True Blood Luna

Chapter 10

Elena’s POV

The night air clung to me like silk and smoke.

We’d stepped out from the stifling ballroom, where whispers followed me like hounds on a scent, into the quiet darkness of the balcony garden. The stars spilled themselves recklessly above, while the torches lining the marble balustrade sputtered against the breeze.

I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding my breath until now. It spilled out in a rush, ragged, uneven.

Kade leaned casually against the carved stone, his black jacket shifting in the wind, eyes fixed not on the night sky but on me. Always me.

“You really don’t know how to stay out of trouble,” he said finally, his voice cutting clean through the silence.

I crossed my arms, more defensive than I wanted to appear. “And you really don’t know how to mind your business.”

A flicker of a smile curved at his mouth. “Maybe your business is my business.”

Ava stirred, restless. Danger, she whispered, though her voice trembled with something else—something dangerously close to hunger.

I turned away from him, my hands gripping the railing until the cold bit through my skin. “I don’t need another shadow breathing down my neck. Damien did enough of that.”

The name hung between us like smoke.

His smirk faltered. “Ah. So we’re saying his name again.”

I spun, glaring. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Kade said, straightening, stepping forward with that deliberate grace that made the space between us vanish, “that every time you spit his name, your voice cracks. Like part of you still hasn’t decided if you hate him… or if you’re just pretending to.”

I stiffened. My claws threatened to pierce skin from the inside out. Ava snarled in my head, ready to strike, ready to bite.

“I don’t pretend,” I said coldly. “Not anymore.”

His eyes gleamed. “Good. Because I don’t, either.”

The silence that followed was heavier than any music inside. The tension stretched, taut, dangerous.

Kade’s presence was fire and gravity all at once, pulling me closer even as every rational bone screamed to step back.

“You don’t know me,” I whispered, though my voice betrayed me, laced with an ache I hadn’t expected. “You don’t know what I’ve lost, what I’ve—”

“I know enough,” he interrupted softly.

And then, lower, his gaze sharpening until I thought it might burn me alive:

“I know you don’t belong to him anymore. That much is written all over you.”

The words slammed into me.

Belong.

Did I ever belong to Damien? Or had I simply been shackled by the bond, by tradition, by the cruel illusion of forever?

My throat tightened, but I forced the mask back on. “Careful, Kade. You’re making dangerous assumptions.”

He chuckled—low, dark, unsettlingly amused. “I don’t make assumptions, Elena. I make promises.”

I hated the way that word rippled through me. Hated how Ava went utterly still, as if waiting.

The door behind us creaked suddenly, spilling golden light and noise from the ballroom. My body reacted before my mind did—heart racing, spine stiffening.

Damien.

He stepped into the night, the air shifting instantly under the weight of his presence. His amber eyes locked on mine, ignoring Kade entirely, and for one impossible second the world tilted back into the axis I’d once known.

“Elena,” he said, my name breaking from his lips like a prayer and a curse entwined.

My chest constricted.

Not again. Not this.

But the storm in his gaze wasn’t possession this time—it was regret. A regret so raw I nearly forgot to breathe.

Kade, of course, broke the silence with a predator’s grin. “Well. Look who finally decided to join us.”

Damien’s jaw ticked. His eyes—those eyes that once promised me forever—shifted to Kade with a fire that could scorch. “Step away from her.”

I lifted my chin. “You don’t get to tell me who stands near me anymore.”

That silenced him more than any blade could.

For a moment, I thought he might crumble. That maybe his fists were the only thing holding him together. His scent carried on the wind, sharp and familiar—pine, musk, the memories I wanted to bury clawing their way up again.

“I just…” Damien’s voice broke, softer than I’d ever heard it. “I needed to see you. To tell you—”

“Don’t.” My voice cracked like a whip.

I couldn’t let him finish. I couldn’t afford the knife of hope sliding back under my ribs.

But Ava… Ava whined. He is still ours.

“No,” I growled aloud, gripping the railing so hard it splintered beneath my hand. Both men froze, watching me unravel in the shadows. “You don’t get to take pieces of me anymore, Damien. Not when you gave them away.”

Silence fell. Thick. Devastating.

Kade’s gaze flicked between us, calculating, as if piecing together a puzzle only he understood. He moved closer—not to me this time, but simply to stand in Damien’s line of sight, a wall, a warning.

“Seems like she’s made herself clear,” Kade said lazily, though his eyes gleamed with victory.

Damien’s lips parted, but no sound came. He only stared at me—broken, burning, silent—before finally turning back toward the door.

I thought he’d leave. Gods, I prayed he’d leave.

But instead, he whispered, almost too soft to hear:

“You’ll always be mine, Elena. Even if you don’t admit it.”

And then he was gone.

The echo of his words tangled around my chest like chains, heavy, suffocating.

Kade stepped closer again, his voice low, edged with something unreadable. “You know he’s not wrong.”

I whipped my head to him, fury and despair clashing in my veins. “And you think you are?”

He tilted his head, studying me like prey and queen all at once.

“No. I know I am.”