THE REJECTED FOURFOLD LUNA: FATED TO TWO ALPHA TWINS

Chapter 16—Unease

Celeste's POV

Life at Ulfsang was good. I knew that. I felt it every single morning I woke up in that room with the high ceilings, the quiet, and the two men who made everything feel steadier than it probably should.

I knew all of that.

I was still sitting on the edge of my bed staring at the wall like it owed me something.

Torren said their visits to Mercer and Vale would be rare. Once every one to three months at most. That was manageable. That was a thing I could see on a calendar, prepare for, and get through cleanly when the time came.

That was what I kept repeating to myself like a mantra.

It was not working at all.

The thought of being in the same room as Aiden and Jayden Carter made something turn over in my stomach. Not a professional concern. Something older and more personal. The part of me that once stood in front of everyone she ever knew and got taken apart publicly.

Vaelina's voice came back to me without being invited.

"You are already that girl. The history already happened."

I pressed my lips together.

She was not wrong. I just was not ready to sit with how not-wrong she was.

And right behind it, her other line from that day in my office. "You told Amaris you don't know them."

Which was true. I absolutely said that and I meant it at the time.

I pressed two fingers to my temple.

I was over it. Completely. Entirely. And I was going to remain over it going forward.

I was done thinking about them and that was it.

Absolutely, completely, irrevocably final.

A soft knock at the bedroom door pulled me back out of my own head mid-spiral.

"Come in."

Neris appeared in the doorway, neat and completely unbothered by whatever expression I was currently wearing on my face. "The twins sent for you, Luna."

She said it easily and without ceremony, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Which I supposed to her it was by now.

I stood up before I could spiral any further into that particular loop. "Thank you." I grabbed my phone off the nightstand out of pure habit, realized I did not need it and set it back down. "I'll be right down."

I walked out.

The upstairs hallway was quiet the way it got in the evenings when the day wound down and the house found its own pace.

I let myself breathe properly on the way down the stairs.

By the time I hit the last step I almost felt like a person who was not currently stressing about something that was months away and possibly not even going to be as bad as I was making it. I came through to the main sitting room expecting both of them.

I was already bracing for that particular awareness Mason and Jason both seemed to carry about where my head was on any given day. They always knew. Every single time without fail. It was one of the things about the Destiny Bond I was still learning to live inside of.

Only Jason was there.

He was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed and his eyes found mine the second I stepped through the door.

"Where's Mason?" I looked around the room quickly.

"Stepped out to get something." He pushed off the wall. "He'll be back shortly."

It's just us for now. Jason said things like that with a particular ease that I was still learning to receive without my chest doing something complicated.

I nodded. I stayed near the entrance of the room.

Apparently that was close enough because he was already moving toward me.

He crossed the room toward me slowly.

Somehow my back met the wall before I fully registered moving at all. I did not mind. I never minded with either of them. His hands found my waist, warm and certain the way they always were.

He looked at me for exactly one second.

Then he kissed me like time was not a factor.

It was a very good kiss.

The kind that made thinking genuinely difficult and made everything sitting heavy in my chest feel considerably further away than it was.

I was grateful for that in a way that did not have adequate words attached to it.

I kissed him back and let the rest of it go quiet.

My wolf settled the way she always did around them.

It was one of the things I loved most about Mason and Jason. That particular stillness they brought to something in me that ran restless most of the time. I never said it out loud to either of them but it was true without exception every single day I spent in that house.

He pulled back slowly.

His eyes moved over my face in that particular way Jason looked at things when he was actually reading them. Not just seeing. Reading.

There was always a difference and Jason never took the easy one.

"Your eyes look pale." He did not pull away. Still close, still watching. "Are you okay, Celeste?"

"I'm fine." I said it quickly. Too quickly. I knew it the moment it came out.

"Celeste." The way he said my name carried no reprimand in it at all. Just something quiet and patient. Somehow that made it harder to push back against.

"I said I'm fine." I reached up and kissed him again before he could push any further, softer this time, trying to close the conversation before it got a chance to open.

He returned it.

His hands stayed at my waist, warm and steady, and for one full moment I was certain I redirected the whole thing somewhere safer.

Then he stopped.

Not all the way back. Just enough.

His forehead stayed close to mine and for a moment neither of us moved. When he spoke his voice was low and completely even with nothing uncertain anywhere in it.

"I'm your mate, Celeste." His eyes held mine and there was no give in them at all.

"I know when you're lying to me."