From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 30

SELENE

The first Bond Trial started at midnight, not at sundown like the Lunar Trials or outside beneath lanterns and banners and faculty members pretending to look calm while students tried not to panic in neat little lines.

This one took place in the old stone hall at the back of the academy grounds, the building everyone passed but almost nobody entered. I had walked past it countless times without ever seeing the doors open.

Tonight they stood wide, torches lined the path leading to the entrance, their flames burning low and orange against the dark. Smoke curled lazily into the cold air, carrying the sharp scent of ash and old wood.

Kael was waiting for me outside, he leaned near the doorway with his hands in his pockets, jacket dark against the stone wall behind him. His attention moved over the students arriving in pairs, quiet and observant the way he always was, then his gaze found me.

His eyes flicked over me once, a quick check that somehow felt more personal than it should have. “Ready?” he asked.

I huffed out a breath. “Ask me again in an hour.”

The corner of his mouth shifted slightly, not quite a smile but close enough to count.

Then he turned and walked inside beside me, the hall looked nothing like I imagined.

The ceiling stretched high overhead, disappearing into shadow. The room itself was dim except for the torchlight fixed along the walls and the pale glow coming from the center of the floor.

Ancient markings had been carved directly into the stone walls, deep enough that time hadn’t worn them away. I didn’t recognize any of the symbols, but they carried the heavy feeling of something old and deliberate.

In the middle of the room sat a circular platform raised slightly above the floor. Pale stones formed a ring around its edge, each one glowing softly beneath the dark.

Not bright but enough to make the boundary impossible to ignore, the other bonded pairs stood around the room waiting their turns, some looked nervous, others tried very hard not to.

Professor Harlan stood near the far end of the hall with another instructor I hadn’t seen before, an older woman with silver hair pulled tightly back from her face. Her expression was sharp and unimpressed, like nothing that happened tonight would surprise her.

“The first event tests connection,” Professor Harlan announced once everyone settled, his voice echoed softly through the hall. “Not combat or endurance. Connection.”

He gestured toward the platform. “Each bonded pair will step inside the boundary together. The stones will respond to the bond between you. Whatever happens inside the circle remains between the two of you. You are not performing for the room. You are simply allowing the bond to reveal itself.”

I stared at the glowing stones. “Allow what exactly?” someone asked from the back.

The older woman answered before Harlan could. “The stones amplify what already exists between bonded pairs,” she said flatly. “If there is nothing there, then nothing happens. If there is something there…” Her eyes swept across the room. “You will both feel it.”

A pause. “It is rarely comfortable.”

That did not help at all.

Kael and I were called third, the moment we stepped across the stone boundary, the air changed.

It felt warmer inside the circle, heavier somehow, like the space itself carried pressure. The sounds from the room dulled slightly behind me, my pulse kicked once against my ribs.

Kael stopped across from me near the center of the platform, close enough for me to notice every small detail the lighting usually hid. The faint shadows beneath his eyes, the tension resting permanently around his mouth and the sharp line of his jaw.

For a few seconds, nothing happened, then the stones brightened slowly.

Soft white light spread through the ring beneath our feet, steady and quiet like something waking up. Warmth slid into my hands first, threading through my fingers before traveling slowly up my arms and settling deep in my chest.

Kael felt it too. I saw the slight shift in his breathing, it was barely noticeable. “Don’t fight it,” he said quietly.

“I’m not.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You are.”

“I’m literally standing still.”

“You’re tense.”

“I can stand still and be tense at the same time.”

“That’s exactly my point.”

Despite myself, I almost laughed. Instead I forced my shoulders to loosen. The moment I relaxed, something in his expression eased too, like he’d been waiting for me to stop bracing for impact.

The warmth in my chest deepened, and then the sensation hit without warning, but it wasn’t violent like before, this felt softer.

The edges of the hall blurred for half a second, and suddenly I was standing in two places at once, the stone hall remained around me, dim and warm and glowing pale beneath my feet, but somewhere else unfolded over it.

Morning light spilled across an academy training field. Younger students ran drills across open grass, moving fast enough to kick dust into the air. Laughter echoed faintly somewhere in the distance.

Then my attention caught on a familiar figure. Kael. Younger, leaner, his hair shorter than it was now.

He moved through a combat sequence with sharp focus, quick and controlled even then, but he wasn’t paying full attention to the drill, because every few seconds, he looked away.

Toward the far side of the field, toward me. A younger version of me stood there completely unaware, too focused on my own training to notice the way he watched. I was adjusting my stance, repeating a sequence over and over with stubborn concentration.

And the feeling coming from him...

It stopped me cold, It wasn’t rivalry or detached academic competitiveness I had convinced myself existed between us for years.

It was something different, the kind of feeling a person protects because naming it out loud would make it too real.

The image dissolved before I could fully process it and the hall rushed back into focus. I blinked hard.

Kael was staring at me. Whatever control he usually held over his expression had thinned dangerously. His jaw was tight enough to ache, and his eyes searched mine with terrifying directness.

“What did you see?” he asked softly.

The answer slipped out automatically. “Nothing.”

His gaze didn’t move. “Selene.”

My heartbeat stumbled and I held his eyes for a long second before speaking quietly enough that nobody else could hear. “How long?”

He understood immediately.

Of course he did, a muscle moved once in his jaw before he answered. “Long enough that it stopped feeling new years ago.”

The warmth inside my chest expanded so suddenly it almost hurt.

I looked at him and flashes of memory collided together all at once, the stones he’d thrown perfectly onto the forest path so I wouldn’t lose my footing.

His hand against my shoulder after the attack, the chair beside my infirmary bed that he never admitted he spent hours sitting in.

All the tiny things I had noticed but never fully examined. “You could’ve said something,” I murmured.

A quiet breath left him. “So could you.”

That landed harder than I expected because he was right. I didn’t have an argument.

The stones pulsed brighter beneath our feet, light rippling once around the circle before slowly dimming again. The warmth remained inside me afterward, calmer now, settled deeper beneath my ribs.

Kael exhaled slowly, then, carefully, almost cautiously, he reached for my hand.

His fingers slid against mine at our sides before threading together fully. I didn’t pull away.

We stood there like that for the rest of the trial, hand in hand inside the pale glow of the circle while the rest of the room faded into something distant and unimportant.

When the signal finally came for us to step down, we did.

The moment we crossed the boundary, the colder air of the hall wrapped around me again, his hand slipped from mine naturally as we moved aside for the next pair.

Neither of us spoke, we stood shoulder to shoulder near the edge of the room, watching the others take their turns. But the silence between us had changed. It wasn’t strained or uncertain anymore.

It felt easy and comfortable, and underneath it all, I still felt the echo of what I had seen.

The boy watching the girl who never noticed. I glanced sideways at Kael in the low torchlight.

Maybe he felt it, because he turned almost immediately and met my eyes, he held my gaze for a second without speaking, then he looked back toward the platform and I did the same.

But even then, my hand still felt warm where his had been.