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“He’ll shove you back through with a smile and disappear. Again. Is that what you want?”

The room starts fracturing with all the things no one wants to say aloud. That maybe Orin is doing the right thing. That maybe none of us are ready to face what Branwen’s done to the others.That maybe, just maybe, she’salready wonif we let doubt sink its teeth in too deep.

She looks like a fucking war priestess ready to bleed for it.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. The bond throbs like a bruise when I look at her too long. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to be reckless, sure, butcontainable. She was never supposed to feel like this unmovable, unstoppable thing. She’s the fucking moon and the madness it causes, and now she wants to walk into the Hollow like she won’t get torn apart.

“I’ll find another way,” she says, softer now. “I’m not going to just sit here while Orin and Lucien rot.”

“We don’t sit,” Ambrose says, swirling his drink. “We plan. Strategize. Exploit.”

“I don’t exploit the people I love.”

That stops him. Barely.

But I catch the glance. The flicker.

She saidlove.

And no one—not even Ambrose—is immune to that kind of magic.

Ambrose

I knock on her door like it’s not a surrender. Like it’s not a last resort dressed up in calm. But my chest’s a loaded gun and every chime of my phone is the trigger twitching.

She opens the door in shorts that shouldn’t be legal, her hair messy like she just rolled out of someone’s bed—and I hate that my first thought iswhose. Not because I care. Not because it stings. But because the pull is coiled too tight under my skin and it wants herclaimed.Bound.Mine.

And that’s the problem.

I don’t say anything. Just shove the phone at her like it’s infected.

“Make it stop.”

She blinks at me, expression neutral. Not surprised. Not smug. Just watching me unravel.

“What stop?” she asks, already glancing at the screen.

I shut the door behind me. Lock it.

“Keira,” I grind out, quieter now. “She keeps messaging. I’ve tried everything.”

Her lips press together like she’s biting back a smile—or something sharper. “You’ve tried everything? Even the ‘block’ button?”

“Ican’tblock her,” I snap. “She’s Council. It’d start a war.”

Luna doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t mock. Just nods and starts typing, fast, her thumbs flying over the screen with lethal grace. I watchher jaw tighten. Watch her inhale once through her nose. She’s angry on my behalf, and I don’t understand why that makes my chest ache worse.

Then my phone chimes.

Again.

Her hand flies to her mouth like she’s trying not to laugh. She turns the screen toward me.

And I freeze.

It’s Keira. Naked. Legs spread. One hand between them. The caption is worse than the image.

“Don’t forget what this feels like. We both know you still want it.”