From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 16

SELENE

The night air felt cooler than usual as I slipped out of the dorm again. I pulled my jacket a little tighter and kept my steps quiet on the stone path. My heart beat steadily, not with nervousness this time, but with something closer to quiet determination.

After everything that had happened, I knew Kael wanted me to stay away. He had made that clear enough, but I could not stop now.

I needed his help more than I had needed anything in a long time. I needed to get stronger, and he was the only one who could truly push me the way I needed to be pushed.

I walked along the path toward the old training grounds behind the east dorms, the moon sat high enough to light the way without making me feel too exposed.

The campus was quiet at this hour, most students were already inside, and the only sounds were the soft crunch of my shoes on the path and the low movement of wind through the trees.

When I reached the clearing, Kael was already there, he practiced alone in the open space, moving through a series of fast strikes and defensive turns that looked almost automatic.

Like his body already knew the moves so well his mind had gone somewhere else entirely. Sweat made his dark shirt stick to his broad shoulders.

Every movement was controlled, nothing wasted, nothing sloppy. I stood at the edge of the shadows and watched him for a moment before stepping out into the open.

That familiar pull in my chest was already there. I ignored it and kept walking.

Kael stopped mid-move and turned, his eyes found me immediately, and they narrowed the second they did. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and said nothing for a second.

"Selene." His voice came out low. "I told you to leave me alone."

I kept walking until I was only a few feet away. The grass felt soft under my sneakers. I met his eyes and held them. "I know what you said, but I am here anyway. I need another training session. Please. Just one more."

He let out a short breath, his gaze moved toward the dark line of trees at the edge of the clearing, like the answer might be out there somewhere. His shoulders stayed tense. "This is not a good idea. Every time we do this, it gets harder for me."

"I know," I said, and I meant it. I wasn't pretending I didn't see what was happening between us. "But I need this. You hold back when you train me. I can feel it every single time. I need the real version of you, Kael. Not the careful one who is always pulling away before things go too far."

He looked at me then, the night wind moved quietly through the trees around us, and the air between us felt heavier than it had before. Thicker somehow, filled with words neither of us had said yet.

He stood still for a long moment, jaw tight, eyes searching my face like he was trying to find a reason to say no and coming up empty. Finally, he let out a slow breath.

"Fine," he said. "One more session. But we keep it short, and you listen to everything I say."

"Agreed."

We started training. Kael walked me through new ways to control my breathing and hold my balance under pressure. He moved around me in a slow circle, watching my form, then stepping in to correct it with light touches on my shoulders and arms.

Every time his fingers made contact, even briefly, I felt that warm pull move through me again. I kept my focus forward and said nothing about it.

The atmosphere between us felt different tonight. It was hard to name exactly, but every look carried a little more weight than it should have, every small correction felt more deliberate.

"You are dropping your left shoulder again," he said, stepping in behind me. His hand pressed gently on my shoulder to push it back into place. His chest was close to my back, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his body. "Keep it up. Stay centered. If your shoulder drops in a real fight, you leave yourself completely open."

I adjusted and held the position. "Better?"

"Yes." he said but he didn't move away immediately.

We kept going, our bodies moved through the exercises together in the quiet clearing, and the space between us seemed to shrink a little with every pass.

Sometimes his arm brushed against mine when he demonstrated a move, sometimes when he leaned in to correct something, his breath grazed the side of my neck and I had to concentrate harder to keep my form steady.

During a short break I turned to face him, breathing a little faster than usual. "Why do you push so hard to keep distance between us?" I asked. "You help me, and then you always pull away right after. What are you actually afraid of?"

Kael wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He looked at me with dark, conflicted eyes, and for a second I thought he might not answer at all, then he did.

"I am afraid of what happens if I stop being careful," he said. "You already have enough to deal with when it comes to Calder. If I let myself get too close, I am only going to make everything harder for you. That is not something I want on my hands."

I stepped closer to him, close enough that I had to tilt my chin up slightly to keep my eyes on his. "Maybe I want you in my life anyway. Maybe I am tired of other people deciding what is good for me and what isn't."

Something shifted in his expression and his breathing changed, just slightly, but I caught it. For a long moment the space between us felt electric, like the air before a storm when everything goes still and you know something is about to break. His eyes dropped to my lips. Then back up to my eyes. I watched the struggle move across his face plainly, and I knew what it meant, he wanted to close the distance between us. I could see it as clearly as anything.

But he took a small step back instead. "We should stop for tonight," he said. His voice came out rougher than before. "You are getting better. Keep working on what I showed you."

I nodded, even though there was more I wanted to say, the session had been shorter than I had hoped, but the weight of everything that had passed between us stayed with me as I walked back across the dark campus toward the dorm.

Kael was carrying something heavy. I didn't know what it was yet, but I could feel it every time he looked at me and chose to look away instead.

He had warned me he was dangerous, he kept saying it like a reminder to himself more than to me.

I slipped back into my room and closed the door quietly behind me. The night felt longer now than it usually did. I lay down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, turning his words over in my mind, thinking about the way his eyes had dropped to my lips and then pulled back like he was catching himself doing something he wasn't allowed to do.

He was dangerous, he had said so himself. I was just no longer sure I wanted to stay away.