Page 24

She doesn’t stay behind with them.

She walks ahead.

She claims us.

And for the first time in over a century, I realize this isn't about choosing between past and present. It's about the simple, brutal truth I’ve been avoiding since the moment I laid eyes on her.

They leave me behind on purpose. It’s not subtle. Riven lingers longer than necessary, gaze cutting through me like he already knows the excuse I’m forming and wants me to choke on it. Elias glances over his shoulder, mouth twitching like he wants to make some half-assed joke about doomed romance and death wishes but thinks better of it. Even Silas—whose sense of timing is usually comparable to a landslide—gives me a look before nudging Luna toward the rear of the group with an ease that’s too calculated to be accidental.

They want me to talk to her. Which is almost amusing. As if words ever fixed anything between us. As if she hasn’t already forgiven me. And still—forgiven isn’t the same as forgotten.

There’s distance in the way she walks beside me, not avoiding but not inviting either. Her gaze is on the path ahead, not on me. She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t fold in on herself. She holds still like she always does, spine straight, mouth set, the barest flicker of awareness keeping me in her periphery—ready if I speak, prepared if I don’t.

The path narrows, wet stone giving way to a stretch of low, whispering pines. The air smells like old ash and damp lichen. The others are far enough ahead now that their voices have faded to murmurs. There’s no one left but her.

And me.

I clear my throat—not because I need to—but because the words I don’t want to say are already forming behind my teeth, and if I don’t break the silence, I’ll drown in it.

“This thing with Maeve,” I say, voice rougher than I intend, “it wasn’t what you think.”

She doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t even glance at me. “And what do I think, Lucien?”

Her voice is quiet. Not cold. Worse. It's measured. Like she’s weighing how much space to give me before I use it to hurt her again.

“I don’t know,” I admit, because anything else would be a lie. “I don’t know what you think anymore.”

That earns me a glance. Just a flick of those impossible eyes, like she’s surprised I told the truth. Or maybe she expected me to use Dominion on the moment—to force a clean slate into place. Bend her will. Rewrite history.

I exhale slowly, fingers flexing at my side, aching with the want to explain something I can’t name.

“Maeve…” The word tastes strange now. Lighter. Smaller. “She was the last woman I allowed myself to love. And when she died, I told myself that was it. That I’d already given the best of me, and there was nothing left worth offering anyone else.”

Luna doesn’t answer. But she listens. I can feel it in the way she walks. The subtle shift of weight. The tilt of her head that says keep going.

“I thought I’d feel something when I saw her again,” I continue. “Grief. Anger. Longing. But all I felt was—nothing. Like the grief finally died, and I didn’t notice until it was gone.”

She nods once, and I can’t read her expression. She gives me no grace, no condemnation. Just silence. A chance.

“And now you want to know what that means,” she says finally, her voice soft but exact.

I stop walking.

She stops too.

It takes a second before I can speak. Not because I don’t have the words. Because I do. I just don’t know who I am if I say them out loud.

“It means I thought I buried love in Maeve’s grave. And you proved I didn’t.”

Luna’s gaze doesn’t soften. She doesn’t step closer. But something in her quietens. Like her breath catches before she lets it out again, steady and clean. I step forward—not close enough to touch, just enough to feel the heat of her.

“I don’t love you,” I say, because I need the words out first. Sharp. Controlled. Like I’m still in charge of them.

“But you want to,” she replies, not unkind. Not even accusatory. Just… curious.

I clench my jaw. “No. I want to not.”

Her smile—small, sharp, merciless—blooms like a bruise.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

And there it is.

I stare at her, this woman I never meant to want, who dismantles every strategy I build to survive her. I don’t love her. But gods, I’m unraveling around the shape of what it would mean if I did.

And she knows it. She steps past me without another word, the barest brush of her shoulder skimming mine as she goes. It feels deliberate.

Not cruel.

Just powerful.

Just hers.

I don’t move at first. I tell myself I’m letting her go. That I’ve said what I needed to say and anything more would only carve open things I refuse to name. But then—she turns.

Not fully. Just enough.

