18. CHAPTER 18
MOON
“You’re limping,” Mikhail said.
“You’re staring.”
“Hard not to.” His voice dropped. “You look like Cillian fucked every last shred of control out of you.”
My hand closed around the cold metal rail. “Say that again, Lovchy, and I’ll make him mourn you.”
Mikhail took one look behind him. Then a small, sharp smile. “Yeah. I see the problem now.”
We kept moving.
Damp stone and rot filled the passage. Black wood panels pressed in tight. Cold air slipped under my clothes and raised goosebumps on my skin. No lamps after the first turn. From deeper inside Thorn came laughter, then the crash of glass. Animals in heirloom rings.
I counted gargoyles and weeping angels. Anything was safer than counting how many steps it would take to run straight back into Cillian’s room.
My phone buzzed. I yanked it out. The screen lit up in the dark.
SAINT LUCIA REGRET:
Tell me when you’re back.
My thumb hovered. Answer. Delete. End this now.
Aster ahead. Cillian behind. Simple fucking geography. Mikhail slowed at a small landing. The teasing vanished from his voice.
“Don’t hurt him.”
I planted my hands on my hips. “Excuse me?”
“Cillian.”
“He has a Blood Writ on me,” I said.
Mikhail turned fully. No smirk. “He’ll let you hurt him. That doesn’t mean you get to.”
My fingers crushed the rail.
“Your friend chose his games,” I said.
“No. He chose you. That’s the problem.”
“Then correct him.”
“I’ve been trying since he was fifteen,” Mikhail said. “He’s unpleasantly committed to his defects.”
He stepped closer. The passage shrank. “Cill doesn’t do halfway. And he’s already decided that you are his.”
“I am not his.”
“I didn’t say you were. I said he decided.”
My body still remembered every brutal thrust, every filthy word, how I'd come twice untouched. Fucking hell. “That is his failing,” I said.
“Maybe.” Mikhail stayed low. “But people are noticing. You. Cillian. Me smuggling you through Thorn after midnight. That becomes leverage fast.”
I gave him a flat, bored look. “How adorable. Mikhail Lovchy playing protector. Does it get you hard?”
“I’m not worried about danger. I’m worried about idiots turning academy games into mafia business.”
“Whatever.” I waved him off and walked ahead of him.
Mikhail fell in beside me.
Neither of us spoke. There was nothing left to say.
There was no future where Cillian and I rode off into some happily-ever-after. We came from opposite worlds. He didn’t grasp optics. He was the one with the problem. Mine was completely under control.
We stepped out of the passage into the cold night air. Rain-slick gravel. Black trees pressing close on both sides. The old woods path stretched ahead. Aster was so close.
Mikhail stopped dead. His hand locked around my sleeve, iron-hard.
“Run.”
He shoved me hard toward Briar House.
I ran.
Gravel tore under my shoes. Pulse hammered. Rain whipped my eyes. Heavier footsteps crashed behind me.
Scuffle. A grunt. Someone hit the ground. Then something slammed into me.
My knees smashed wet stone. Palms ripped open. Cheek cracked against gravel, flooding my mouth with blood.
His full weight crushed me. Knee grinding between my shoulder blades. Hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back viciously. Cold blade pressed to my throat.
All I heard was his heavy breathing against my ear. Rain dripping from his hair onto my face. Pure violence.
He twisted the knife. Blood trickled hot down my neck. I twisted, elbow driving back. He absorbed it like nothing, then slammed my face harder into the gravel. Stars exploded behind my eyes.
Thorn doors burst open. Drunk voices spilled out. They’re all watching. Do they know I was here? With him. Shame burned hotter than the gravel cutting into my cheek.
“Fight! Fight!”
Recognition hit the crowd hard.
“Wait. Is that Aster?”
“That’s Hyun-seo.”
“What the fuck is Aster doing here?”
Declan hauled me up by the hoodie like a trophy. Turned me toward the roaring crowd.
“Found this Aster cunt running through our woods,” he bellowed. “With a Writ on his head. Thought we could do whatever the fuck we wanted.”
Low whistles. Ugly laughter.
“Strip the pretty prince!”
“Make him kneel!”
“Crawl, Aster bitch!”
A fist slammed into my ribs. Pain exploded. I doubled over, gasping. Another hand shoved me down hard. My knees hit the wet stone again. Gravel bit deep.
My eyes found Cillian before pride could stop them. He stood on the steps, rain plastering his hair, body coiled like a loaded gun. Face pure murderous. One step forward, Aleksei’s hand locked on his arm. Cillian looked ready to rip it off and paint the stones red.
Please. The word tore through me, raw and humiliating. Cillian. Help me. I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed with you.
Aleksei leaned in close. I couldn’t hear the words, but I saw them land.
Don’t.
Cillian’s hand flexed at his side. Fresh blood on his knuckles. Old violence meeting new restraint. He stared at Carrick’s grip on my neck.
Mikhail shoved through the bodies toward them, breathless, sleeve bloody. I caught the flash of his mouth moving. Couldn’t hear. Didn’t need to. Cillian’s expression fractured further.
