RAINE'S POV
The moment I stepped into the room, the world tilted.
Not visibly. Not violently.
But enough.
Enough that the air thickened like smoke in my lungs. Enough that the silence bent like a blade against skin. Every light flickered too bright. Every breath tasted like memory.
I didn't need to look for him.
I felt him.
Felt the static tension snap into my skin before my eyes even landed on the far end of the dining table.
And when they did—
Gods.
Silas.
Draped in black. Darkness itself, incarnate. One arm thrown over the back of his chair like a monarch bored of his crown, the other resting loose, too casual, too dangerous. He sat like the room wasn't worth his presence. Like we weren't.
But those silver eyes?
They said otherwise.
They devoured me.
There was no surprise in his face. No smirk. No reaction at all.
Just pure, motionless awareness.
He hadn't changed.
He'd become.
Sharper. Colder. Beautiful in the way of wolves and war—sublime and violent. His features carved in shadow. His mouth unchanged, still the one that left bruises down my spine with only a breath.
He looked like something I should never touch again.
And yet—
My body remembered before my mind could protest.
My pulse detonated. My knees gave the smallest, traitorous twitch. A throb coiled low in my stomach. Deep. Inescapable. Dangerous.
I held my head high.
Because I had to.
Because I was Luna now.
Because I couldn't let him see what I was really thinking:
What would he do if I touched him first?
Each step I took was deliberate. Every inch of movement choreographed like a blade dance.
One step—
The sound of his breath rasping my name against my neck.
Another—
The slow, merciless stretch of his fingers inside me.
Another—
The lie he told when he said he'd stay.
My heartbeat crashed through me like thunder through mountains. My skin felt too tight. The dress too hot. My body no longer mine.
And still, he watched.
Unmoving.
Unforgiving.
Unholy.
When I reached Damon, I saw Silas's jaw clench—barely.
His knuckles whitened around the glass, and still he didn't flinch.
Restraint.
That was always his curse.
And mine was wanting to break it.
"Apologies for the delay," I murmured. My voice sounded like someone else's—cool, soft, polished. Luna-perfect.
My smile was gentle. My gaze trained on Damon.
Not him. Never him.
Because if I looked again—
I would not sit.
I would run.
To him.
Damon stood, offering his hand, lips brushing my cheek. "You look beautiful," he said, too careful. Too sweet.
I didn't want sweet.
I wanted a hand on my throat.
I wanted to be bent over a table with no words, no mercy, no regret.
But I nodded. Sat. Smiled.
Played Luna like a perfect little doll.
And still—Silas stared.
His presence pressed into me like a hand I couldn't see. A breath I couldn't shake.
He was everywhere. Nowhere. Inside me.
Even now.
Even still.
Some part of me was clenching around the memory of him.
Varya's voice slithered through the silence like a viper. "Oh, how lovely," she said. "The Luna finally honors us with her grace."
Her smile curled like blood in milk. I kept mine tight. Polished.
"I was preparing," I replied, "for the kind of company that stains silk."
She laughed. Her husband joined her. Laughter like gnawed bones.
But I didn't look at them.
Didn't flinch.
Because Silas was still watching.
And I could feel the mark he gave me under my ribs—burning like fire sealed under skin.
I knew his was burning too.
Of course it was.
Even if he didn't touch me. Even if he never said a word.
He was thinking of the same night.
He had to be.
Damon's hand rested near mine. The gentleness made my bones itch.
I didn't want a prince. I didn't want peace.
I wanted violence.
I wanted him.
I wanted teeth.
But I played the part. Because that's what Lunas do.
They don't tremble when old lovers look at them like they want to consume them whole.
They don't fall apart in front of enemies.
They don't ache.
Even when everything inside them is unraveling.
"Didn't she faint during the last full moon ritual?" Varya asked, sipping her wine. "So delicate."
"I didn't faint," I snapped before I could stop myself. "I took in more than the ritual called for. There was backlash."
"Feedback," Damon added, too softly. "A stumble."
"A weakness," Emeric corrected. "One the previous Luna never made."
And just like that, the noose was pulled tight around my throat.
There it was.
Her.
The one I could never be.
The ghost I could never outrun.
I lifted my eyes—slow. Steady. Ice in my veins.
"She may have worn the crown before me," I said. "But at least I don't drink myself stupid while the pack burns."
The silence shattered the air.
But it wasn't the silence that killed me.
It was the voice that followed it.
Low. Measured. Brutal.
"Watch your mouth."
Silas.
Every syllable sliced like a scalpel.
I turned. Slowly. Deliberately.
Looked at him fully for the first time.
He wasn't looking back.
Not directly.
His gaze hovered over my shoulder, like I wasn't worth the full aim of it. Like that would've been too much mercy.
"You don't get to speak about her," he said. "Not you."
