FAKING LUNA

Chapter Four

The Nightwalker compound in the bright morning sun looked like a luxury prison doing its best impression of a five-star resort.

Daphne stood on the top-floor landing in borrowed sweatpants and one of Nikolai’s black T-shirts (because apparently no one in this house owned women’s clothing), barefoot, hair still damp from the quickest shower of her life, clutching a mug of coffee that cost more than she was comfortable with saying.

She had picked the bedroom directly across from Nikolai’s. Not next to it, but the one across the hall.

Close enough to annoy him but far enough that he couldn’t complain that she was invading his space.

Was it petty? Absolutely. Did she enjoy doing it? Of course she did. After all she wasn't planning on spending the next 362 days wallowing in silence while she forced a smile on for the press.

The hallway was ridiculously long, with oil paintings of dead Alphas lining the walls, and a carpet runner so thick her feet disappeared into it.

She took a sip of coffee and sighed happily. At the very least, even though she was now technically mated to that horribly cold wolf she now had access to very good caffeine.

And just when she thought nothing could bring down her morning, sudden footsteps echoed behind her. Fast, light, and heading straight for her like a heat-seeking missile.

Daphne turned just in time to see a tiny blur of blonde hair and designer pajamas launch itself at her midsection.

“LUNA!” the blur shrieked.

Daphne barely got the mug out of the way before she was tackled in a hug that nearly took her off her feet.

A teenage girl that looked sixteen, maybe seventeen, with Nikolai’s storm-gray eyes and a bubbly smile was squeezing her like they were long-lost sisters.

“You’re real!” the girl squealed. “I thought they were lying on the group chat! Oh my goddess, you’re so pretty! And you smell like Nikolai! Did you mark each other already? Wait, no, you couldn't have, the bond isn’t snapped yet, I would feel it—”

Daphne blinked down at the top of the blonde head currently buried in her stolen T-shirt.

“Uh,” she said unintelligently, not really knowing what to make of the situation. After all she didn't know who this girl was.

The blonde pulled back but kept both hands on Daphne’s arms like she was afraid she’d vanish if she let her go of even one second.

“I’m Luna!” she announced. “Well, technically my name is Lunetta, but everyone calls me Luna. I’m Nikolai’s little sister and you just became my new favorite person in the entire world!”

Daphne opened her mouth. Closed it. Tried again. Bur nothing came out.

“Hi…?”

Luna Nightwalker was vibrating with excitement. “The entire pack is losing their minds downstairs! They heard Nikolai brought a female home at dawn and she broke his nose and he dropped all charges and then carried her through the foyer like some kind of gothic romance novel! There are already seventeen TikToks! Seventeen!”

She whipped out her phone and shoved it in Daphne’s face.

The top video was titled “Alpha Nikolai’s Mystery Girl – full footage” and had 1.2 million views in three hours.

It was grainy cell-phone footage from the club that showed Daphne head-butting Nikolai, him bleeding, her flipping him off, and finally cut off just after he dragged her out of the alley in cuffs.

The comments were a war zone.

user1: she’s a QUEEN

user2: he’s bleeding and still looking at her like he wants to eat her soul

user3: fake dating trope irl I’m deceased

user4: she’s rogue?? the council is gonna lose their minds

Daphne felt her eye twitch.

Luna was still talking a mile a minute. “So obviously we need to do damage control before the Council hears about it, but also this is the most exciting thing that’s happened since Nikolai punched that vampire prince in Monaco, so I’m not even sorry—”

“Luna,” a deep voice growled from the staircase.

Nikolai appeared at the top of the stairs looking like he’d aged ten years in the last three hours. He was freshly showered, hair still damp, wearing a black Henley that clung to places Daphne refused to look at and gray sweatpants that hugged this tighs a little too well.

He looked exhausted and furious, and unfairly hot.

Fuck, didn't Daphne just love to hate him.

Luna beamed up at her brother. “Nik! I found her! She’s perfect! Can we keep her?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Too late, I already love her.” She squealed, hugging Daphne close to her again.

Nikolai pinched the bridge of his nose (the same spot Daphne had broken four hours ago). It was slightly swollen and purple now.

“Daphne,” he said, voice clipped. “Kitchen. Now.”

“Wow, romantic,” Daphne drawled. “Do you talk to all your fake mates like that, or am I special?”

Luna’s eyes went comically wide. “Fake? What do you mean fak-?!”

Nikolai moved faster than light. One second he was five feet away, the next his hand was over Luna’s mouth and he was steering her bodily down the hall.

“School,” he said. “You have school. Go. Now.”

Luna’s muffled protest was loud enough to wake the dead.

He shoved her into what was apparently her bedroom and slammed the door. Then leaned against it like he was holding back a hurricane.

Daphne sipped her coffee and waited for him to calm down. When he turned back to look at her, his eyes were glowing faintly.

“Kitchen,” he repeated. “It hasnt even been a day and we already have a problem.”

