Chapter 15
LUNA
The suns are merciful for once, their heat softened by gauzy clouds stretched thin across the pale blue sky.
The shallow canyon pools shimmer below us, blue-green and glassy, broken only by ripples where the wind stirs.
The cliffs glow like burnished copper, and the air smells faintly of mineral water and the sweet desert blooms clinging to the rocks.
For the first time in months, maybe years, Wildwood doesn’t feel like a cage. It feels like escape.
Solie squeals when Kraj hoists her onto his shoulders, her little fingers gripping the ridges of his horns like reins. “Higher, higher!” she cries, her laughter ringing so bright it makes my chest ache.
He chuckles, that low rumble that always vibrates through my bones. “Any higher, little firefly, and you’ll bump the moons themselves.”
She leans forward, stretching her arms out like wings. “I want to touch the moons!”
“Then you’ll need to grow a little taller.” He winks up at her, and she collapses into giggles, her hair flying around her face in golden strands.
I trail behind them, basket on my hip, trying not to stare. But it’s useless. My eyes keep drifting to them—the child balanced on her father’s shoulders, though she doesn’t know it, and the warrior who carries her like she’s more precious than any weapon he’s ever held.
It’s dangerous, how natural it looks. How easy it feels.
The pools come into view, ringed with reeds and stones worn smooth by centuries of trickling streams. Solie wriggles down from his shoulders and dashes toward the water.
“Wait for me!” Kraj calls, striding after her with a speed that makes me smile despite myself. He crouches by the bank, plucking up a flat stone.
“Watch closely,” he tells her. He flicks his wrist, claws glinting, and the stone skips once, twice, three times before sinking.
Solie gasps, clapping her hands. “Do it again!”
“Your turn,” he says, handing her a pebble. His claws fold delicately around her tiny fingers, guiding the throw. The rock sails forward—plunk—straight into the water, spraying both of them.
She squeals with delight, pointing. “You cheated! You made it splash on purpose!”
“Me?” He presses a hand to his chest, mock offended. “Never.”
I sink down onto a sun-warmed rock, resting the basket beside me. The stone radiates heat through my clothes, grounding me. Watching them, a tight ache builds in my chest, a mix of joy and grief. Joy for what’s here, grief for what was stolen from us. Maybe this is what we should’ve had all along.
Kraj ruffles Solie’s hair. “Try again. This time—more wrist.”
She nods, tongue poking out in concentration. The pebble bounces once before sinking. She jumps up and down. “Did you see? It skipped!”
“You’re a natural,” he says softly.
We eat by the pool’s edge, spreading a blanket over the rocks. The fruit is sticky and sweet, juice dripping down our chins, while the fried root slices crunch with salt. Solie babbles between bites, reliving her “big throw” with all the dramatics of a bard.
“And then—it went so far—all the way to the other side!” she declares.
“Farther than the moons,” Kraj agrees solemnly, playing along.
She narrows her eyes, suspicious. “You’re teasing me.”
“Maybe,” he admits, his grin flashing.
I laugh, wiping juice from her cheek with my thumb. Her eyes sparkle in the canyon light, that impossible golden hue that mirrors his.
Eventually, the food is gone, and so is her energy. She curls in my lap, head heavy against my stomach, little breaths warm through my tunic. I stroke her hair, watching her lashes flutter closed, her mouth slacken in sleep.
Kraj leans back on his elbows, gaze lingering on her face. Something raw flickers in his eyes, gone before I can name it.
When she’s fully asleep, he rises and bends toward me. “Here,” he murmurs. His arms are steady, his claws tucked carefully as he lifts her from me. She doesn’t stir, only sighs and burrows into his chest.
I follow as he carries her to the skimmer. The canyon is hushed now, the air cooling, shadows stretching long. He tucks her into the back seat with a gentleness that tears at me, arranging her blanket, brushing her hair from her forehead.
And then—it’s just us.
The silence presses in. I lean against the skimmer, arms crossed, heart pounding too fast. He straightens, turns to me, his outline haloed by the last light spilling down the cliffs.
