The Black Luna

3

Joye's POV

Three days passed before Jason summoned me again, and when he did, it wasn't through the head servant or a scrawled note. He came to the kitchens himself, which sent the entire room into a silence so complete I heard the fire crackling in the hearth like it was suddenly the loudest thing in the world.

"Joye." He said my name carefully, like he was testing whether it would cause a problem just by existing in his mouth. "My chambers need cleaning again. Tonight."

Every servant in that kitchen turned to look at me. I felt my face heat, but I kept my voice level.

"Yes, Alpha."

He left without another word, and the second the door shut behind him, Rue leaned over with her eyebrows halfway up her forehead.

"He came down here. Himself. For laundry."

"It's not what it looks like."

"I didn't say it looked like anything." She smirked. "I just said it's interesting that the Alpha of Rivermoon walked all the way down to the kitchens instead of sending literally anyone else to fetch you."

I didn't have an answer for that, because I didn't have an answer for any of it — not for why my pulse had picked up the second he said my name, not for why some traitorous part of me had spent three days replaying the sight of him standing frozen at the edge of the training yard, staring toward my window like he couldn't help it.

I told myself it meant nothing. I told myself that a lot, lately.

🖤

That evening, I climbed the tower stairs again, linens in hand, more aware this time of every step, every breath. The full moon was two nights out — I could feel it in the air, a kind of electric hum that seemed to settle under my skin the closer it got, even though I'd never once shifted, never once felt my wolf stir enough to notice lunar pull before.

I knocked. He opened the door himself this time, which caught me off guard enough that I nearly dropped the linens.

"You don't have a servant to answer your door?"

"I sent him away." Jason stepped back to let me in. "I wanted to talk to you without an audience."

The room was the same as before — cedar and storm-scent, books stacked slightly askew despite my efforts last time. I set the linens on the trunk at the foot of the bed and turned to face him, bracing myself for whatever this was.

"About the other night," he started.

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I know I don't." His jaw worked. "I'm doing it anyway."

I waited. He crossed to the window, looked out at the darkening grounds, and for a long moment said nothing at all. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost some of its Alpha edge — softer, rawer, closer to the version of him I'd glimpsed the first night.

"My father used to say the bond was the one thing in this life a wolf couldn't lie to himself about." He didn't turn around. "I've spent three days trying to prove him wrong."

"And?"

"And I'm not winning." He finally faced me. "I don't know what you are, Joye. You have no wolf, no shift, nothing that should make this possible. But every instinct I have says you're mine, and I don't know how to make that stop."

My chest tightened, that same electric pull sharpening the longer he looked at me. "Maybe you're not supposed to make it stop."

"I'm promised to Bianca."

"I know."

"The betrothal was arranged before either of us had a choice in it. My father and her family — there were reasons, politics, alliances I still don't fully understand. But it's not something I can simply walk away from, not without consequences for the whole pack."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Aren't you?" His voice cracked slightly on the question, and I realized he wasn't accusing me — he was afraid. Afraid of himself, of what he wanted, of a truth that didn't fit neatly into the life he'd already built around someone else.

I should have stepped back. Should have picked up my basket and left before this went any further. Instead, I found myself closing the distance between us instead of widening it, some ancient, insistent thing inside me pulling harder than reason could hold.

"I didn't ask for this either," I said quietly. "I didn't ask to be sold here. I didn't ask to feel something for the man who let his pack humiliate me in front of a room full of strangers. But I feel it anyway, and pretending I don't hasn't made it any less true."

His hand came up, hesitant, and brushed against my jaw — the first time he'd touched me gently, without command or ownership behind it. I felt the contact everywhere, a live wire running straight through my chest.

"Joye—"

"Don't," I whispered, though I didn't move away. "Don't say my name like that if you're just going to send me away again."

"I don't want to send you away."

"Then don't."

The moon outside had risen fully now, its light spilling silver across the floor between us, and whatever thin thread of control either of us had left simply snapped. He kissed me — not rough, not a claim like I might have expected from him, but slow, almost disbelieving, like he was testing whether this was really happening and half-hoping it wasn't.

I kissed him back anyway.

What happened after that wasn't gentle exactly, but it wasn't cruel either — it was two people who'd spent days fighting the same undeniable current finally stopping the fight.

Every place his hands found, my skin answered like it had been waiting its whole life for exactly this. When he said my name against my collarbone, it didn't sound like the Alpha barking orders in a great hall. It sounded like a man losing an argument with his own heart.

Afterward, I lay against his chest listening to the unfamiliar rhythm of another person's breathing evening out beside me, and for the first time since I'd arrived at Rivermoon, some of the ice in my chest thawed.

"I don't know what this makes us," he admitted into the dark.

"It doesn't have to make us anything tonight."

He didn't answer, but his arm tightened slightly around me, and for a few hours, that was enough.

🖤

I woke to an empty bed and cold sheets.

For a moment I thought I'd imagined the whole night, until I caught his scent still clinging to the pillow beside me, proof I hadn't dreamed any of it.

I dressed quickly, unsure what I was supposed to do — return to the servants' quarters like nothing had changed, or wait for some sign of what came next.

I didn't have to wonder long.

Rue found me in the hallway outside the kitchens, her face carefully arranged into something between pity and warning.

"You should sit down," she said.

"What happened?"

"Word came in this morning. The Alpha's betrothal ceremony." She hesitated. "It's been moved up. Next week instead of next month."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath me the same way it had the first time I'd looked into his eyes.

"That's not possible," I said, though even as the words left my mouth, I already knew they wouldn't change anything. "He wouldn't—"

"I don't know what happened between you two," Rue said gently, "but whatever it was, it looks like it scared him enough to run straight back to her."

I stood there in the hallway, the warmth of the night before curdling into something sharp and cold in my stomach, and understood with sudden, sickening clarity that I had let myself hope for something that had just been ripped away before I'd even had the chance to name it.