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“But—”
I turn. “Or do you want to explain to Lucien how half the town caught fire?”
They exchange a look, drunk and half-shamed but still laughing, and Ihatehow much I don’t want them to go. How much I want to grab her wrist and pull her out of this chaos and into something quiet. Safe.
But nothing about us is safe.
“I’ll meet you at the western path,” I say, low. Final.
Silas slings an arm around Elias and tugs him backward. “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”
“That’s not a reassuring benchmark.”
They stumble off, giggling, and I finally let my shoulders drop. The silence between Luna and me stretches long and uneven.
“You’re mad,” she says.
I meet her eyes. “You lit a girl’sdresson fire, Luna.”
“She touched his arm.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “That’s not acrime.”
She folds her arms, unrepentant. “Looked like one to me.”
I should yell. I should tell her she can’t just wield magic like a sword whenever she gets jealous. But I don’t. Because gods help me, Ilikedit. The fury. The possessiveness. The power.
She stumbles sideways into me, giggling like this is just another festival, another fucked-up day in paradise. And maybe it is—for them.
Not for me.
I roll my eyes and wrap my arm around her waist, steering her forward before she faceplants into the cracked road. She’s a furnace beside me—all heat and magic and glitter-smudged fury. I canfeelthe echo of her fire under my skin, the way it hums against the edge of my control like a dare. And gods help me, I don’t even try to shove it down.
Across the street, the girl with the scorched hemline is still frozen, too stunned or too stupid to move. Her dress isblackened, ruined. Her pride? Worse. But Luna—oh, Luna isn’t done.
She turns in my hold, stumbling a little as she throws her voice like a dagger. “They’re mine,” she yells, hair catching the last flicker of magic in the air. “All of them.Every last one.”
The girl blanches. The crowd behind her shifts uneasily.
And I—I nearly groan.
Because even drunk, even wild, Luna means it. There’s no hesitation in her voice. No apology. Just ownership and fury and a firestorm dressed like a girl with no gods and too many sins. Her gaze swings up to me like she’s daring me to say otherwise. To leash her. Todenyher.
Yet, she has me—whether I want to admit it or not. Whether I everwill.
“You done?” I mutter, tightening my grip on her waist as I guide her away. “Or do you want to piss on me next to mark your territory?”
She smiles up at me, lazy and smug. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, dragging her faster.
But she leans into me, loose and humming with the remnants of too much wine and too little remorse, and Ifeelit—the bond thrumming between us like a taut thread, like it’s wrapping tighter the more I try to ignore it.
Ahead, the path splits. Lucien and Orin are nowhere in sight anymore. Good. They don’t need to see her like this. Don’t need to seemelike this.
Because I can’t stop thinking about what she said. About how she shouted it like a war cry.They’re mine.
She leans heavier with every step. Not stumbling—melting. Into me. Like her legs are there for decoration and I’m just the furniture she’s decided to drape herself over. Her weight shifts, slumps, and when she starts dragging her boots through the dirt like a drunk toddler, I grunt and scoop her up.