Bloodthirsty Luna: Unsatiable Cravings

7: What I Want

Elona Pov

"I don't want to marry anyone else."

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Kael, who had been pouring tea, froze mid-motion, the pot hovering an inch above my cup. Mirelle looked up at me from across the table. Neither of them said anything, and the silence stretched long enough that I wanted to take the sentence back and swallow it whole.

I lowered my eyes to the cup between my hands instead. "I know what you're both thinking."

Kael set the pot down slowly. "What am I thinking?"

"That I'm being foolish."

"I wasn't thinking that."

"You were."

"I was actually thinking the tea is terrible." He took a sip to prove it, and his face twisted so violently that Mirelle burst out laughing before she could stop herself.

I couldn't help it either. "You made it."

"Exactly why I'm offended on principle."

"You're impossible."

"And yet you keep inviting me to breakfast."

"I didn't invite you."

"You didn't ask me to leave."

"That isn't the same thing."

"It is in this house." He said it so simply, like it was already a settled law between us, and for a few seconds the weight in my chest actually felt lighter.

Then I looked toward the window, and the smile slid off my face before I could hold onto it.

"I don't want to marry Seraphina," I said quietly.

Kael's expression shifted. "I don't think anyone's asking you to."

"They're preparing Rylan for it."

He didn't answer that. He didn't need to — we both knew it was true.

"I know what the pack wants," I continued, my fingers tightening around the cup. "An heir. A healthy Luna. Someone who can stand beside their Alpha without constantly needing healers hovering over her." I swallowed. "I don't even blame them for wanting that."

Kael leaned forward. "You shouldn't have to apologize for being sick."

"I know."

"But?"

I met his eyes. "But I also don't want to spend the rest of my life fighting everyone who wants something different from me." I looked down at my stomach, and my voice softened without my permission. "I want my baby. I want to survive long enough to actually hold my child, not just carry one."

I took a breath.

"I want to finish my education. I want to build something that's mine — a business, a name, anything that isn't handed to me by my family or by Rylan." My throat tightened around the next part, but I made myself say it anyway. "And I want to be loved."

The words barely made it past my lips. Heat rushed up my neck into my cheeks.

Mirelle went strangely quiet. Kael didn't tease me — which was somehow worse than if he had.

"I don't want to be chosen because I'm useful," I whispered. "I don't want someone to look at me and see an heir, or a Luna, or a family alliance written in blood and treaties." I made myself hold his gaze. "I want someone to look at me and see me."

"I do," Kael said.

My breath caught somewhere in my chest. Two words. Simple, almost careless in how easily they left him — and they landed somewhere far deeper than they had any right to.

"You don't have to say that," I said, too fast.

"I wasn't saying it to make you feel better." His voice dropped, quiet and steady. "I meant it."

My heart picked up speed against my will. I looked away, toward the window, toward anything that wasn't his face. "Kael—"

"You asked what you wanted." He wouldn't let me hide from it. "You just told me. Don't shrink from it now."

His fingers rested on the table between us. Not touching mine. Close enough that I felt the almost of it like a held breath.

"I don't want you to choose me because you're hurt by Rylan," he said.

My heart skipped, guilty and caught. "I didn't say I wanted you."

"No." A faint smile tugged at his mouth. "You didn't."

I hated, hated, how much that small smile did to me.

"And if I did?" I asked, before I could think better of it.

The smile vanished, replaced by something far more serious. "Then I'd want you to be certain. Not desperate. Not drowning and grabbing the nearest thing that floats."

"Why does that matter so much to you?"

"Because I refuse to be the man you run to just because another man let go of your hand first."

My throat closed. "What if I ran to you because you're the one who never let go in the first place?"

Kael didn't answer. The silence between us thickened into something with weight, something neither of us seemed willing to be the first to disturb.

Mirelle stood abruptly, chair scraping. "I think I'll give you two some privacy."

"Mirelle!" I snapped, whipping toward her.

She smiled, all false innocence. "I have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation."

"You're terrible."

"So I've been told, frequently, by better people than you." She sauntered off without a shred of guilt.

Kael watched her go, amusement flickering across his face before he turned back to me. "She does that a lot."

"Does what?"

"Vanishes the second things get interesting."

"Maybe she's helping."

"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced, but he didn't argue either.

