite left in his Dominion when I’m this far gone into the madness that is Elias and Silas. I’m chaos-wrapped in sarcasm and unapologetic smirks, and Lucien doesn’t know what to do with that.
“Your behavior is erratic,” he says coolly. “You're becoming more like them.”
“Erratic,” I echo, rolling the word on my tongue like a luxury. “Or just finally done walking on eggshells for men who treat me like I’m one wrong word away from shattering your fragile little hierarchy.”
Silas snorts from his corner, where he’s using shadow to make a snake eat Elias’s shadow-puppet dick. Elias notices and immediately retaliates by giving the snake boobs.
“Lucien’s just mad he can’t shadow-puppet his way out of this one,” Silas says, grinning. “Sorry, boss. Want me to make you a crown so you still feel in charge?”
Orin’s quiet sigh slices through the chaos like a whisper of sense. He sits in his usual chair, fingers steepled, eyes distant, watching everything, saying nothing. But I feel the flicker of his power like a pulse under my skin. He’s tracking us all, cataloging what’s happening, what’s changing. I wonder if he sees me fracturing or becoming something whole for the first time.
“I think it’s beautiful,” Orin murmurs, and the room stills like it’s been slapped silent.
Lucien’s jaw flexes. “You think this is beautiful?”
“She’s adjusting,” Orin replies, tone calm but absolute. “The bond shifts her, just as it shifted Silas, Riven, and Elias. You can’t strip magic from gods and expect them to stay the same.”
“I’m not a god,” I say, softer than I mean to. But the truth of it thuds in my chest.
“No,” Orin agrees, gaze flicking to me with something ancient behind it. “You’re something stranger.”
Elias tilts his head toward me, mock whispering, “You should say that to more girls. It’s weirdly hot.”
I throw a pillow at his face.
He catches it with a smirk and zero dignity. “Lucien, tell her to stop abusing me.”
Lucien looks like he’s reconsidering every life choice that brought him here. “You’re exhausting.”
“You’re exhausting,” Elias fires back immediately.
“I’ll kill you.”
“Get in line.”
Silas leans over to whisper loudly to me, “I hope they fuck it out. The sexual repression between those two could fuel a Rift.”
“I’m going to murder him,” Lucien mutters.
And honestly, so am I.
But for now, I sit back, fold my arms across my chest, and feel it. The shift. The balance is tilting. The old Luna would’ve stayed quiet, tried to defuse them all.
But this Luna?
This Luna is starting to understand that chaos has its gravity.
And maybe she was meant to be its sun.
I don’t mean to do it. Truly. One second, I’m watching Silas try to make a shadow puppet of a duck riding a horse, the next… I feel the hum. That bond, the new one, Elias, it sparks in my chest like a live wire. Unconscious. Hungry.
And I pull.
Not on purpose. Not with intention. It’s instinctive. Like reaching for a door handle and yanking the whole damn building down instead.