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None of them wereher, though.

None of them were Luna.

I rub a hand over my mouth, then glance back again—can’t help it. Still no sign of them. Lucien and Luna. Two stars circling each other like they can’t decide whether to crash or combust.

“You think she’ll forgive him?” Silas asks, voice distant.

“She already has,” I say.

Luna changed us. Not in the rage-fueled, tragic, Lucien kind of way. No. Mine’s worse. Mine’s quiet. Mine slips under the ribs when I’m trying to sleep, reminding me that before she walked into our lives like sin dressed in starlight, I thought I wasfine.

I wasn’t.

But I didn’t know that until she started filling in the cracks I’d been pretending were aesthetic. She didn't fix me. That’s the part that gets missed in stories like this. She didn’t stitch me up and make me soft. Shemade me aware—of what was broken. Of what was worth keeping. Of what it meant to be needed in ways that didn’t start or end with a fuck and a lie.

And that’s the real shit, isn’t it?

Because I’m Elias Dain. I’m sharp. I’m too much. I’m charming in a way that makes people regret it afterward. I’ve got an ego that could take out kingdoms if I stopped pretending it was self-deprecating. And now, I’m stuck with this woman lodged in mybloodstream like a goddamn weapon, and I don’t know how tobearound her without making it worse.

I glance over my shoulder.

Lucien’s still not back. Or maybe he is, but I don’t see him, because all I see is her. Luna steps into the edge of the clearing like the storm followed her back. Hair damp, boots muddied, eyes unreadable. Her mouth is neutral. That’s worse than anger. At least when she’s mad, I know where the edges are. This look?

This is the one that makes me stupid.

Silas elbows me as she approaches, muttering, “Don’t.”

I ignore him. “Hey, sunshine.”

She lifts a brow without slowing. “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay. Stormcloud it is. Or Thunder Thighs? I’m workshopping.”

She walks past me like I’m a rock in the road she forgot to kick. I turn and fall into step beside her, pretending I’m not flailing. She doesn’t make it easy. She never has.

“You good?” I ask, tone light. “Or are we all doing the tragic, haunted-walk-in-the-woods bit today?”

She cuts me a look. Just a flick of her gaze. But it lands.

“You’re an idiot,” she says.

I press a hand to my chest. “You wound me.”

“No, Elias. You woundyourself.Every time you open your mouth.”

Silas chokes behind us. I flip him off.

But Luna keeps walking, faster now, and I match her because if I don’t say it now, I won’t.

“I liked who I was,” I blurt.

That stops her.

She turns, slowly, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“I liked who I was,” I repeat. “Before you. I thought I had it figured out. I made people laugh. I kept it light. I got in, got out, no one got hurt.”

“And now?” she asks, arms crossed, jaw tight.