HIS HATED LUNA: HUNTING THE BLACKBURN ALPHA

~Roseline's POV~ The night I stopped running, I f****d the wrong man. And honestly? I'd do it again. The rave was exactly what I needed. It was loud, smoky and packed so tight with bodies that nobody could see your face properly. Bass shook the floor, colored lights cut through the dark and the sharp smell of alcohol and bad decisions hung over everything. Perfect. I'd squeezed into a skimpy black dress that was doing the absolute most and pushed through the crowd with my head down and my nerves shot to hell. New city. New name. New life. One night of not looking over my shoulder. Roseline Campbell, I reminded myself. You are Roseline Campbell and nobody here knows you exist. That thought alone deserved a drink. God knows I'd earned one. I found him at the bar. He had wavy black hair, perfect olive skin and shoulders that filled out his dark shirt like the shirt had been designed specifically for him and nobody else. He was knocking back a shot with the kind of energy that said he was either celebrating something or trying to kill a feeling. From the hard set of his mouth, I was guessing the second one. God, he was gorgeous. The stupidly, unfairly, aggressively gorgeous kind. I know that face, I thought as I got closer. Suddenly, my feet slowed down without my permission because my brain had stopped working and my heart had frozen to ice. I knew that face. Not just from TV. Not just from the sports channels and the hockey posters and the workout videos that occasionally showed up on my screen whether I wanted them to or not. I practically drooled every time he took off his shirt in the gym on TV and showed off his sexy abs and I absolutely loved watching how his shoulders flexed when he lifted weights. I knew that face because Jeremy Lockwood was my childhood best friend and secret crush. Strange how fate works. How else could I explain how this demigod of a man had ended up in the same club as me? My “Jerry” had finally found his way back to me. My heart fluttered. We'd been inseparable as kids. He was three years older and had appointed himself my unofficial protector from bullies like it was a job he'd never applied for but took very seriously. Then his family sent him to study at some elite werewolf academy abroad when I was thirteen and that was the last time I saw him in real life. A few months later, my parents sat me down and told me I was going to live with another family. I thought it was temporary. It wasn't. I'd watched Jeremy on TV becoming a famous hockey player and successful and aggressively good looking over the years and I had never once reached out. Not because I didn't want to but because I was too busy surviving. A girl on the run couldn't afford real connections. Connections left traces that Alpha Alex Blackwell could follow back to me like a trail of breadcrumbs. So I kept my distance. And tonight, out of every city in the country, out of every bar and every rave, he was here. I almost turned around and left. Almost. Instead I straightened my shoulders, reminded myself that we used to be best friends, and walked over to say hello. Just hello. That was all. A quick introduction. “Hey, you probably don't remember me but we used to be friends when we were kids.” It would be simple and harmless. One conversation and then I'd disappear back into the crowd and that would be that. I slid onto the stool beside him. "What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?" He didn't look up. He just gave a short, dry chuckle. "f**k me." I grinned so wide my face hurt. "With pleasure." That made him turn. And the second his eyes met mine, his face went completely blank. "Evelyn?" My smile froze. Evelyn. The name hit me at the very center of my heart. Somewhere old and buried and still apparently very much alive, because my chest clenched so hard I nearly lost my breath. Evelyn was my twin. My ghost. The sister I hadn't seen in ten years, since the day our parents packed her up and left me behind with strangers. He thought I was her. They'd met again as adults. The way he'd said her name told me everything I needed to know before he even opened his mouth again. He blinked, confused. "What are you… You never come to raves." He set his glass down, desperation flooding his voice. "Babe, I'm so sorry. She meant absolutely nothing, I swear to God. I've been losing my mind since you left, please…" Oh. Oh. He was dating Evelyn. This MF was dating my twin sister who had taken everything from me and apparently hadn't stopped taking. I connected the dots fast. He had cheated on Evelyn and she'd dumped him. And now he was looking at me, thinking he was looking at her face, like a man who'd been drowning for days and just spotted land. I didn't correct him. Should I have? Yes Did I? Absolutely not. Look, Evelyn and I shared a face. Same body type. Same blonde hair. Same everything, except her eyes were green and mine were blue, and in this lighting nobody was stopping to compare. We hadn't spoken in ten years. So no. I did not feel one single ounce of guilt. The introduction I'd been about to make died in my throat. Just like that. My heart turned cold at once. Evelyn stayed home. I got sold. She got our parents, our name, our life. And now, apparently, she'd gotten him too. My childhood best friend and secret crush, wrapped up neatly in her perfectly manicured hands. I had come over here to say hello, to have one normal human moment of connection in six months of