Yours in SecretAn Alpha & Luna Romance

The first thing Selene noticed wasn’t him. It was the silence. Not complete silence no, the ballroom was still alive with music, laughter, and the soft clinking of crystal but something had shifted. Conversations faltered. Laughter thinned. The air itself seemed to tighten, like the moment before lightning split the sky. Selene stilled, her fingers curling instinctively around the stem of her champagne glass. “You’re imagining things,” she murmured under her breath. She always did that when she was nervous quiet little reassurances, as if her voice could stitch her composure back together. Her thumb brushed against her bracelet, tracing the tiny charms. Courage. Love. Luck. “Any of you planning to work tonight?” she whispered dryly. The bracelet, of course, didn’t answer. The chandeliers above shimmered, casting fractured light across the sea of silk gowns and tailored suits. This wasn’t her world. It never had been. People here wore power like perfume subtle, expensive, suffocating. Selene adjusted her dress, smoothing invisible creases. Her reflection in the mirrored wall looked composed. Elegant. A lie. Because beneath the fitted fabric, beneath the steady rise and fall of her breathing. There was something else. A secret she had no intention of letting this room devour. Her chest tightened. “Just get through the night,” she muttered softly. “Then you can disappear again.” But fate, it seemed, had a cruel sense of timing. Because that was when the doors opened. The shift was immediate this time. Tangible. Like prey sensing a predator. Selene didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. Her body already knew. A memory surged heat, breath, a voice in the dark, hands that had held her like something fragile and claimed her like something inevitable. Her pulse spiked. No. Not here. Not him. Slowly too slowly,she lifted her gaze. And there he was. Damian. Standing at the entrance as if the world had been designed to frame him. Tall. Impossibly so. His presence cut through the room with effortless authority, every line of his body sharp beneath the tailored black suit. Dark hair fell slightly over his forehead, deliberately undone in a way that made it worse more dangerous. More real. More him. Selene’s breath caught. It had been months. Months since that night she had buried so deep it sometimes felt like a dream she’d invented to punish herself. And yet There was nothing dreamlike about the way his eyes found hers. Immediately. Unerringly. Like he had never stopped looking. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs. “Don’t panic,” she whispered under her breath, though her voice betrayed her. “He doesn’t know. He can’t know.” But something in his expression shifted. Recognition. Then something darker. His jaw tightened slightly, and even from across the room, she noticed the small movement of his hand,his fingers brushing against his cufflink, adjusting it with precise control. A tell. She remembered that. He did it when he was holding something in. Emotion. Anger. Thought. Selene’s stomach dropped. He was already moving. No hesitation. No distraction. Straight toward her. The crowd parted instinctively, as if they understood that stepping into his path was a mistake. Selene forced herself to breathe. In. Out. Steady. “You’ve handled worse,” she whispered. “You survived him once.” Her grip tightened around her glass until her knuckles whitened. But that was a lie. She hadn’t survived him. Not really. Because if she had She wouldn’t still feel like this. Like the ground beneath her was about to give way. Damian stopped in front of her. Too close. Far too close. The scent of him was dark, clean, dangerously familiar wrapped around her instantly, dragging memories she had no control over to the surface. Selene swallowed. “Alpha Damian,” she said, her voice calm, controlled and practiced. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” His gaze didn’t soften. If anything, it sharpened. “Selene.” Her name on his lips felt like a blade drawn slowly across skin. Measured. Deliberate. Dangerous. For a moment, neither of them moved. Didn’t speak. The world around them faded into something distant and irrelevant. His eyes swept over her slow, assessing, lingering just a second too long. Something unreadable flickered in his expression. Suspicion. Recognition. Or worse Memory. “You disappeared,” he said finally, his voice low. Not loud. Not angry. But controlled in a way that felt far more dangerous. Selene’s fingers tightened around her bracelet again, the metal pressing into her skin. “I relocated,” she replied smoothly. “Opportunities.” A lie, wrapped neatly in truth. His gaze didn’t leave her face. “Without a word.” Her pulse quickened. “You didn’t ask me to stay.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. A mistake. A flicker of something passed through his eyes sharp, sudden, gone too quickly to name. But she saw it. And that was worse. Because it meant he remembered too. Selene forced a small smile, turning slightly as if to leave. “I’m sure you didn’t come here to revisit the past, Alpha. If you’ll excuse me” His hand closed around her wrist. Firm. Unyielding. Electric. The contact sent a shock through her body, and for a terrifying second, she thought He knows. He has to know. Her breath hitched. “Running again?” Damian murmured. His thumb shifted slightly against her skin, dangerously close to the bracelet. Dangerously close to the truth. Selene forced herself to meet his gaze. “I’m not running,” she said evenly. “I’m simply not interested in repeating mistakes.” His jaw tightened. “And I am?” The question wasn’t loud. But it cut deeper than it should have. Selene’s heart pounded, her mind racing. Stay calm. Stay controlled. Don’t let him see. But Damian wasn’t looking at her face anymore. His gaze had dropped. To her body. Lingering. Calculating. A slow, dangerous realization crept into his expression. Selene’s blood ran cold. No. No, no She stepped back instinctively, trying to pull her wrist free, but his grip tightened just enough to stop her. Not painful. But absolute. His eyes lifted back to hers. Dark. Focused. Unrelenting. “You’ve changed,” he said quietly. Her throat went dry. “So have you.” A beat of silence. Heavy. Charged. Then he leaned closer. Close enough that no one else could hear. Close enough that she could feel his breath against her ear. And when he spoke His voice was a promise. A threat. A certainty she couldn’t escape. “You’re hiding something from me…” he murmured. Selene’s heart stopped. “…and I will find out what it is.”