010

– Vuk Kael Lasković

She stood at the balcony doors, moonlight spilling over her like liquid silver, turning the bite on her shoulder into a living brand. My mark. My moon.

I crossed the room in three strides, unable to stay away a second longer. My hands found her waist, careful—always so fucking careful—not to bruise the fragile skin that still carried the ghosts of whips and chains.

“Little moon,” I murmured against her hair, breathing her in like air after centuries of ash.

She turned in my arms, silver eyes luminous, lips parted as if to speak. Then, quieter than the wind howling outside:

“You should take me out of these rooms… I would like to go around. See more than these walls.”

The words were soft, almost shy. But they struck me like a blade between the ribs.

“No.”

It left my mouth before thought. Immediate. Final.

She flinched as though I’d struck her. Her lower lip caught between her teeth, and something in her gaze dimmed—spirit folding in on itself like a wounded bird.

I hated it. I hated myself for putting it there.

Her voice came smaller now, threaded with old fear. “Did you mate me only to keep me locked away until I grow old and useless? Until you dispose of me?” A pause, barely a breath. “It’s all right. I will be a good mate. I’ll stay quiet. I won’t ask again.”

The bond in my chest twisted—violent, agonizing.

Dispose of her.

As if she were something temporary.

As if I hadn’t waited three hundred and fifty years for the single creature who made eternity bearable.

My hands tightened on her waist, then loosened immediately when she tensed. I dropped to one knee—again—bringing us eye-level, forcing her to see me.

“Look at me,” I commanded, voice rough with something perilously close to desperation.

She did, tears glistening but not falling.

“I will burn this fortress to cinders before I let another wolf breathe the same air as you without my permission,” I said, low and fierce. “Not because you are disposable. Because you are everything. Because the thought of you beyond my reach—of someone taking you from me again—makes me want to tear the world apart with my teeth.”

Her breath hitched.

I pressed my forehead to hers, claws flexing against the stone floor to keep from crushing her to me.

“But you are not a prisoner, little moon. You are my Luna. And if these walls feel like a cage…” I swallowed, the admission tasting like blood. “Then I will walk through hell to make them feel like a throne.”

She stared up at me for a long moment, silver eyes wide and searching, as though trying to decide whether the devil could be trusted with something as fragile as a promise.

Then, slowly, the tension in her shoulders eased. A small, tentative breath left her lips, and she leaned forward until her forehead rested against my chest. My heart—ancient, half-dead thing that it was—stuttered at the contact.

“This place…” she whispered against my shirt, voice soft with something close to wonder. “The way the obsidian catches the hellfire veins in the walls, the arches that rise like ribs of some great beast… it’s brutal, but it’s beautiful. Whoever designed it was a genius.”

Pride flared hot and unexpected in my chest. I had carved half these halls myself, centuries ago, when the mountain was still raw and bleeding lava. But hearing her praise it—seeing her look at my dominion and find beauty instead of only terror—felt like sunlight after endless night.

I brushed my thumb across her cheekbone, careful, always careful. “Tomorrow,” I said, the word rough. “At dusk. I’ll take you beyond these rooms. The upper battlements first. Then the frozen gardens, if you wish.”

Her head snapped up. Those luminous eyes went round with disbelief, then bright with something dangerously close to hope.

“Really?”

The single word cracked something open inside me.

I nodded once. “Really.”

A smile—small, real, and utterly devastating—curved her mouth. She rose on her toes and pressed her lips to the corner of mine, feather-light, gone before I could deepen it.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

I was still reeling from the taste of her gratitude when she pulled back, settling against me again, fingers idly tracing the glowing bite on my shoulder.

“My boyf—”

The word slipped out like a shard of glass.

She froze.

I felt it through the bond first: a cold spike of panic, shame flooding in behind it like poison. Her body went rigid in my arms, breath catching sharp enough to cut.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Boyfriend.

Another male. One who had known her before the chains. Before the auction block. Before me.

The beast inside me rose with a roar that rattled my ribs, claws flexing against the stone floor. But I locked it down—barely—because the terror pouring off her was not of me. It was of the memory.

“Maureen,” I said, voice low, steady, though it cost me everything to keep it that way. “Look at me.”

She didn’t. Her face stayed buried against my chest, fingers clenched in my shirt like it was the only thing keeping her from shattering.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I didn’t mean— It just came out. He’s nothing. He’s—”

“Tell me,” I said. Not a command. A plea, raw and stripped bare. “Tell me his name.”

A shudder ran through her. Tears soaked through my shirt, hot against my skin.

“Silas,” she said finally, so quietly I felt it more than heard it. “Silas Vane.”

The name landed like a death sentence.

She pulled back then, just enough to meet my eyes. Tears tracked silver down her cheeks, but she didn’t hide from me anymore.

“I was engaged to him,” she said, voice trembling but steady. “I thought he loved me. I thought he was safe. My mother warned me—he had ambition in his teeth, she said—but I didn’t listen. I fought her. The last time I saw her alive, I screamed at her.”

Her breath hitched.

“Three weeks later, he and his family came in the night. He held me down while his mother slit my father’s throat. While they…” A sob broke free. “While they cut my little brother out of my mother’s belly and let her bleed out on the floor. I begged him. I begged Silas to help me. He laughed. Said the land was worth more than my tears.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Every word was a blade sliding between my ribs, twisting deeper.

