Chapter 27
Chapter twenty-seven
Luna
Ihear him before I see him. Four quick tones as he disarms the security system, followed by the soft click of the lock disengaging and the whisper of the back door opening.
Each sound feels amplified in the silence of my house, echoing the thunderous beating of my heart.
I’ve been sitting here for hours, waiting, my body coiled tight as a spring.
Shadow stirs at my feet, sitting up at the approaching footsteps.
This is it. The moment everything changes.
My hands shake as I grip the throw pillow in my lap. I’ve rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in my head, but now that he’s here, now that I can hear his boots against my hardwood floor, every practiced word evaporates.
He appears in the archway between the hall and the living room, silent, imposing, and with that damn wolf mask covering his face.
But tonight, everything is different. I've turned on all the lights in the living room. I won't let him hide behind shadows. Tonight, the mask doesn’t represent mystery or forbidden desire. Tonight, it’s a lie.
A barrier. A fucking insult to everything I thought we had.
“Take. It. Off.”
The words leave my mouth before he can speak, and some distant part of me registers surprise at how steady my voice sounds when everything inside me is screaming.
He stops mid-stride. Every muscle in his body locks into place, tension radiating from him in waves I can feel across the space between us. His shock pulses through the air, tangible even behind the silver barrier hiding his face.
“That’s not how this works, Luna.”
“It is tonight.”
I push myself up from the couch, my movements deliberate despite the earthquake in my bones. My legs shake with the effort of supporting my weight, but I lock my knees and refuse to show weakness. The pillow tumbles to the floor.
“Take it off or leave. Those are your only options.”
Shadow rises with me, a low growl rumbling in his chest, sensing the electrical charge of tension crackling between us. I cross my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together.
“No more games, Damien. No more lies.”
His name hangs in the air like a dropped bomb. For a moment that stretches into eternity, he doesn’t move. He just stands there, this powerful, intimidating figure reduced to stillness by his own name.
One hand lifts halfway toward the mask, then drops back to his side.
“Luna—”
“No.” The word slices between us. “You don’t get to ‘Luna’ me right now. You don’t get to use that voice—whichever voice you’ve decided to use tonight—and expect me to just melt and forget. Take it off, Damien. Or get out.”
His fingers twitch. The mask catches light from the fire, colors bleeding across the smooth surface, turning it into something beautiful and unbearable all at once.
“If I do this, there’s no going back.”
“There was no going back the moment I recognized your kiss.” My throat tightens, but I force the words out. “So stop hiding behind that fucking mask and let me see you.”
With deliberate slowness that makes my pulse spike, he reaches up with both hands and pulls the mask away.
My breath catches despite knowing exactly what I’ll see.
Even with the truth burning in my chest, seeing his face, Damien’s face, in this context, in my living room where my masked lover has stood so many times before, feels surreal.
The sharp planes of his cheekbones, the intensity of those dark eyes, and the mouth that I’ve kissed. It’s him. It’s been him all along.
A sob crawls up my throat. I’ve been such a fool.
“How could I have been so stupid?” The words I've been asking myself all day tear out of me, raw and bitter. I turn away from him, unable to look at that familiar face any longer. “I bet you got a good laugh out of that, didn’t you? Fool your gullible little doe. As long as I don’t show her my face or body or kiss her on the mouth, she’ll never figure it out. ”
He moves behind me, his boots scraping on the hardwood.
“That’s not true.” His voice is rough. Real now, without the gravelly disguise he’s been using for months. “Don’t you ever fucking call yourself stupid, Luna. You’re the smartest woman I know.”
“Ha!” The laugh that escapes me is harsh and ugly. It doesn’t sound like me at all. I spin to face him, my hair whipping across my shoulders. “Smart? Really? Because I feel like the world’s biggest idiot right now.”
His expression shifts, a flash of rage, or maybe anguish. I can’t read it, and I’m past caring. I pace because standing still isn’t an option. The energy crackling through my body has to go somewhere.
“When did you realize the truth? I know it wasn’t last night. Not really.”
“I’ve thought I was losing my mind for weeks… months.” I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces of my shattered world together. “There were so many similarities, so many coincidences. These moments of déjà vu that were too absurd to even contemplate.”
I resume my pacing, moving from the couch to the window and back again, my sock-clad feet silent on the floor. Shadow paces with me, keeping himself between me and Damien.