Her profile catches the dying light in that way that feels rehearsed, like she’s done it a hundred times in a hundred past lives and every time it kills a man a little more.

That mouth—dangerous. Knowing. A curl of it lifts at the corner, not quite a smirk, not sweetness either. Just a silent acknowledgment. She knows.

She knows I’ll follow.

And I do.

Because I’m already hers, and we both know it.

She doesn’t wait for me, but she doesn’t walk fast either. Just enough distance to make me choose every step. And I do. I match her pace through the narrow pass of trees where the roots twist like ribs cracked open to let something in. The world is quiet here, choked in rain-heavy moss and soft earth.

She says nothing. I don’t deserve her words.

Not yet.

But she knows what she’s doing—the way her fingers skim the low-hanging branch, trailing through wet leaves like she’s tasting the shape of the air. The sway of her hips as she steps over a slick root, never looking back, but always aware.

Because want and need, sex and love—they’re useless distinctions when it comes to her. They're bleeding into something else. Something that defies my Dominion, my order, my carefully weaponized restraint. They’re becoming one thing.

Hers.

It’s not obsession. It’s not surrender. It’s more precise than that. A slow, surgical unraveling of everything I’ve used to keep myself untouchable. I used to believe love made men weak. Made them reckless. Vulnerable. Ruled.

But this—this thing between us?

It’s not weakness.

It’s war.

Her voice, when it comes, is soft. Knife-soft. “You always follow when you’re not ready.”

I don’t hesitate. “And you always leave space for me to.”

Her smile deepens, slow and lethal. “Maybe I like watching you struggle with your pride.”

I let the pause stretch between us like pulled thread, almost snapping. “It’s not pride.”

“No?” she asks, finally turning to face me. She stands at an angle, head tilted, arms at her sides like she’s open but not offering. “Then what is it, Lucien?”

I step forward, closing that last inch between us. She doesn’t back away.

“It’s knowing that the moment I touch you,” I murmur, voice dark with truth I didn’t mean to give her, “I won’t be able to stop.”

Her gaze drops, slowly—once. Then returns to mine. Unbothered. Steady.

“Maybe I don’t want you to.”

And there it is. The edge. The cliff. Not a demand. Not a plea. Just an open door.

She steps back—not out of reach, but into the shadow of a crooked tree, where the bark gleams wet and dark and the canopy muffles the last of the light. Her hand lifts to the low branch again. She rests it there, like she’s giving me time to decide if I’ll follow her all the way into the dark.

I do.

Because whatever she’s drawing me into—it doesn’t feel like surrender.

It feels like belonging. And that terrifies me more than any war I’ve ever led.

I close the distance between us in three steps. I count them.

One—for the line I swore I wouldn’t cross.

Two—for the vow I made never to touch her again.

And three—for the part of me that’s already hers and has been, from the beginning.

My hand lifts on the second step, fingers curling behind the base of her neck, and I feel her breath catch beneath my palm like a fuse being lit. Not fear. Not surprise. Just recognition. Her skin is warm, pulse steady against the heel of my hand, and for the first time in what feels like years, I steady myself in her.

Not in memory. Not in control. In this—whatever this is.

Her gaze meets mine just before I lean down, and I catch the flicker of something defiant in it. She knows what this means. That it’s not about softness. It’s not about apology. It’s about surrendering to the thing between us.

My mouth claims hers like I already know the shape of it in memory, like I’ve been waiting years to return to something I never should’ve touched in the first place. Her lips are soft but grounded—Luna doesn’t melt, doesn’t yield. She matches. Her hand finds my hip, anchoring me with nothing but the drag of her fingertips, the heat in her palm, the way she doesn’t push or pull, just stays.

She lets me have the kiss. But she doesn’t give herself away in it.

I deepen it—just a breath, just enough. My other hand slides around her waist, not pulling her closer, but holding her there. Like I need her steady in my arms to keep the rest of the world out.

She makes a sound—low, nearly imperceptible. A shift in breath. A hum in her throat that burns down my spine like a match dragged across bone.

