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“Luna does,” I say with conviction.

“I do not,” Luna replies, but she smiles at me when she says it, and my entire soul makes finger guns.

Lucien is ahead, that quiet force of nature who barely acknowledges when he’s in pain, and I hate how noble he looks with the blood soaking through his back. It’s not evenhisblood, it’s probably metaphysical wine or something. Divine ichor. Lucien probablybleeds judgment.

But I’m the one who’s suffering in silence—and that’s way harder.

No one's impressed.

I might have to start limping louder. Just in case.

My stomach growls like an ancient beast being summoned from the pit of hell. Not the sexy kind either—the desperate, gurgling kind that says I’m one skipped meal away from cannibalizing one of my deeply beloved, morally gray brothers. Probably Elias. He’s got the most meat on him and the worst attitude. It’s only fair.

“We had breakfast,” Lucien says without turning around, voice clipped and cold as always, becauseLucien is immune to joy.

“But what about second breakfast?” I whine, dragging my feet like a war victim whose tragedy has goneunrecognized. “You know, the meal of heroes. The food of romantics. The snack of men who gotzero appreciationfor their glitter-shirt conjuring this morning.”

Luna snorts next to me, trying to hide it, which is exactly the same as laughing in my face, which means I win. Again.

“You conjured the glitter shirt foryourself,” she says. “You just happened to leave it for me.”

“Incorrect,” I say, clutching my chest like a wounded bard. “I crafted it formy muse.My reason for existence. My legally bonded soulmate.”

Elias mutters, “Gods, kill me.”

I flip him off lazily. “Jealousy is an ugly color on you, Elias.”

“It’s not jealousy. It’s hunger,” Elias says. “We all are. Shut up.”

“Ah-ha!” I spin on my heel to face Luna, walking backward so I can throw my arms out and bask in the glory of beingright.“We’re all hungry.And yet onlyoneof us has the courage to say it out loud.”

“You said it while groaning like you’d been shot in the gut,” Elias replies.

“Exactly,” I say. “Performance art. It’s what I bring to the team.”

Luna’s eyes flick to me, and there’s that soft heat again—one she doesn’t hide anymore. Her gaze lands on my mouth, and her lips part slightly like she might say something, but instead she just shakes her head and reaches over to flick my shoulder. It’s light. Affectionate. Possessive in a way I don’t think she realizes yet.

I lean in dramatically. “You know what else I’m hungry for?”

Elias groans. “Here it comes.”

“Your love,” I whisper to Luna. “Youreternal devotion.Your maybe slightly inappropriate touches behind the nearest tree.”

“I’ll feed you to the fucking trees,” Lucien growls.

I grin wider. “Worth it.”

But then she does it—she actually reaches over and laces her fingers through mine as we walk. No sarcasm. No teasing. Just...that. That soft little squeeze that sends something blistering straight through my chest and down my spine. All the snark dries up in my mouth. The forest’s shadow doesn’t matter. The hunger doesn’t matter.

“You already have all of that,” she murmurs without looking at me.

And just like that, I forget about second breakfast.

Becausethis—her hand in mine, her voice in my ear, her smile half hidden and fully devastating—is the only feast I’ve ever really needed. Her fingers thread through mine like it means something. Not casual. Not a placeholder for the others. Not because we’re walking toward a cursed ruin with our lungs half full of magic and ash.

Because she wants to hold my hand.

And maybe that shouldn’t unravel me the way it does, but it does. My thumb brushes slow over her knuckles. She doesn’t pull away.