Lost Russian Luna

Chapter Four

The first thing to return is sound.

There’s the tick of the clock. The rattle of the vent. My breath, harsh and shallow, not quite syncing with my heartbeat. And under it, the steady, almost soothing cadence of someone else breathing, not a threat, not a growl, a presence. The thick presence that was warming me in a sense I hadn’t felt forever. It was comforting.

I open one eye. Duncan hasn’t moved. He’s still kneeling, his suit pants wrinkling at the knees, elbows braced on his thighs. For a second, he’s not a monster; he was a man who looks like he hasn’t slept in a year. His eyes aren’t on me; they’re on my hands, curled into fists so tight my nails bite the palm. He was an Alpha.

He says nothing. He doesn’t reach out.

Instead, he sits back, giving me space. “You’re safe,” he says, softly. The words are awkward, like he’s borrowed them from a language he doesn’t really speak. “No one here will touch you or hurt you. You have my word.”

I try to breathe slower, but my lungs don’t listen. I taste the fear but smell him, only him.

He glances at my throat, the scars, the way my collar shifts and exposes the twisted seam of skin. His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t flinch away. He gives me the space.

The elevator dings again. One of the wolves returns, the huge one enters, eyes going round at the scene on the floor. “Boss? You want me to…”

Duncan doesn’t raise his voice. “Get out.”

The wolf vanishes like he was never there. Rosa is ushered out with him. Leaving me alone with the Alpha.

I push myself upright, slowly. My vision tunnels in and out, but I keep my eyes on the carpet, on the place where the single blood spot remained.

He watches, still silent, as I gather the rag and start to pack up the cleaning supplies. My hands fumble. I drop the bottle twice, and each time I flinch like I expect a blow. Nothing came as I looked over to those startling eyes.

Duncan stands. He towers, but he doesn’t loom. He waits, hands loose at his sides. His posture isn’t predator anymore; it’s something else. Patient. Calculating.

He moves a step closer. I freeze.

He crouches again, at my level. “What’s your name?”

I swallow. My throat burns from the cleaners and from words I can’t say.

“Val,” I manage. It comes out half-air, half-voiced.

He nods, like this is a secret worth keeping. “Val. I’m not going to hurt you.”

I believe him. But the body remembers the other Alpha, the other dangers, other promises. All broken. I was broken then, too. I shiver not from the current cold but the cold remembered.

He looks at the scars again at the bones under my skin. He frowns, but it’s not angry. It’s sad? Pity, maybe. Or just the disappointment of a wolf who sees a pup broken beyond use. I hate it. This pity. But I can’t stop what I have become.

“Can you stand?” he asks.

I nod, but my knees say otherwise. I try, and the world tilts; I hit the wall with my shoulder, teeth clacking together. My hands won’t unclench. I want to scream at myself for how pathetic I am, but I know why. I am.

Duncan hesitates, then shrugs out of his suit jacket. He moves slowly, telegraphing every motion, like he’s training a skittish animal. He drapes the jacket around my shoulders.

The dark fabric is heavy and warm, lined with something softer than anything I’ve worn in years. It smells like him, not the chemical smell I have grown used to. But finally, something real, the forests of pine, smoky fire pits, and storms on the horizon.

He waits until I find my balance. Then, with a gentleness that doesn’t fit what he seems like, he slides one arm under mine. Not holding me, just offering.

I don’t want to take it. But I do. It was natural.

He leads me to the elevator, steps measured, eyes constantly scanning for invisible threats that were making me act like this. I glance back at the suite, at the place where the blood used to be, even where the others had been minutes before, and where Rosa and I had cleaned it until it sparkled.

Duncan jabs the lobby button. The doors close.

We ride in silence. The lights flicker overhead. His arm is still there, a living anchor.

I start to shake again, from the blasting A/C, the adrenaline, fear, or the shame.

He doesn’t say anything, just tugs the jacket tighter around me. Not like a blanket, more like a shield.

We reach the lobby. He keeps hold of me, steering me past the eyes, the cameras, the dead-eyed night staff. Nobody stops us. Nobody even looks twice.

The air outside the casino is thin and cold, thinner than Vegas has any right to be, a slap of desert wind sharpened by glass towers and parking ramp canyons. Duncan lifts me as if I weigh nothing, which I probably do, and my body forgets how to function. The world swings, my limbs stuttering in their sockets, every muscle corded and ready to break free or break down. I don’t even realize I’m shaking until the chill gnaws through the casino polyester and I see my own hands, white-knuckled and fisted, clinging to the front of his shirt.

I don’t resist when he carries me, bridal-style. No, worse, like some weak wounded animal, one he expects to bite if given half a chance. My brain is in lockdown, a system reboot after the Alpha’s stare, but my eyes keep working. I see the whorls of cheap marble, the gold leaf smudged by years of cigarette hands. The night shift clerk’s eyes were tracking us, wide and blank. The way Duncan’s arm flexes around me, never tight enough to bruise but never loose enough to drop me. Not even if I wanted him to.

Outside, the valet stand is empty except for one SUV, black and blindingly new, engine purring like a cat with a switchblade under its tongue. The man in the driver’s seat—George, maybe—doesn’t look back. That’s the real tell. He already knows what, or who, he’s driving.

Duncan deposits me in the back seat, folds me in, then slides in beside. The door closes with a gunshot hush. I am caged, cell to cell to cell. It’s almost funny.

“Take us to a safe house, George. Everyone knows about the hotel,” he says, his voice harsh but contained. The vehicle began to drive away from my job and known life.