“I’m scared,” I whisper. The words scrape out, raw and fragile. “I don’t know how to protect you both.”
He steps closer, the warmth of him wrapping around me before his hands do. His claw brushes my hair back from my cheek, careful, reverent.
“Then let me protect you,” he says. His voice is rough, but his eyes—his eyes are fierce, molten gold burning into me.
I look up, breath catching, and for the first time in too long, I let myself believe him.
The canyon air cools as the suns slip fully behind the cliffs, shadows stretching long until the world is painted silver-blue. The pools glimmer faintly, reflecting Arkosh’s twin moons, one pale as bone, the other stained red like a drop of blood on silk.
We’re alone now—truly alone. Solie sleeps sound in the skimmer, wrapped in her blanket, her breaths even and steady. I stand by the water’s edge, the breeze tugging at my hair, and feel him come up behind me. His heat rolls over my back before his touch does.
“Luna,” he murmurs, my name catching low in his throat.
I turn, and the way he looks at me nearly undoes me—like I’m something holy, something precious, not the broken thing I know I am. His claws hover at my cheek before he finally cups it, thumb tracing the edge of my jaw. My breath stutters.
I don’t think. I just rise onto my toes and kiss him.
The first brush of his mouth is slow, testing, almost reverent. Then hunger surges, and I open to him, our tongues tangling, his growl vibrating through me. My hands fist in his jacket, tugging him closer, closer, until there’s no space left between us.
We sink together onto the blanket by the water. The canyon smells of damp stone and wild sage, but all I can taste is him—smoke, spice, heat. My body arches into his, every nerve lit.
“Say it,” he growls softly against my throat, his teeth grazing my skin.
“What?” My voice breaks on a gasp as his hands roam, clawed tips grazing without ever cutting.
“That you want this.” His lips trail down my collarbone, each word hot against me. “That you want me.”
“I do,” I whisper, then louder, firmer, desperate. “I do. I always did.”
He groans, the sound raw, and then he’s kissing me again, fiercer now, as though he’s been starving for years. Maybe he has. I know I have.
We shed everything that separates us—layers of clothes, layers of fear, layers of the past. The night air bites at my bare skin, but his body covers mine, a furnace of heat, scales rough and smooth in turns. He moves over me like a prayer, like he’s asking and demanding all at once.
Our bodies find a rhythm, the canyon echoing with our breaths, our moans, the faint slap of skin against skin. Stars blur above me, sharp points of light swimming as pleasure builds.
“Luna,” he rasps, my name like worship on his tongue.
I clutch him closer, nails biting his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” I gasp. “Don’t ever stop.”
When release takes me, it rips through every barrier I’ve built, tearing me open until I can’t hold anything back. He follows, roaring low, his whole body shuddering as though the force of it is too much even for him.
Afterward, we collapse together, tangled in heat and sweat, the blanket beneath us damp with dew. My head rests in the crook of his arm, his heartbeat thundering under my ear. His claws trace idle patterns on my skin, tender, unthinking.
For a long while, neither of us speaks. The silence isn’t empty—it’s full, rich with the weight of what just happened.
I murmur, “This time… it wasn’t about the past.”
He shifts, looking down at me, eyes glowing like twin suns. “No,” he agrees. “It’s about now.”
I swallow hard, throat tight. “Then let it be enough.”
“It is.” He kisses my forehead, his lips lingering. “You are.”
The urge to tell him everything rises, sharp and insistent. To confess the truth about Solie, about her eyes, her scales, her blood. To rip open the secret festering in my chest and give it to him, let him decide what to do with it.
My mouth opens. The words gather.
But then he tightens his arm around me, pulling me close, his breath warm against my hair. “Sleep,” he whispers. “For once, sleep without fear.”
And I can’t. I can’t ruin this. Not yet.
So I shut my mouth, bury my face against his chest, and let myself believe in the lie of peace. Just for tonight. One more night of pretending we’re whole.
Because I don’t know yet that the storm is already moving in behind us.