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The girl I had the worst sex of my life with—the girl who cried and fell off a cliff and somehow turned that thirty-second mistake into a lifelong obsession—just showed up, alive, looking at me like she wants to finish what we started.

And I am absolutely, irrevocably fucked.

It happens in slow motion. I know it’s Elias fucking with time, because it feels stretched, warped, like the world isrubberbanding around me. The festival noise dulls to a low hum, the villagers blurring at the edges of my vision.

And there she is.

Luna.

Stepping straight through the crowd like a blade, slicing past drunk merchants and musicians, her gaze locked not on me—but on her.

On Taliah.

My worst nightmare, playing out in real-time. It’s almost funny. Almost. Like some cosmic joke where your new girl spots your creepy, unhinged ex across a festival and decides she wants to chat.

Except Taliah was never my ex. If thirty seconds of catastrophic, awkward virginity-losing counts as an ex, then sure, fine, maybe. But I barely remember her face, and now she’s standing there like a black hole ready to suck me back in.

I watch, unable to move, as Luna stops in front of her, expression unreadable. They exchange a few words—Taliah smiling like she’s already won, like she’s been waiting for this—and I can’t hear what they’re saying, because Elias is still fucking with time, making this moment crawl like molasses. And when Luna nods, turns, and starts walking toward me, my stomach falls straight through the cobblestones.

Elias, traitorous bastard that he is, takes one look at me, smirks like the devil, and slips into the crowd, vanishing like he wants absolutely nothing to do with whatever’s about to happen.

Coward.

Luna stops in front of me, arms folded, chin tipped up like she’s already decided I’m guilty of something. I open my mouth—no idea what I’m about to say—but she lifts a hand, silencing me before I can get a word out.

“You should really remember to close the bond,” she says sweetly, “if you want to keep secrets from me.”

I groan, dragging a hand down my face. “Luna—”

She cuts me off again, holding out her palm between us like she’s demanding tribute. “Gold.”

I blink. “What?”

“Gold,” she repeats, voice too sweet, too sharp. “Your creepy ex wants payment for her death.”

I stare at her.

Then glance past her, back at Taliah, who’s still standing in the square like she’s waiting for a bouquet and an apology.

“You’re joking.”

Her fingers wiggle. “Pay up, lover boy.”

I grumble under my breath, digging into my coat pockets, coming up with a fistful of gold coins I forgot I had. I slap one into her hand.

She lifts a brow.

Another coin.

Nothing.

A third.

Still nothing.

I sigh dramatically, digging deeper, pulling out more—stacking them one by one into her palm until she’s cradling a ridiculous little tower of glimmering coins like the goddess of bad decisions.

“There,” I mutter. “Blood money. Happy?”