The Sacred Luna

Chapter 10

(Sanya's POV)

Rage explodes in my chest, hot and violent and all-consuming. It burns away the exhaustion, the pain, the humiliation of the past few days and leaves only pure, white-hot fury. My hands ball into fists at my sides, my nails digging into my palms so deep they draw blood. But I barely notice because all I see is red, all I feel is the betrayal that's been festering inside me since the night he stood me up, the night I waited for him like a fool with my suitcase and my dreams and my pathetic, naive heart hanging in my throat.

"Fix everything?" I shout, and I don't care that my voice is shrill, that servants might probably hear, that Tara and Mira will have more ammunition to use against me. "You'll fix everything? Please, do tell. How do you plan to fix everything, when you ruined everything! You left me! Abandoned me when I needed you most!"

I'm shaking now, my whole body trembling with the force of emotions I've been suppressing for days. The sewage water drips off my dress onto the marble floor of the entryway, creating a small puddle around my feet. But I don't care.

All I can see is Aaron, his presumptuous words ringing in my ears, mockingly so.

"I can explain—" he starts, taking a step forward, his hand reaching out toward me like he has any right to touch me, like he has any right to be here at all.

"I don't want to hear it!" I cut him off, my voice breaking on the last word. "The worst mistake of my life was trusting you. Loving you."

And I mean it. Every word. Because if I had never loved Aaron Knight, I would never have planned to run away with him. My brothers would never have found out. They would never have arranged this marriage. I would never have ended up here, in this house of horrors, married to a man who sees me as nothing more than a used toy, a second-hand wife worthy only of his contempt and his belt.

I try to push him away, my hands connecting with his chest, and that's when I notice something strange—his body feels cold, colder than any living person should feel, like touching marble in winter. But before I can process this, he grabs my arms, his fingers wrapping around my wrists with a grip that's somehow both gentle and desperate, and I can feel him trembling too, or maybe that's just me. I can't tell anymore where my pain ends and his begins.

"Sanya, please," he begs, and there are tears in his eyes now, sliding down his cheeks. "Please. Just listen—"

"No!" I wrench myself away from him with a strength I didn't know I still had, stumbling backward into the house, putting distance between us because if I stay close to him for a second longer, I might do something stupid like believe him, forgive him, and let myself hope again.

Or scratch his face bloody.

"The day you stood me up, everything between us ended. I'm married now. I don't want anything to do with you!"

The words taste like ash in my mouth, but they're true. They have to be true. Because the alternative—that I still love him, that seeing him here makes my traitorous heart leap with hope, that part of me wants nothing more than to throw myself into his arms and pretend the last few days never happened—is too dangerous to even consider.

Aaron's face crumples, and for a moment he looks so lost, so broken, that I almost—almost—feel sorry for him. But then I remember the empty road. The unanswered phone. The days of silence. The way my brothers dragged me into their SUV while I screamed his name. The wedding to a stranger. The belt. The ice. The dirty water of humiliation I'm covered in since early morning.

"I promise," he says, and his eyes are so intense, so desperate, that I have to look away. "Until I know you're happy and living a good life, I will not leave your side. I will be back, Sanya. I will be back."

There's something in the way he says it that sends chills down my spine. Not a threat. A vow. As if he's making a promise not just to me but to something larger, something beyond both of us. A force he's bound by I can't see or understand.

He releases me, his hands dropping to his sides, and for just a second his form seems to flicker, like a candle flame in the wind. Then he turns and walks away, down the steps, into the gathering darkness, and I watch him go because I can't seem to make my feet move, can't seem to make myself slam the door shut.

I stand in the doorway long after he's disappeared from view. Tears stream down my face, hot against my cold cheeks, mixing with the sewage water still clinging to my skin. They drip onto my ruined dress, onto the floor, onto the threshold between the world inside this house and the world outside where Aaron just disappeared to.

I hate him. I hate him so much it hurts.

The hatred is a living thing inside me, coiled around my heart like a snake, squeezing until I can barely breathe. Because this is all his fault. Every single bit of my suffering can be traced back to that one night, that one broken promise, that one moment when he chose not to show up and left me to face the consequences alone.

If he had come that night, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be married to Tyron Stone. I wouldn't have scars on my back from his belt or rope burns on my wrists from struggling against the impossible tasks of cleaning the whole mansion. Or the hollow, dead feeling in my chest that tells me I'm becoming someone I don't recognize, someone hard and bitter and broken.

And all because of him.

A sound behind me makes me jump. I turn to find one of the servants—a young girl named Lily who sometimes looks at me with pity when she thinks no one else is watching—staring at me with wide eyes.

"Luna," she whispers. "Are you alright?"

Am I alright? The question is so absurd I almost laugh. But instead, I just shake my head and slam the door, the sound echoing through the entrance hall like a gunshot.

I lean against it, my forehead pressed against the cold wood, my hands splayed flat against the surface as if I can physically hold back the memories, the pain, the terrible, treacherous hope that Aaron's appearance has awakened in my chest.

I will save my marriage. The thought comes to me with the force of a religious conviction, a desperate mantra I repeat in my head over and over. I will make Tyron love me. I will prove to him that I'm worthy, that I'm not the used, impure woman he thinks I am, that I can be the Luna he deserves.

It's the only path forward I can see. Because if I don't save this marriage, where will I go? My brothers made it clear family reputation is everything. They'd rather die than take me back if I'm divorced. I have no money of my own, no pack to return to, no friends who would dare defy an Alpha to help me.

This pack, this house, this marriage—as much as I hate it—is all I have left.

And I will never, ever forgive Aaron Knight for being the cause of it.

I push away from the door and head toward the servants' quarters, where I'll be allowed to wash off this sewage water if I'm lucky, if Tara or Mira don't decide I need to be punished further for answering the door while looking and smelling like this. My reflection catches in a mirror as I pass—hair matted, face streaked with tears and dirt, dress stained and reeking, eyes hollow and dead.

This is what Aaron's abandonment cost me. This is where his broken promise brought me.

And I will make sure I never forget it.