I lowered my eyes to the table. "I don't want anything from you right now. I need you to know that."

"That's okay."

"I don't want another engagement dressed up as a rescue."

"I know."

"I don't want to become someone's replacement Luna, some understudy nobody actually chose."

"You won't be."

"And I don't want to be hidden away forever either, tucked out of sight until it's convenient to remember I exist."

His expression softened at that, something protective sharpening behind his eyes. "And I don't want you treated like you're made of glass."

"That one might actually be difficult for you to manage."

"Watch me." He leaned closer, close enough that I caught the low warmth of his voice better than the words themselves. "You nearly died, Luna. I watched it happen. Forgive me if I hover a little."

"And I'm still here," I said, steadier than I felt.

"Yes." His gaze dropped, brief and unmistakable, to my stomach. "Carrying a child who needs you healthy for both your sakes."

"I know that better than anyone."

"Then let me worry. Just a little."

I felt the corner of my mouth lift despite everything. "Only a little."

"I make no promises," he said, and for the first time all morning, I actually believed the smile behind it.

That evening, I went outside alone, because I needed air that didn't taste like unspoken things.

The night was cool, sharp enough to clear my head, or so I told myself. I didn't want to think about Rylan. My traitorous mind disagreed immediately, dragging up the first time he'd held my hand like it was something precious, the first time he'd called me beautiful and meant it, or seemed to. The night I'd given him everything I had, my innocence, my trust, every unguarded piece of my heart, believing it meant as much to him as it did to me.

Maybe it never had.

I pressed a hand to my stomach. "You're the only proof that night wasn't a lie," I whispered, and my eyes burned before I could stop them.

I didn't want my child growing up as the reason Rylan had been forced to keep me around. I wanted to be loved on my own, apart from the baby entirely, and that was the thought that frightened me most, because if he hadn't loved me before the pregnancy, what made me think anyone ever would after?

"You shouldn't be out here alone."

I smiled without turning around. "You really need a new opening line."

Kael fell into step beside me. "I have several. You just insist on ignoring the good ones."

"Do you make a habit of following women around at night?"

"Only the stubborn ones."

"Lucky me."

"Extremely." The corner of his mouth curved, and despite the ache still sitting behind my ribs, something in me eased at the sound of it.

We walked beneath the trees together, close enough that our shoulders brushed more than once. Neither of us moved away.

"Kael?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't know what happens next. Any of it."

"Neither do I," he admitted, easier than I expected.

"I don't want to go back to how things were."

He nodded slowly. "But I won't pretend I know if I can stay here indefinitely either. There are things pulling at me too."

"You don't have to decide tonight."

I let out a slow breath, watching it fog faintly in the cold air. "For once, I want to make a choice because it's what *I* want. Not what the pack wants. Not what my family wants. Not what's left over after Rylan takes what he wants."

Kael looked at me, something quietly fierce in his expression. "Then start there. Just that."

"I want to live," I said.

"You will."

"I want my baby to live."

"You both will."

"I want to become strong enough that nobody ever gets to make that choice for me again."

"You already are strong."

I shook my head. "No. I'm going to become stronger."

Something shifted in his face — pride, maybe, or recognition. "There she is."

"Who?"

"The girl I remember, underneath everything Rylan buried."

I stopped walking entirely. "So you do remember me. From before."

"I never forgot you," Kael said, quiet and certain, like it had never once been in question.

My heart stumbled over itself. He reached out, slow and careful, and brushed a stray leaf from my hair. His fingers lingered half a second longer than the task required before he drew back.

Neither of us spoke. The space between us suddenly felt smaller than it had any business being.

I wanted to close that distance. I wanted to ask him plainly what that warmth in his eyes actually meant, whether it was real or just convenient timing dressed up as something more. But I held myself back, because Rylan's name still lived somewhere under my ribs with enough power to bruise, and I refused, refused, to hand Kael even a sliver of my heart while another man's ghost still had the ability to hurt me with it.

So I stepped back instead.

Kael understood immediately. He didn't chase the distance, didn't push. He simply nodded, patient in a way that made something in my chest ache differently than before.

And strangely, that restraint made me trust him more than any declaration could have.

We kept walking beneath the trees, side by side, unaware of the figure standing motionless just beyond the treeline, watching, waiting, listening to every word neither of us had meant for other ears.