I pull back slowly, deliberately, mouth brushing hers in a final pass that borders on reverent. I don’t let go of her neck. I don’t drop my eyes. She stays where she is, close enough to feel every ounce of what I haven’t said.

Her lashes lower. Her breath stills.

“You really think that’ll fix it?”

I smile, but there’s nothing soft in it. “No. I know it’ll make it worse.”

Her fingers tighten at my hip.

“And you kissed me anyway,” she says, voice low, but not broken. Never broken.

“I always do the wrong thing first,” I murmur, brushing my thumb against her throat like punctuation.

I kiss her again. Harder this time. Less careful. My other hand finds her hip, pulling her against me until there’s no space left to think. No air between the consequences and the want.

And gods—want is the wrong word for this.

This is compulsion. This is inevitability.

The only thing in this cursed realm more dangerous than Dominion is desire. And she has both now.

Not because she demanded them.

But because I gave them to her.

Willingly.

Elias

The path we’re on was probably charming once. Cobblestone, if you squint. Worn smooth from centuries of ghosts making the same fucking mistakes. Now it’s just slick with drizzle and too many memories that aren’t mine anymore, but still dig in like they are.

We all walk like we’re trying not to look like we’re walking. Caspian’s got that quiet, post-battle ache in his spine. Ambrose isn’t saying shit, which always means his head is chewing through the inside of his own skull. Riven looks like he wants to throw Lucien into a ravine, and honestly? Same.

’s out front, posture perfect, gaze fixed, probably reciting some ancient dead language in his head to keep from setting fire to the entire forest. Which I respect. Sage Daddy’s keeping it together.

And then there’s me. Shuffling through puddles with my hands in my pockets and a headache crawling down the back of my neck, trying not to glance behind me where she is.

Because Luna and Lucien are still in the trees. Still talking. Or not. I can’t tell which is worse. The others don’t say anything about it. But we all feel the weight of it dragging behind us like a storm that hasn’t decided who it’s going to drown yet.

I nudge Silas with my elbow. He grunts, barely dodging a slick patch of moss that might’ve dropped his ass directly into a puddle. Missed opportunity.

“Do you ever think we’re in a nightmare sex cult we accidentally started and now we can’t leave?” I mutter, just low enough for him to hear.

Silas glances at me sideways, hair plastered to his forehead, soaked collarbones glinting where his shirt’s open. “Wasn’t accidental. You had a PowerPoint. With transitions.”

I sigh. “Gods, I miss transitions.”

“Same,” he says. Then quieter: “Especially the fade to black.”

For a second, we just walk. The trees lean in closer here, tall and gnarled, the bark pale as bone. Old magic in the roots. Feral magic. The kind that remembers what blood smells like when it’s spilled for love.

Silas finally speaks again, voice lower now, almost thoughtful. “You think they were real?”

I don’t pretend not to know what he means. The girls. The ones who looked at us like they still remembered the worst things we ever said to them. The ones who touched their wrists like they could still feel the bond we broke. Or buried.

“They were real enough,” I say. “Real enough to make Lucien look like someone shoved a mirror down his throat and made him stare at his soul.”

Silas winces. “That’s graphic.”

I shrug. “It’s Hollow shit. Everything here’s got teeth.”

He falls quiet again. Too quiet. Which is how I know he’s actually thinking.

When Silas finally speaks, his voice has that rare, hollow edge to it—the one he only uses when he’s not performing. When he’s just… real.

“I fucked some of them,” he says. “Like, really fucked them. Not the usual chaos and charm. They mattered once. I don’t even remember some of their names, Elias.”

I glance at him. He’s not looking at me. Just at the ground. His fingers twitch at his sides like they want something to hold, but don’t know what it is.

“Yeah,” I say, because what the fuck else do you say to that?

I remember them too. Not names, not details. Just moments. The way some of them laughed. The way one of them used to hum while she stitched her wounds shut. The way another said she didn’t believe in fated bonds, but still cried when hers snapped.

None of them were her, 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 was fine.

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. She made 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 my bloodstream like a goddamn weapon, and I don’t know how to be around 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 wound yourself. 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.

I stare at her.

