THE FABULOUS DOCTOR LUNA HE THREW AWAY?

CHAPTER 7

DIMITRI

She knew.

She actually knew.

I watched her face change in the backseat of that car and I saw the exact moment the memory hit her. Her brown eyes went wide, then distant, like she was looking at something far away. Something old. Something buried.

I wanted to push. Every instinct in me screamed to grab her shoulders and demand she tell me everything. Right now. Every detail. Every word her father ever said to her.

But I couldn't do that. Not to her. Not after everything I already took from her.

So I sat there, my hands in fists on my lap, and waited.

Viktor kept driving. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror every few seconds, watching Sera, watching me, reading the tension between us like a book he had already finished.

"Sera," I said again, keeping my voice as gentle as I could manage with my wolf clawing at my insides. "What do you remember?"

She blinked. The faraway look faded and she came back to me, but something was different now. There was a wall behind her eyes. A new one. Fresh. She was shutting me out.

"Not here," she said quietly. "Not in this car. Not right now."

"We have seventy-two hours."

"I'm aware." Her voice was sharp. There she was. The fire. Even when she was terrified, even when her hands were shaking and her feet were bleeding, she still had that bite to her. That edge that cut through everything.

God, I missed her.

No. I didn't get to miss her. I didn't earn that.

We pulled into the compound twenty minutes later. The iron gates opened and closed behind us, and I watched Sera's body go stiff as the familiar walls rose around her. She hadn't been here in two years, but she knew every inch of this place. She used to walk the gardens at night when she couldn't sleep. She used to sit in the kitchen at 3 AM, eating cereal and reading medical journals.

I used to find her there, hair messy, glasses on, looking so beautiful it hurt. I would sit across from her and she would slide the cereal box toward me without looking up.

We don't have that anymore. Because I destroyed it.

Viktor parked the car and got out. He opened Sera's door and offered his hand. She took it, stepping out carefully, wincing when her cut feet touched the gravel.

"I'll get the medical kit," Viktor said, already moving toward the house.

Sera stood in the driveway, arms wrapped around herself, staring up at the compound like it was a ghost. Her lips were pressed together in that thin line I knew too well. She was fighting. Fighting the memories, the feelings, everything this place represented.

"I'll have a room prepared for you," I said, standing beside her but keeping my distance. Always keeping my distance now.

"I don't want a room here," she said without looking at me.

"I know."

"I don't want to be here at all."

"I know that too."

She finally turned to me, and the look in her eyes nearly broke me. It wasn't anger. It wasn't hate. It was exhaustion. Deep, heavy, soul-crushing exhaustion from a woman who had been running for six years and just got told she couldn't run anymore.

"Three days," she said. "I stay for three days. We figure out what the Zanettis want. Then I'm gone. For good. And you don't follow me. You don't find me. You forget I exist."

Every word was a knife. Clean cuts. Precise. She would have made an excellent surgeon even without the degree.

"Agreed," I said, even though my wolf was screaming at me. Even though every cell in my body was rejecting the promise I was making.

She held my eyes for a moment longer, searching for the lie. I kept my face still because if she looked hard enough, she would find it. She would see that I had no intention of letting her disappear again.

Not because I owned her. I didn't. Not because she belonged to me. She didn't. She made that clear when she signed those papers.

But because somewhere out there, Enzo Zanetti was circling. And the woman I failed once was not going to die because of my failures twice.

Viktor came back with the medical kit and a pair of shoes. Sera took them both without a word, sat on the front steps of my compound, my home, our old home, and cleaned her own wounds.

She didn't ask for help. She never did.

I watched her from the doorway, making sure she didn't see me watching. Her hands were steady now, cleaning each cut with careful precision. Doctor's hands. Healer's hands. The same hands that used to trace patterns on my chest when she thought I was sleeping.

"You're staring."

Viktor appeared beside me, his voice low enough that only I could hear.

"I'm observing."

"You're staring." He paused. "She's not going to make this easy for you."

"She shouldn't."

Viktor was quiet for a beat. Then, "The pack knows she's here. Word travels fast."

My stomach tightened. "Who?"

"Everyone. The sentries saw her come in. By morning, the entire pack will know their former Luna is back."

Damn it. That was going to create problems. Questions. Expectations. Half the pack adored Sera. The other half blamed her for leaving. Both halves were going to have opinions and none of them were going to help.

"Keep it contained," I told Viktor. "No one approaches her without my permission."

He nodded and walked away.

I looked back at Sera. She had finished cleaning her feet and was staring out at the compound grounds, her expression unreadable.

Then her phone buzzed.

She looked down at the screen and every drop of color drained from her face. Her hands started shaking again. The phone nearly slipped from her fingers.

"Sera?" I stepped forward. "What is it?"

She turned the phone toward me.

On the screen was a photo. An old house, burned and crumbling. I didn't recognize it.

But Sera did.

Underneath the photo was a message from an unknown number.

"We found the old house, little Kraev. The walls are already talking."