With industrial stainless steel, three ovens and a fridge big enough to hide a body, the kitchen was the size of a small airplane hangar. Currently, it was packed with twenty high-ranking pack members pretending very hard not to stare at the rogue in their Alpha’s T-shirt.

Nikolai didn’t bother with introductions. Just grabbed her elbow and marched her through the gauntlet of stares to a corner breakfast nook that overlooked the snow-dusted gardens.

He shoved a tablet across the marble table towards Daphne who picked it up and looked over it.

Her stomach dropped through the floor. On the screen was an official Council letterhead, but unlike the last, this one was addressed directly to Nikolai.

**URGENT SUMMONS**

Alpha Nikolai Aleksandr Nightwalker is hereby ordered to present his chosen Luna for formal inspection and bonding verification at the Full Moon Conclave, thirty (30) days from receipt of this notice.

Failure to comply will result in immediate forfeiture of pack leadership.

The Conclave will be held at the ancestral seat in Yellowstone. All Alphas continent-wide will attend where it will be broadcasted live to all packs.

Daphne read it twice before looking up at Nikolai.

“Thirty days?!” she hissed. “You said we had a year!”

“We did,” he said through his teeth. “They moved the deadline for everyone this morning.”

“Why?”

“Because someone leaked the video of last night. The Council thinks I’ve already chosen a mate and they want to force my hand before I ‘change my mind.’”

Daphne felt the blood drain from her face. It seemed Luna’s t****k had done its job too well.

She set the her coffee down carefully as she took in a deep breathe to calm herself. “So let me get this straight,” she said slowly. “In thirty days, I have to stand in front of every Alpha in North America, pretend to be your devoted Luna, convince a panel of ancient psychos that we’re madly in love, and if we fail, you lose your pack and I lose half a billion dollars.”

Nikolai’s jaw was so tight she was surprised his teeth didn’t shatter. “Yes.”

She stared at him long and hard before she burst into a full-on, head-thrown-back, borderline hysterical cackle that echoed off the stainless steel and made every wolf in the kitchen flinch.

Nikolai waited until she wound down to wheezing before he even bothered speaking.

“Finished?” he rolled eyes with a huff.

“No,” she gasped, wiping her eyes. “This is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I’m sooo glad you’re amused.”

“Oh, I’m delighted.” She leaned forward. “You realize this is impossible, right? Thirty days to turn enemies into the greatest love story since Romeo and Juliet? With a rogue who literally broke your face last night?”

He didn’t blink. “We don’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice. And right now mine is to run away and change my name to Brittany."

“You signed a blood contract.”

“Blood contracts can be broken.”

“Not this one.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He hesitated. For the first time since Daphne had met him, he looked like he was actually troubled.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a second letter, this one was much smaller than the letter addressed to Nikolai. He slid it across the table to her and Daphne quickly opened it.

The handwriting was old-fashioned, spidery, and reeked of dark magic.

**Little rogue,**

Word travels very fast, but trust the council to move faster. You now carry the future of the Nightwalker pack in your pretty, treacherous hands. Fail, and the forfeiture clause activates at midnight on day thirty-one.

Not just the pack.

Your life. His life and the lives of every wolf who calls him Alpha.

The contract you signed was not with Nikolai alone but with the land and bloodline too.

There is no running.

Choose wisely.

That was the end of the lettter. No signature. Just a single black feather sealed in wax.

Daphne felt the world tilt on it's axis.

She looked up at Nikolai whose face as girm. “The land accepted the contract the second we bled on it. If we break it - if either of us walks away before the year is up - every Nightwalker wolf dies."

Daphne’s coffee suddenly became unbearable bitter.

“You didn’t tell me that part.”

“I didn’t know until an hour ago.”

She stared at the feather. At the letter. At the man across from her who suddenly looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Then she did the only thing she could think of. She picked up the letter, tore it into tiny pieces, and ate it up.

Nikolai watched her chew and swallow with something close to horror drawn all over his face.

“There,” she said, voice slightly hoarse. “Now it’s my problem too.”

He opened his mouth but no words came out because what the actual f**k was that?!

“You’re insane.”

“Takes one to know one.” She stood up, brushing crumbs off her borrowed shirt. “Fine. Thirty days. We'll manage to sell the greatest love story in werewolf history, or we all die horribly."

She started for the door, then paused.

“Oh, and Nikolai?”

He looked up, a little scared of whatever was going to come out of her mouth now.

She smiled, slow and dangerous. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way. No half-assing. No brooding. No locking me out of plans. You want a Luna? Congratulations. You just got the most terrifying one on the continent.”

She walked out, hips swaying, leaving the alpha standing there in open mouthed shock. He placed his ahnf over his chest, contemplating ever life choice that led him to this crazy woman he was now mated to. “Goddess help us all.”

In the kitchen, twenty high-ranking wolves pretended they hadn’t heard a thing, but every single one of them was already terrified of the rogue who’d just technically declared war on the entire Council.