“Now I hate who I was,” I say, quieter. “Because you filled in all these spaces I didn’t know were fucking missing, and now I can’t remember what it felt like not to need you there.”

Her expression doesn’t soften. But her breath hitches. And gods, I’m already in too deep, so I might as well make it worse.

“I’m full of myself, Luna. Always have been. Cocky. Loud. Hot as hell. But you—you made me feel small. And I liked it.”

There’s a long pause. Too long.

Then she steps in, close enough that I smell whatever storm she walked through to get here. Her voice is low, a thread pulled tight.

“You know you’re not supposed to say things like that to me unless you plan on meaning them tomorrow.”

I grin, crooked. “Babe, I’ll mean it so hard tomorrow I might have to marry you out of spite.”

She rolls her eyes—but the corner of her mouth twitches.

Small victory. I’ll take it.

Then she shoves me, lightly, fingers to my chest. “Go annoy someone else.”

I stumble back a step, mock-wounded, but the warmth in my chest is real.

And I don’t say anything else. I just walk beside her, quiet for once, because this isn’t a moment for jokes. This is a moment for her. And I’d rather stand in silence with her than laugh without her any day.

I don’t mean to say it. That’s the worst part. It just slips out, right there, somewhere between the squelch of wet boots and her hand brushing against mine without looking like it means anything. But gods, it means everything.

And I say it like it’s a joke.

“I love you so much, it’s actually disgusting. Like—objectively. If I were anyone else, I’d be throwing up.”

She doesn’t stop walking, but I see it—the way her shoulders shift, how her hand twitches like she’s deciding whether to smack me or kiss me. Both valid.

I keep going, because I’ve already committed to the bit, and Elias Dain doesn’t walk away from emotional catastrophe. He doubles down until everyone’s embarrassed.

“I didn’t even know you could love someone this much. Honestly, I’m pissed about it. You’ve ruined me. I used to be cool. Untouchable. Women wept when I ghosted them. I had a reputation.”

Luna turns her head slowly, brow raised like she’s preparing the verbal guillotine.

“Had being the key word,” she says dryly.

I clutch my chest, theatrically wounded. “And now look at me. Monogamish. Emotionally fragile. One bad day away from writing you a poem and setting it on fire.”

Her lips twitch. And there it is. That small shift. That almost-smile. The one that means I’m allowed to keep talking, even if I shouldn’t.

But I can’t leave it at the joke. Not this time.

I take a breath, steadying myself with the kind of sincerity I usually only let surface when she’s half asleep, curled against my side, too soft and too real for the world to touch.

“But seriously,” I say, voice lower now, rhythm slower. “After that place—the village—I just... I needed you to know.”

She watches me. Not blinking. Not saving me.

I gesture vaguely at the trail behind us. “All those girls. All that shit. It got in my head. Made me remember how I used to be. And how fucking easy it was to not care. To let people fall in love with versions of me I never planned to keep.”

She doesn’t speak. And that’s worse.

I scrub a hand down my face, letting out a breath like I’m bleeding it. “But you, Luna—gods, you make me want to be the man they all thought I was. You make me hate every part of me that wasted love like it wasn’t worth anything.”

I glance at her again. Her expression’s unreadable, but I see it—the way her fingers flex like she wants to reach for me and isn’t sure I deserve it yet.

“And yeah,” I say, smirking again because I can’t help myself, “I love you. It’s gross. I should probably be exorcised. But I do. I love you like I invented the damn word. So don’t go thinking for a second that any of those ghosts back there ever had a piece of me like this.”

I lean in, dropping my voice to something meant just for her.

“You’re the only one who ever made me want to stay.”

And this time, I don’t crack a joke. Because this time, I mean it too much to make it easier. I don’t look at her right away after I say it.

I can’t.

Because if she’s about to laugh, or say thank you but not like that, or hit me with that soul-eating silence she’s so good at, I don’t want to know yet. I just want to pretend I landed the plane without setting the whole forest on fire.

But then I hear it.

Soft. Too soft.

“Thank you.”

