The Runaway Luna

#12

Aria.

The palace woke up before the sun did.

I heard the bells at dawn and was already up before the second ring. Three years of raising twins had killed any ability I once had to sleep in. Diana alone was enough to make sure of that.

I splashed cold water on my face and looked at my reflection in the small cracked mirror above the basin. Tired eyes. A mark on my neck that I had spent years covering. I pulled my collar up out of habit and turned away.

Freya was already awake on the other side of the small room, grinding something between her palms quietly. She looked up at me and we exchanged the kind of look that said everything without a single word between us.

We were still okay. We were still here. Keep moving.

The twins were curled up together on the small cot in the corner, Diana's arm thrown over Damon's shoulder. He had his face turned slightly away from her, like even in sleep he was trying to maintain some form of dignity. I stood there for a moment longer than I should have.

Then I tied my hair up, fixed my uniform and left.

His room was exactly as I had left it the night before. Large. Cold. The kind of room that had everything in it and still felt completely empty.

I started with the fireplace, clearing the ash from the night before and restacking the wood. Then the windows. Then the shelves that lined the far wall. I moved quickly and quietly, the way I had learned to move through life — taking up as little space as possible.

I had almost convinced myself it would be a simple morning.

Then the door opened.

I didn't turn around. I kept my cloth moving across the shelf and focused on my breathing.

His footsteps were heavy and unhurried. He moved like a man who had never once needed to rush for anything. I heard him stop somewhere behind me.

Silence.

I turned around because standing with my back to him felt worse.

He was already dressed. Dark shirt, dark trousers, that permanent expression on his face that made him look like he was two seconds away from making a decision that would ruin someone's entire life. His eyes went straight to me and stayed there.

"You started early," he said.

"I was assigned to morning duties my lord," I replied.

He walked further into the room, towards the desk near the window. He picked up some papers and looked at them but I could tell he wasn't reading them. His jaw was tight.

"Did you sleep?" he asked, not looking up.

The question caught me off guard. It was too casual. Too close to something a normal person would ask.

"Yes my lord," I lied.

He looked up then. Straight at me. Like he knew.

I turned back to the shelf.

"Your name isn't Selena," he said.

My hand stopped moving. Just for a second. Then I kept going.

"I don't know what you mean my lord."

"Yes you do."

I said nothing. My heart was hitting my ribs so hard I was almost certain he could hear it. He probably could. Wolves always could.

I heard him set the papers down.

Heard his footsteps again, slow and deliberate, until he was standing close enough behind me that I could feel the warmth coming off him.

"Turn around," he said quietly.

I turned around.

He was closer than I expected. I tilted my chin up to look at him because the alternative was staring directly at his chest and that wasn't going to help me think clearly.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"I needed work my lord. The agency —"

"Why are you here." He said it again. Not a question this time.

I pressed my lips together.

He searched my face for a long moment, his eyes moving slowly like he was trying to read every single thing I was refusing to say out loud. It made my skin feel too tight.

"You're scared of me," he said.

"Most people are scared of you my lord."

"Not like this." Something shifted in his expression. "You looked at me yesterday like I had already done something to you."

My throat tightened.

He had done something to me. He had marked me and turned my entire life upside down. He had put a bounty on my head.

He had sent a woman to my home to silence me. He had no idea what I had gone through to keep his own children breathing and he was standing here looking at me like he was the one who deserved an explanation.

But I couldn't say any of that.

"I was startled by what happened in the dungeon my lord. I had never seen anyone die before," I said, keeping my voice even.

He looked at me for a long time.

"I didn't order that," he said.

"I didn't say you did."

"You thought it," he replied. I didn't answer.

Something flickered in his eyes. Not anger. Something quieter than anger and somehow more unsettling.

He stepped back, creating distance between us, and ran a hand through his hair. It was such a human thing to do that it threw me completely. He always looked so controlled. So untouchable.

"Finish your duties," he said, turning back to his desk.I turned back to the shelf.

My hands were trembling again and I gripped the cloth tighter to stop it.

We stayed in the same room for another hour. Him at his desk, me moving from one corner to the other. Neither of us spoke. But the silence between us wasn't empty.

It was full of every single thing that had happened four years ago and everything that had gone unsaid since.

At some point I moved to collect the broken glass from the night before that nobody had cleared.

I picked up the pieces carefully one by one.

I didn't ask how it got there.

I already had a feeling I knew.