“Enough,” Aleksei said, stepping forward. The crowd quieted.
Carrick’s smile sharpened. “This doesn’t concern you, Lovchy.”
Aleksei’s eyes went flat. Russian ice against Irish fire. He stepped closer until the two of them were almost chest to chest, the air between them ready to explode.
“Everything that embarrasses Thorn concerns me,” Aleksei said, the faint Russian accent sharpening the edges. “Especially when some hot-headed Irish bastard decides to start a war with Aster over a hallway tantrum.”
Carrick’s grin turned feral. “You gonna cry to my father, Lovchy? Or are you finally growing a pair and handling this yourself?”
Aleksei looked at Carrick’s hand on my collar. “Remove it.”
“Or?”
“Or I let your brother explain why Carrick lost standing tonight. Again.”
The silence stretched. Carrick’s fingers tightened for one dangerous second, then dropped. Aleksei pulled me up, grip efficient and impersonal, turning to face the gathered Thorn students with the calm of a man who owned the room by right.
“Thorn is not feared because it bites anything that moves,” Aleksei said, his voice carrying clearly across the drive. “Dogs do that. Thorn is feared because it chooses where to put its teeth. Tonight, we choose not to embarrass ourselves over an Aster trespasser.”
No one argued. The laughter died. Carrick’s face twisted with something ugly and promising, but he stepped back. Aleksei didn’t release my arm as he walked me down the drive, back toward Aster Court. My knees burned. My palms stung. The split in my lip kept bleeding. My hands shook.
“It is a dangerous game,” Aleksei murmured once the lights of Thorn had faded behind us, “what you and Cillian are playing.”
“There is no game.”
“Then you are even more foolish than I thought.” He glanced sideways, rain flattening his light hair. “Stay away from him. Not because I care who he fucks. Because Carrick saw enough to start guessing. Men like him don’t need truth. They need pressure.”
My chest felt too tight. Every step pulled at the raw ache between my legs.
I had begged Cillian Ashbourne to fuck me.
They saw me leaving Thorn Court. By tomorrow the Gallery would explode. Father would look at me with nothing but contempt. Aster would cut me loose. Goodbye Patronage Seat. Everyone would say I was owned by the Irish mafia. Corrupt. Weak.
I can’t do this anymore.
But Cillian looked at me like there was nothing wrong with me. Like every disgusting piece of me was worth worshipping. Especially the parts my father spent years beating out of me. Even when I dismissed him, when I was cold and performatively indifferent, he never tried to hurt me back.
Does that mean I’m being manipulated? I don’t believe he used the Writ on me. I don’t. But the doubt won’t leave. It’s been rotting in my head since Saint Lucia. Because for once I felt seen.
Fuck. There’s no way I can see him now. But I want to. God help me, I want to. I can’t.
My voice came out thin. I hated it. “Yeah. I get it.”
At the Aster steps I stopped, turning before he could leave. Blood, mine, or someone else’s, marked his cuff. “Aleksei.”
He stopped.
“Thank you.”
Aleksei studied me, expression unreadable. “Go be with your own now.”
My own.
The words should have settled something. They didn’t. The doors shut behind me with a soft, final click. Blood dripped onto marble. One slow drop. Then another. My split lip throbbed. My palms burned. My knees shook. The silence hurt worse.
My mind reached for him, anyway. He made me feel seen before I was ready. Safe before I’d earned it. And stupid enough to want more.
My feet stopped before the stairs. I had already calculated the fastest route back through the rain.
I pulled out my phone again. It was blowing up. Message after message from Cillian lighting up the screen.
SAINT LUCIA REGRET:
Are you hurt?
Declan’s fucking dead when I find him.
I’m coming to Aster.
Moonshine, please pick up the phone.
Tell me where you are.
Please.
Missed calls. Another one vibrating hard against my palm right now.
My hand shook so badly I almost dropped the fucking thing. I answered on pure instinct, pressed it to my ear, heard his wrecked voice growl.
“Moon—”
and hung up like it hurt me. Tears welled hot in my eyes. Fuck. Fuck.
I started typing with shaking fingers.
Goodbye.
Stared at it. Deleted it. Typed it again.
Goodbye.
Sent.
Then I blocked his number. Deleted him completely. My thumb hovered over the chat. His stupid Korean practice. The proof I let him in. I deleted the entire thread, blocking the only person who ever made me stop performing while my chest cracked open.
Aleksei’s warning slammed back into me.
Stay away from him.
The only place my body ever stopped bracing was in his arms. That wasn’t real. The second anyone looked too closely, he would choose me in the most public, most catastrophic way possible and drag both our names through the fire.
I needed to wake the fuck up.
I locked the phone. The screen went black. No more late night texts. No more sneaking around. No more Cillian.
A tear slipped down my cheek. Fuck. Why am I crying. Blood crusted under my nails. His name burned behind my teeth.
I opened my bedroom door. Aster’s dead quiet closed around me. Then I went inside alone and locked the door before I could run back.