From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 18

SELENE

The morning after the second Lunar Trial came faster than I expected. The academy grounds were quieter than usual, like the whole campus was still catching its breath.

Students walked around with tired faces and slow steps, small groups gathered here and there still talking about what had happened in the forest. I sat on a bench near the main path with a water bottle in my hands, drinking slowly and letting the cool morning air settle around me, my body still ached in places I hadn't expected, but my mind felt surprisingly clear.

The way Kael and I had worked together kept playing back in my head. The way we had moved without having to think too hard about it, adjusting to each other naturally, covering each other's gaps like we had been doing it for years. It had felt like a real team.

I was still turning it over in my mind when I saw Calder. He came across the courtyard from the west path, walking with stiff, heavy steps like each one cost him something. His shoulders were pulled tight and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides.

Even from a distance I could see that his silver-gray eyes looked wild. He hadn't slept, that much was written all over his face. His skin looked pale and his jaw was locked so hard the muscle in his cheek jumped with every step.

Then I saw Kael coming from the other direction and he moved with his usual calm, unhurried confidence, hands loose at his sides, dark eyes forward. He hadn't spotted Calder yet, but Calder had already spotted him.

The moment they were close enough, both of them stopped and their eyes locked. The air around them changed immediately, growing heavier, pressing down on everything nearby. Students who had been walking past slowed to a stop, a few stepped back without seeming to realize they were doing it, nobody spoke.

Calder moved first. He stepped forward with his chin up and his voice loud enough to carry across the courtyard. "Voss. We need to talk. Now."

Kael turned to face him fully. He didn't rush and he didn't tense up visibly. He just stopped and looked at Calder with cool, steady eyes. "About what?"

Calder closed more of the distance between them. His breathing was already fast and heavy, his chest rising and falling too quickly for someone who had just been walking. "Stay away from Selene. She is mine. You have no right to be anywhere near her."

Kael didn't move back an inch. He stood tall, shoulders squared, eyes level with Calder's. "She makes her own choices. She does not belong to you."

Something in Calder's face cracked. His expression twisted and he took one more step forward until only a few feet separated them. The power rolling off both of them was thick enough that the students closest to them took another quiet step back. Nobody wanted to be caught between whatever was about to happen.

"You think you can just take what is mine?" Calder's voice dropped into something rougher, more dangerous. His hands shook at his sides. "I have been watching. I see the way you look at her. The way you find reasons to be near her. You are trying to steal her from me and you are not even hiding it anymore."

Kael's jaw tightened. His dark eyes sharpened but his voice stayed low and controlled. "She was never yours to steal. You lost her a long time ago. You just haven't accepted it yet."

Calder's breathing grew louder. The anger in his eyes looked raw and unfiltered, the kind that comes from somewhere deeper than a single argument. "You do not know anything about us. You do not understand what I went through. What I am still going through."

"I understand enough," Kael said. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. "I understand that you are losing control. Anyone standing here right now can see it. You are falling apart, Vance. And you are doing it in front of everyone."

Calder's chest heaved. He stepped forward again until the gap between them was almost nothing. His voice came out hard and shaking at the same time. "Stay away from her. That is your only warning. If I see you near her again, I will not hold back and I mean it."

Kael held Calder's gaze without moving a single step backward. "Try it. See what happens."

The silence that followed felt like the moment before something breaks and nobody around them moved.

I stepped forward from where I had been standing at the edge of the path. My heart was going fast but I kept my voice even. "Enough. Both of you. This is not the place for this."

Calder turned his head toward me. For just a second, something in his eyes softened when they landed on my face. The anger pulled back just slightly, like a wave retreating before it comes in harder. Then it returned, fuller than before. "Selene." His voice changed when he said my name. Lower. Almost desperate. "Tell him, tell him you belong to me."

I shook my head but I kept my eyes on his and made sure my voice stayed steady. "I belong to no one. Stop this, Calder. Right now. You are only making everything worse."

His hands shook harder at his sides. He looked back at Kael, and whatever softness had appeared was completely gone. Pure hatred sat in its place. "This is not over," he said, his voice low and tight. "Mark my words."

He turned and walked away. The tension in the courtyard began to ease slowly, like air let out of something that had been wound too tight, but it didn't disappear completely. The damage was already done. Everyone standing there had just watched Calder Vance come completely undone in broad daylight.

Kael stayed where he was for a moment after Calder left. He looked across the path at me. His dark eyes held mine and stayed there, and in them I saw something I hadn't expected. Worry. Real, quiet worry sitting underneath everything else, and something deeper beneath even that, something I couldn't fully name yet.

He gave me a small nod, then he turned and walked away in the opposite direction without a word.

I stood there alone for a little while, my heart still moving too fast. The courtyard slowly returned to normal around me, students drifting back into their own conversations, pretending they hadn't all just been holding their breath.

But I couldn't pretend as easily, Calder was getting worse. Whatever he was holding onto, it was tightening its grip on him instead of loosening.

The way he had planted himself in front of Kael, the shaking hands, the way his voice had cracked on my name... it wasn't just jealousy anymore. It was something unraveling.

I rubbed my arms and started walking back toward the dorm. I thought about the way Kael had stood his ground without flinching.

The way he had refused to be moved. It had made me feel safe in a way I hadn't expected. But it had also settled something cold in my chest, because if Calder was this far gone already, I didn't want to think about where he was headed next.