CHAPTER 74: INSTINCT TO PROTECT

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• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 96: WHERE MEMORY BLEEDS

  DAMON'S POVSleep refuses to take me. I lie wide awake, my body twisted in tangled sheets, restless and aching with thoughts I cannot silence. The room is still, but my mind roars. They are close, just beyond these walls, a few steps away perhaps, yet they feel a world apart. That proximity torments me. It presses against my chest, heavy and unrelenting. Knowing Baltazar is there with them brings a sliver of comfort, but it does nothing to quell the voice inside that whispers it should be me. I should be the one by their side, the one guarding them through the night. That was my duty. That was my role. And I failed.No wonder she carries so much anger. If the roles were reversed, I would despise me too.Fragments of my past drift through my thoughts, connecting in ways I had never noticed before. So many broken relationships, so many nights of feeling empty even in someone else's arms. The unexplained sadness that would crash over me without warning, a wei

• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 95: INSTINCT OVER PRIDE

  VELARA'S POVAs much as I loathed doing it, I complied. The truth settled heavy in my chest. His father unnerved me in ways Damon never had. When I stepped a little closer, Damon glanced down briefly but didn’t speak. He simply pressed the elevator button, his face unreadable.Kael shifted in his arms with a sleepy murmur, letting out a small yawn as he adjusted himself against his father's chest. Then, without warning, Damon slid his arm across my shoulders and drew me in. I didn’t pull away. Instead, I let the closeness happen, even leaned in a little. I needed the feeling of safety more than I needed space. With his father's piercing gaze still on us, Damon’s touch felt strangely reassuring.“Baltazar,” Damon called out, his voice steady and commanding.From the distance, the towering man approached. His footsteps were slow but deliberate, each one echoing faintly in the quiet corridor. He stopped beside me and nodded respectfully at Damon.

• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 94: ROGUE IN THE BLOODLINE

  VELARA'S POVDamon’s voice carried through the room, calm but filled with quiet certainty. “Father, may I present Velara… she is my mate. Velara, this is Alaric, my Dad.”His tone was polite, his manner composed, yet the formality of the introduction struck me like a cold wind. He spoke as though I were a stranger, as though my presence here was something foreign that needed explanation. What he didn’t understand was that no such words were needed. The moment I stepped into the room, Alaric had already known who I was.Alaric stepped forward, his expression unreadable, a mask carved from stone. He extended his hand toward me with deliberate slowness, and Damon turned his gaze to me, silently urging me to respond. Reluctantly, I reached out, sliding my fingers into his. His palm was warm, his grip firm, but what followed left me breathless.Without warning, Alaric yanked me toward him with startling force. The sudden motion made my breath catch in

• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 93: GRANDFATHER AT THE DOOR

  VELARA'S POVDamon guided us toward the exit, his stride steady, his hand brushing lightly against mine as if to reassure me. A soft breath escaped my lips—quiet but full of relief—as I clutched our son closer to my chest. Kael, drowsy and limp from exhaustion, rested his cheek against my shoulder, his tiny breaths warming my skin. Each rise and fall of his chest told me he was slipping deeper into sleep, unaware of the world unraveling around him.But the moment Damon reached for the door and swung it open, my body locked into place. My feet refused to take another step. The air shifted.Just beyond the doorway, standing beneath the arching shadows of the building’s entrance, was Damon’s father. Alpha Alaric stood tall, his presence commanding even in something as mundane as conversation. He was speaking to one of the guards, and from the slight toss of his head and the gruff chuckle that followed, he was clearly amused by something. That ease vanished th

• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 92: FIVE YEARS OF SILENCE

  VELARA'S POVHe stood completely still, as if the air around him had turned to stone, his wide eyes locked onto mine with the stunned disbelief of a man who had just been struck. His lips parted slightly, then pressed into a tight line as his voice emerged—low, taut, shaken at the edges. “There’s no way I would’ve ignored something like that. If you told me you were pregnant—”My voice sliced through his denial before he could finish, sharp and rising like a whip across the room. “You told me—verbatim—that you’d never touch a seventeen-year-old mongrel, especially not one with blood tied to Alpha Viktor. Then you laughed at me. And you hung up.”The heat in my throat made it hard to speak, but I forced every word out anyway, each syllable scraping against old wounds that had never fully healed. “I called again. I begged you to listen. But you answered only to threaten me—told me if I ever dialed your number with my so-called lies again, you’d skin me alive

• TO DENY A LUNA   CHAPTER 91: NOT YOUR LUNA

  VELARA'S POVThe moment the word slipped from his lips—“Luna”—a flicker of pain and irritation contorted my face. It scraped against old wounds, that title, once sacred, now nothing but a bitter reminder. I bristled, straightening my spine as I met his gaze.“Don’t call me that,” I said, my voice stripped of warmth. It came out flat, controlled, each syllable sharp with restraint. “Where is my child?”He didn’t respond with words. Instead, he stepped aside, a silent invitation that stirred unease in my chest. I moved forward, past him, my footsteps soundless against the gleaming floors as I crossed the threshold. The air inside his home felt too still, too clean, as though it had been scrubbed of anything real. It was a fortress dressed like a luxury apartment—open, modern, and sprawling, the kind of place that swallowed you whole.The entire floor belonged to him. No walls broke the space, only angles of steel and marble, shadows moving across gl