“But I kept telling myself I was crazy, that it was impossible.” My throat tightens. “I was so foolish. I feel like Lois Lane, too blind and too wrapped up in my own denial to see that Clark Kent was Superman. So stupid.”
“I said, don’t fucking call yourself that.” His voice cracks like a whip, and Shadow’s ears go flat, another growl rumbling deep in his chest.
The demanding edge in Damien’s tone would have melted me before. Now it just makes my blood boil.
“Why not? It’s true.” I turn away from him again, facing the darkened window where my reflection stares back at me—wild-haired, red-eyed, and broken. “I wanted you to be the same person. I ached for it. I berated myself for wanting it. Felt guilty for even thinking it.”
“Luna—”
“That kiss.” I cut him off as I spin back to face him. Tears threaten, but I refuse to let them fall. Not yet. “That’s all it took. The kiss you’ve been denying me for months. One touch of your lips, and everything fell into place.”
“Luna—”
“No! Shut up.”
His jaw tightens, and he takes a step toward me, but I hold up my hand like a shield.
“Why did you do this to me?” Months of confusion and pain explode out of me. “Why the charade? Why couldn’t you just…” My breath hitches. “Why couldn’t you be yourself with me from the beginning?”
He moves to my side table and sets the mask down, shrugging out of his leather jacket. He rakes his hands through those silver streaks at his temples, the ones I ache to grip.
“It’s complicated.”
I said the same thing to him a week ago. It carries the same hollow weight now as it did then.
“Bullshit.”
I move closer, stepping into his space until I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. Heat radiates off his body, but I refuse to let it distract me.
“You made me fall in love with two different men, you bastard. Do you have any idea what that’s done to me?
” My voice cracks, but I push through. “The guilt I felt? I thought I was some kind of bitch, some kind of slut for having feelings for Damien, for letting him pursue me, kiss me, while my wolf was—”
The words catch in my throat as the full weight of his deception crashes over me. The intimate moments, the whispered confessions in the dark, the way I’d felt torn between two desires that were actually the same man playing games with my heart.
My stomach revolts.
“Oh, God.” My hand clamps over my mouth. I stumble backward, my ass hitting the couch. The room tilts and spins. Bile burns the back of my throat. “I’m going to throw up.”
“You’re not a slut.” His voice comes out soft but edged with steel. He steps toward me. “I’m growing weary of telling you not to say that kind of shit about yourself. I’m the monster here, and we both know it. You’re perfect. Everything I never knew I needed.”
“Don’t.” I jerk backward, keeping a space between us. “Don’t you dare try to charm your way out of this. I’ve had enough of your silver tongue, Damien. Both versions of it.”
He stops, but his whole body vibrates with tension. His gaze drops to my mouth, then my throat, then lower, and I feel it like a physical touch. He wants to touch me, and traitorous heat spreads through my belly, the same heat that’s betrayed me before.
I sink onto the couch before my knees buckle. My elbows hit my thighs, and I bury my face in my hands. Shadow plops on the floor in front of me, nudging my hands with his nose.
“Why wouldn’t you kiss me?” The question slips out, small and raw, but the pain behind it is enormous. “Why wouldn’t you let me—”
My breath catches. I press my palm against my eye.
“I begged you. I fucking begged to feel your skin.”
The memories crash over me. All those nights when I’d pleaded with him, desperate to connect on a deeper level. My hands reaching up in the darkness, his fingers catching my wrists. Pinning them. The word ‘no’ delivered in that cold, final tone.
Night after night after night.
My face burns, the remembered humiliation spreading like poison through my veins. I lift my head. Force myself to look at him, to hold his gaze even though everything in me wants to look away.
“Why wasn’t I good enough for your bare skin? Why was my mouth good enough to fuck but not to kiss? Like some whore you used in the dark.”
“Don’t.” His voice turns deadly quiet, his eyes burning with fury that steals the air from my lungs. He takes a predatory step toward the couch. “Don’t you ever fucking call yourself a whore again, or I swear to God, Luna, I’ll bend you over this couch and fuck your ass raw.”
The crude threat should repel me, but instead it sends a shock of heat through my system. Even now, even in the middle of this devastating confrontation, my body betrays me again. I scramble to my feet. Shadow follows and puts himself between us.
“Then answer me!” I shout, refusing to be intimidated. “Tell me why you denied me!”