“They forged papers. Declared me rogue. Sold me at auction to pay for their new manor.” She laughed, a broken, bitter sound. “Ten million for a virgin with lunar blood. I never suspected—not once—that the boy who called me his star would be the one to snuff me out.”

The bond between us screamed with her pain. It flooded me: the betrayal, the grief, the bone-deep loneliness of waking in chains believing no one would ever come for her.

I pulled her into my lap, wrapped my arms around her so tightly she could feel every thundering beat of my heart. My lips found her forehead, her temples, the tear tracks on her cheeks—kissing them away like I could erase the salt of old wounds.

“Trust me,” I rasped against her skin, voice shaking with rage and something fiercer. “Trust me, little moon. He will not die quickly. He will not die cleanly. I will drag him through every circle of hell he put you through, and when he begs for the mercy you never received, I will laugh the way he laughed at you.”

She clung to me, face buried in my neck, body wracked with silent sobs.

I held her through it—all of it—until the tears slowed and her breathing evened against my throat.

Only then did she whisper, voice small and wondering:

“I never thought I’d have a mate at all… let alone you.”

I pulled back just enough to cup her face in both hands, thumbs brushing away the last of her tears.

“The moon didn’t give you to me as punishment, Maureen,” I said, fierce and quiet. “She gave you to me as salvation. And I will spend the rest of eternity proving I deserve it.”

Her eyes searched mine, luminous and raw.

Then she leaned in and kissed me—not tentative this time, but trusting. Deep. Real.

And for the first time in three hundred and fifty years, the devil felt something perilously close to peace.

The next day arrived like a blade—sharp, inevitable, and entirely too bright.

I stood in my dressing chamber, shirtless, glaring at the open wardrobe as though it had betrayed me personally.

Black linen shirt. Too plain.

Black silk with subtle gold threading. Too ostentatious.

Black leather coat with armored shoulders. Too much like I was marching to war—which, granted, was my usual state.

I tore the leather coat off and flung it across the room. It struck the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the obsidian.

Eryx leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, expression carved from stone. He had been summoned to “assist,” and had now endured thirty-seven minutes of me behaving like a court virgin on her presentation night.

“My lord,” he said, voice perfectly neutral, “you own approximately four hundred articles of clothing. Every single one is black.”

I snarled at him. “Then find the black that makes me look least likely to devour her on the staircase.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw—the closest Eryx ever came to laughter. “Devouring her on the staircase is, I believe, within your usual rights as Alpha.”

“Eryx.”

He raised both hands in surrender, stepped forward, and pulled a garment from the depths of the wardrobe: a tailored black shirt, softer weave than the others, collar open just enough to reveal the glowing bite on my shoulder. Sleeves that could be rolled to the forearms. Paired with fitted black trousers and a long, unbuttoned coat that fell open like wings.

Simple. Severe. Undeniably me.

I shrugged it on. Looked in the mirror.

Acceptable.

I gave one sharp nod. “This.”

Eryx allowed himself the faintest exhale. “Revolutionary choice, Alpha. Truly, the bards will sing of it.”

I flicked a spark of hellfire at his boot, and just as i imagined he screamed while he’s boot burned.

Then I descended to the grand foyer to wait.

I paced like a caged beast. Torches flared higher with every pass. Guards kept their gazes fixed on the floor and their throats politely bared.

One minute.

Two.

Three—

She appeared at the top of the staircase.

Fuck.

My wolf roared so violently the chandeliers trembled and loose snow sifted from the vaulted ceiling.

She was a blade of living fire.

Deep wine-red satin, floor-length, sleek and liquid against her skin. The gown hugged her narrow waist and the gentle curve of her hips before falling straight to the ground in a clean, elegant line. Thin spaghetti straps traced her shoulders, crossing delicately at the back. The neckline dipped into a soft V—nothing vulgar, just enough to reveal the faint silver glow of Selene’s crescent scar at the base of her throat.

No jewels. No patterns. Just color so rich it looked like fresh blood under moonlight.

My lungs forgot their purpose.

I stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, claws flexing against my palms, cock already thickening behind the seam of my trousers like an undisciplined boy.

She descended slowly, one hand on the banister, cheeks flushing deeper with every step under my stare.

When she reached the last stair, I still hadn’t remembered how to breathe.

“Beautiful,” I managed, the word scraping out raw and wrecked. “You’re worth dying for. Worth killing for. I can’t—” I dragged in air like a drowning male. “I can’t even think when you look like that.”

Her blush turned scarlet, spilling down her throat to the edge of that perfect neckline.

“Thank you,” she whispered, voice soft, eyes shining with shy pleasure.

I stepped forward, took her hand, and pressed my lips to her knuckles—lingering longer than courtesy demanded, fangs grazing her skin just enough to make her breath catch.

“Little moon,” I said against her fingers, voice low and rough, “if any male in this fortress looks at you too long tonight, I will gouge his eyes out and wear them as cufflinks.”

She laughed—small, startled, delighted.

I offered my arm.

She slipped her hand through it, fingers curling around my forearm like she trusted me to hold the entire world steady.

And for the first time in centuries, I walked through my own halls not as the Alpha Devil…

…but as a male taking his mate on a simple evening stroll.

May the gods help anyone who ruined it.