Playlist: Run the World - Beyonce
"Alright! Fine," she groaned, throwing her hands up dramatically. "I left the Blood Moon Ceremony for a smoke in the woods. Don't look at me like that, you're not my mom. Anyway, I was out there, was ambushed. Prince Bloodsucker shows up and saves me."
She rolled her eyes at the memory. "It was embarrassing. I'm supposed to be better than that. I train. I didn't tell my father because… well, he'd freak out and then everyone would find out their future leader is nothing but a wimp."
Kyllian stared at her. "So it was the same rogues Prince Damien killed?"
She gave a reluctant nod.
Kyllian folded his arms. "If Prince Damien is right about the rogue vampires, we do have a lot to prepare for. We need all the manpower we can get."
Luna narrowed her eyes in reaction to his word choice.
He raised a brow. "Including princess power." His smirk returned, infuriating and smug.
Luna growled. "Are you always this infuriating?"
"I have my moments," he said brightly. "But I seem to shine around you."
That did it. She chuckled. An actual, unforced laugh. It was small, but it cracked through her icy exterior. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't entirely unbearable. Maybe he would make a decent husband after all, not that she was saying that aloud.
But then she glanced up.
Prince Damien stood across the yard, arms crossed, shadows clinging to his shoulders. His eyes were locked on them, full of rage.
Luna sighed, the amusement draining from her. "Oh Moon Goddess," she muttered under her breath, "help my destiny."
*****
Luna made her way down the long corridor. She was headed to her chambers, her mind swirling with too many thoughts. All she wanted was a hot bath, a clean dress, and maybe to scream into her pillow for a few hours.
A strong arm yanked her into a shadowed alcove, and survival instincts kicked in. She gasped and swung her fist up. But before her punch could land, it was caught mid-air.
He had her arms twisted behind her in a split second, caging her body with his, holding her firmly against the cold stone wall.
"Are you trying to test me?" he asked. His eyes flicked down before he could help it—drawn to the curve of her chest pushed upward from the position he had her in. Her heart pounded in her chest, both from the fight and from the bond now humming between them.
"I wouldn't waste the effort," she snapped, lifting her chin with defiance, even as her body betrayed her—tingling where he touched her, her knees feeling suddenly less dependable.
"Do you think I'm just going to let you marry that mutt?"
Luna's eyes narrowed. "Let me?" She was insulted and amused all at once. "Oh please. You don't own me. You don't let me do anything. Let. Me. Go."
But instead of releasing her, his grip tightened, possessively.
"You're going to tell your father that we're mates," he said. "Or I will. Either way, he will know."
Then he leaned in closer, and Luna felt the sharp contrast of his cold breath against the burning heat of her neck. It made her shiver. Her eyes fluttered closed involuntarily for half a second, cursed by how intoxicating his presence was.
"If that mutt so much as touches you," Damien whispered against her skin, "I will rip his heart out… and eat it."
Luna blinked, then deadpanned, "You really need to start attending those anger management sessions."
Damien didn't even smile.
His hands trembled slightly where he held her. The closer he got, the more the rational part of his brain fizzled out, leaving only instinct, desire, and the pulse of their bond.
Luna swallowed hard. She hated how good he smelled. She hated the way his nearness made her knees threaten betrayal. Most of all, she hated how right it felt.
But she couldn't let herself get pulled in.
Without thinking—without weighing consequences or caring that they were hidden in a corridor—Damien kissed her.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was the kind that made time collapse in on itself, where logic abandoned ship, and the world narrowed down to lips, breath, and unspoken hunger. Maybe, just maybe, if she felt what he felt, she'd stop pretending. Maybe if he poured every unsaid word into the kiss, she'd finally see—they were meant to be.
Luna should've shoved him. Maybe slapped him. But instead, her body betrayed her in the most cliché way possible: she melted into the kiss. And oh no—not the ovaries. Her traitorous reproductive system threw up confetti and started humming wedding bells before her brain could file a complaint.
His hands, strong and cold, brushed her waist as though he could memorize the shape of her. That single touch unarmed her better than any silver blade. Her resistance was non-existent. Her thoughts were useless. Her dignity was currently on vacation.
She sighed into the kiss. She didn't even realize when he released her wrists, and her hands instinctively found their way around his neck, tangling in his silky black hair. His mouth moved against hers with the confidence of someone who had waited centuries to do this.
Despite the vampire chill of his skin, she was burning up. Luna's knees wobbled. She gripped tighter. Her heartbeat was drumming in her ears.
Damien was losing himself. He wanted to end this charade—the hiding, the sneaking, the agonizing restraint. He was a prince, damn it. If something belonged to him, he took it. No tiptoeing around glorified werewolf abs. No pretending he was okay watching her get paraded around.
She was his. Written in the stars, and currently melting in his arms. If she wouldn't declare it, then he would shout it from the throne room steps.
The little moan she let out when he deepened the kiss? Holy bloodlust.
It might've been the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. His self-control, already walking a tightrope, took one look at that sound and leapt gleefully off the edge.