Between The Moon And The Mark

The door clicked shut behind Derek with a finality that echoed through the Luna’s chamber like a distant growl in the night. Silence followed—thick, heavy, almost alive. Diva didn’t move. She stood there, still as stone, staring at the space he’d just occupied. His scent—that unmistakable blend of pine, musk, and something darker—still lingered in the air. It tugged at something deep in her chest. Something primal.

She turned slowly, almost cautiously, and made her way back to the bed. The long cloak she wore dragged against the floor like fallen leaves in the forest. When she sat, the fabric gathered beneath her hands, soft and wrinkled, but her body remained rigid. Her heart was racing—not from fear, but from something more dangerous: doubt.

Everything he had said… it looped in her mind like an old hunt replaying itself. Derek—Alpha of the Bloodfangs, the one who once dragged her into duty and denied her the right to choose—had just stood before her not as a leader, but as a man. An