His voice didn't rise.
But the danger in it dragged teeth across my spine.
I swallowed. My voice faltered. "Silas, I didn't—"
"You couldn't fill her shadow," he said, "if you drowned in it."
I stopped breathing.
Right then.
Right there.
And I felt something inside me fracture.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to bleed.
He meant it.
And that?
That was the cruelest part.
"""
SILAS'S POV
She walked in like a curse I thought I'd buried.
Like a memory I couldn't kill.
Hair pinned back, neck exposed, hips swaying with that same arrogant grace—she looked every inch the Luna they'd forced her to become.
But I knew the truth.
I knew what was under all that silk and performance.
I knew what she sounded like when she begged.
And F**k—
She was beautiful.
Not soft, not sweet. No, Raine never wore beauty like a crown. She wore it like a blade.
Eyes bright and unrelenting, lips I'd bitten raw, legs I'd once forced open with nothing but a look. Her dress hugged her body like it had been sewn from sin itself, teasing the curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the kind of body that made saints crawl and devils kneel.
And I watched.
I let my eyes drag over every inch of her like I had a right to.
From her mouth, down her throat, to the pulse I used to bite when she came.
I undressed her with my stare—slow, filthy, unforgiving.
Slid that dress from her shoulders in my mind. Peeled it down past her hips. Imagined her bare, trembling, spread across my lap like she used to be.
I pictured her on her knees.
Not because she was weak.
But because she wanted to be.
For me.
Just me.
She held my gaze once then she looked away, acting like she didn't remember.
And that? That was what made it worse.
Because her body remembered.
I saw it in the stutter of her breath. In the way her fingers twitched as she sat. The slight tilt of her head like she was trying not to inhale me.
But I was already inside her.
Already under her skin.
My wolf stirred—violent and vicious, half-feral from starvation.
She's here.
Ours.
And for a second, I forgot how to breathe.
He hadn't spoken in weeks. Not since the war. Not since I lost half my men in a realm, I never thought I'd return from, Not since everything I touched turned to ash.
But the second she walked in?
He came alive.
Because she still wore my mark.
Even if she buried it beneath silk and politics, I could feel it.
Burning.
Just like mine.
Let her pretend.
Let her play Luna.
Let her sit next to Damon with her legs crossed and her throat bared like she wasn't made to be taken.
Like she wasn't meant to be ruined.
By me.
I saw her throat bob as she swallowed.
Saw the heat crawl up her neck.
She thought she was winning this little game of silence.
She had no idea I was seconds from snapping.
Because if I moved—if I touched her—I wouldn't stop.
I'd drag her across that table, rip that dress in half, and fuck her so hard this entire room would smell like us.
But I didn't.
I sat still.
Like a fucking statue.
Because that's what control looks like.
That's what restraint feels like.
It's not calm.
It's a noose.
A cage.
A flame pressed beneath ice.
She opened her mouth. Argued. Snapped back at them all—Varya, Emeric.
Varya kept yapping.
Emeric too.
Comparing her to my mother. Throwing words like weak, fragile, unworthy.
She didn't take it.
She snapped back, all bite and edge. The same fire she used to have when she'd ride me until she couldn't breathe.
I stayed still. Watching.
Until she said it.
Until she opened that pretty little mouth of hers and tried to use my mother as a shield to defend herself.
"She may have worn the crown before me," Raine said. "But at least I'm sober enough to carry it."
And just like that—
I saw red. I-----
Snapped.
"Watch your mouth."
My voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.
But it sliced.
She turned to me, slow. Careful.
Like I was a weapon she didn't know how to hold anymore.
She tried to explain. Tried to soften it.
Too late.
"You don't get to speak about her," I said. "Not you."
She stilled.
The room froze.
Good.
"You couldn't fill her shadow," I said, voice cold enough to burn, "if you drowned in it."
I didn't look at her after that.
Didn't need to.
Because I heard the silence crack open inside her.
Felt her breath hitch like it had been yanked from her lungs.
And that was it.
That was the price of playing Luna.
You want the crown? You carry the weight.
Even when it breaks you.
My hand tightened around the glass. I drank slowly.
My eyes burned, but my face didn't move.
She still wants you, my wolf whispered.
I clenched my jaw.
She's not mine anymore.
Then why do you want to tear that mark off her neck?
Why do you want to make her scream your name again?
Why do you want to ruin her for anyone else?
It wasn't about love.
It wasn't even about hate anymore.
It was about possession.
It was about the ache that lived between us like a second spine—violent, unkillable, sacred.
She could sit beside Damon.
She could wear my father's crest.
She could pretend her body didn't cry out for me every night.
But she would never belong to him.
Because I was the first man to break her.
And deep down, in that place she tried to drown—
She still wanted me to.