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Romantic?

Dominant?

I’m notromantic. I’m not evengoodat this.

But her fingers twitch where they rest against the stone, and I swear I feel it in my chest.

And then I say the first thing that doesn’t taste like a mistake.

“You distracted me.”

Her head tilts slightly, but she doesn’t look back yet. “From what?”

“Everything.”

Now she turns. Slowly. Eyes meeting mine like she knew I’d say it, like she was ready for something honest and didn’t expect it fromme. Her mouth curves—not a smile. Something sharper. Something more dangerous.

I step closer. Just enough to see the flecks of starlight in her irises, to feel the heat radiating off her skin.

“I should be looking for my crest,” I murmur. “I should be marking the path.”

“You should,” she agrees, soft and even.

I nod once. “But I can’t stop watching you.”

She stares at me a beat too long.

And the moment stretches.

Not soft.

Not sweet.

Just a live wire stretched between two storms. If I touched her now, I’d burn. And I’d let it consume me.

Luna

Lucien is acting weird. And not in the usual glacial, cold stare, power-thrumming-from-his-skin kind of way. No. He’s sweating. Lucien Virelius, the embodiment of polished ruthlessness, looks like he’s about to pass out. He keeps wiping his palms down the sides of his slacks like a nobleman who just realized he’s at a party without his pants. His posture is too stiff—even for him—and I swear his eyes keep flicking to my mouth like it might say something that could kill him.

Which is rich coming from the man who commands armies with a word.

Gods. He’stryingto flirt, isn’t he? No. No, that’s not possible. This is Lucien. He doesn’t flirt. He wounds. He destroys. He calculates outcomes three moves ahead and makes you grateful for your own demise.

But right now? He looks like he’s on the edge of saying something soft.

Or worse—earnest.

And I’m... flustered. Dammit. Not because I’m surprised. I’ve felt the shift. The weight of his gaze these past few days hasn’t been the same as it was in the Hollow’s early hours, when he still hated himself more than he hated me. He’s been watching like he’s searching for something he lost and can’t decide whether he wants it back.

But now he’sclose, and I’m not ready for the way it makes my skin buzz.

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to feel.

I fuck with him.

I arch a brow, letting the pillar go, and turn to face him fully, folding my arms slowly—deliberate, like I’m weighing something important. I let my eyes sweep over him. Hair immaculate as always, jaw clenched to the point of snapping, every inch of him fighting for composure that’s already long gone.

I lean in just enough to watch him flinch.