running. And what I'd gotten instead was confirmation that even here, even now, Evelyn had gotten there first. Fine. She wanted to take everything? She could have it all back tomorrow. But tonight was mine. I masked it fast. One blink and it was gone — the hurt, the recognition, all of it. I smoothed my face back and let the corner of my mouth curl up. "Hey," I said softly. “Do you forgive me?” Jeremy quivered, the color rushing back into his face. "Buy me a drink first," I said with a flirty smile. He exhaled shakily. Then flagged the bartender. My phone buzzed against my thigh three drinks later. I almost left it. But I'd learned the painful way, through six cities and two fake names, that ignoring certain numbers had consequences. An unsaved number had sent one message: "I'll find you even if you hide under a rock. You cannot abandon the contract." Classic Alex move. A cold shiver moved through me so fast my fingers went numb. Six months. I'd been running from him for six months and he still found the cracks like he had a direct line to my nervous system. You absolute piece of work, I thought, staring at that screen. I dropped the phone back into my purse and turned back to the handsome, clueless man beside me who was looking at me like I was the answer to his prayers. My eyes caught a flash of camera light and I looked around instinctively. He noticed and placed his hand over mine, pulling my attention back. "Ignore them," he said. "It's probably some blogs fishing for a picture of us together." He chuckled softly like this was just a regular Tuesday. "They've been trying to find out who my girlfriend is for months now, and you know how much I value our privacy. I'm not going to show my girlfriend to the world until we're engaged. I just want to keep them guessing for a while. It's dark in here, they won't get a good picture." I smiled like I was used to the celebrity lifestyle he'd just described. The one thing I hated most right now were cameras. Who knew who was watching? I leaned forward and whispered into his ear, "We should go upstairs." He grinned and rolled his tongue over his lower lip. "Alright, sexy." He winked at two guys across the bar and they flashed knowing smiles as we left. The room was nothing fancy. It had low light and rumpled sheets and the bass was still vibrating faintly through the floor from below. It was enough. He kissed me the second the door shut, not gentle or careful, but deep and urgent and hungry, like he'd been holding it in all night. His hands cupped my face and I kissed him back just as hard because I wanted to, because I hadn't wanted something just for myself in a very long time. "God, I missed you," he breathed against my mouth” I didn't answer. I pulled him back down instead. His fingers found the zip at my back and the dress fell to the floor. He stepped back just enough to look at me — really look, his eyes dragging down and back up. He froze almost immediately, uncertainty filling his eyes. "Your eyes," he squinted. "Do you have contacts on?" Shut up and f**k me! I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him again before he could finish that thought. He made a rough sound low in his throat and stopped thinking. Good. His shirt came off next. Then everything else. And then his mouth was on my neck, my collarbone, moving lower, and I stopped thinking too, which was the entire point of tonight. "f**k," he murmured against my skin. Yeah. Exactly. He laid me back against the sheets and took his time in a way that made me forget I had a fake name, a forged recommendation letter, and a powerful Alpha hunting me across six states. Every kiss was passionate. Every touch was purposeful. Like he was trying to memorize something he thought he'd lost. When he finally pushed inside me, we both went still for one sharp second. We had hot, steamy s*x, the stuff of erotic novels you're forbidden to read unless you're alone. I dug my fingers into his back and he groaned against my throat. The headboard knocked softly against the wall and I couldn't have cared less because God, this man — this stupid, beautiful, wrong man — knew exactly what he was doing and I was completely, catastrophically okay with it. "Evelyn—" "Don't," I breathed. "Don't talk." He listened. If I thought the first round of s*x was mind blowing, the second round was out of this world. It was the kind of s*x that dismantled me from the inside out. It was slow, then fast, then slow again until I was trembling and cursing under my breath and he wasn't doing much better. When it finally broke, it broke hard and for a few minutes afterward I just lay there staring at the ceiling while my heartbeat figured itself out. For the first time in six months, I wasn't running. I was just a girl who'd wanted one reckless, stupid, glorious night. I got it. As early as 6am the next morning, I was already dressed and reaching for my purse when the door flew open. I didn't even have time to turn around fully before I heard her. "What the actual f**k is going on here?” She barked. Damn. The voice hit me like a slap and my whole body went cold. I knew that voice. I hadn't heard it in ten years but I knew it the same way you know your own heartbeat. I swirled around slowly. She stood in the doorway in a shabby gown, her chest heaving and her green eyes wild with anger. Her blonde hair was disheveled. Her face was…my face. My chest constricted and my stomach twisted uneasily. Oh God. Oh no! Oh, this is so much worse than I thought.