Not sarcastic. Not automatic. Just full of this slow, devastating honesty that slices through me in a way no weapon ever has. I blink, finally turning toward her, and she’s already looking at me.

And then—she says it back.

“I love you, Elias.”

And yeah. It’s not the first time. We’ve said it before—in bed, in battle, in moments between madness where it felt like the only sane thing left. But this one hits different. This one’s not born from heat or adrenaline or some bond-induced spiral.

This is her choosing me. Again. After everything. She steps a little closer, boots squelching in the muck like even the forest is eavesdropping on us.

Her voice is smaller now, but somehow heavier. “Can I have a hug?”

It’s so normal, so heartbreakingly human, it almost knocks me sideways.

A hug.

I nod—just once—and open my arms like I’m not about to die in them. She walks into me without hesitation, pressing her face against my chest, and I wrap around her like she’s the only warmth left in this gods-damned Hollow.

And maybe she is.

My chin rests lightly on top of her head. I breathe her in—rain and something sweet and electric and entirely Luna. Her arms loop around my waist like she was always meant to live there, like I’m more than the reckless, sarcastic disaster she got stuck with.

And I know I should let the moment stay clean. Pure. Gentle.

But I’m Elias Dain.

Which means I can’t have anything nice without ruining it.

So I murmur, low and gravel-dry into her hair, “If this turns into a dry hump, it’s not my fault. You’re the one pressed up against me like you want to make terrible decisions.”

She laughs—real and sharp, half a groan, half amusement—and pulls back just enough to smack my chest with the flat of her palm. I pretend it hurts. I lean into it. She knows I’m grinning before she even looks up.

“You ruin everything,” she mutters.

“You say that like it’s new,” I shoot back, flashing my best grin, the one that usually ends with her throwing something at me or straddling me. Honestly, it’s a toss-up I enjoy both ways. Her fingers don’t leave my shirt. And my hands definitely don’t stop tracing slow circles on her lower back.

It’s just a hug. But it’s not. It’s a moment. A reset. A fuck-you to every ghost that tried to pull us apart in that village.

And if my thigh is currently nudging between hers?

Well. I’m only human.

Sort of.

She shifts first. Subtle. Just enough to make her point. Her hand presses lightly against my chest, and her hips twist like she’s ready to step out of the hug and get back to whatever nightmare path we’re supposed to be trudging through today.

“Move your leg,” she mutters, barely looking up. Her voice is all edge and threat—but underneath, I catch it. That soft little flush of heat in her tone.

I grin, slow and unrepentant. “Can’t. I’ve suffered a tragic thigh injury. You’d have to carry me.”

She snorts. “I’ll leave you here.”

“I’d haunt you.”

She pulls back a fraction, just enough to glare up at me, and gods, I love when she does that—when she’s not afraid to challenge me, to push back, to give me the sharpness I crave right before she softens.

“I’m serious, Elias.”

“Unfortunately,” I say, tilting my head, “so is my erection.”

That earns me a sharp slap to the shoulder. Not hard. More like punctuation.

I lean in a little closer, not letting her go, arms still firm around her waist like I’m anchoring both of us in this. The truth is, I don’t want the moment to end. Not because it’s perfect—it's not. It's messy. Cringey. Probably going to lead to at least one emotionally complicated conversation we’ll both pretend didn’t happen. But it's real. And real is rare around here.

She presses her hand harder against my chest, trying again.

I don’t budge.

Instead, I lean down, mouth close to her ear, and say it without flinching.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I felt something this good and didn’t immediately fuck it up?”

That stops her. Her fingers curl against my shirt. Not pulling. Just... staying. I pull back enough to see her eyes—stormy and guarded, but not leaving me. Never leaving me.

“So,” I murmur, voice quieter now, a little rougher, “no. I'm not moving. Not yet.”

She exhales like she’s annoyed, but she doesn’t try again. She just stands there, wrapped in my arms like maybe—just maybe—this is the only place she doesn’t have to be anything but herself.

And me?

I’m fine being the idiot who holds her like that’s enough. Because sometimes love isn’t a grand declaration. Sometimes it’s just not letting go.