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2026-09-18 14:47:27
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The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 161
~ 161 ~~ Mia ~I stood there in the sterile glare of the hospital corridor, the unspoken refusal hard and heavy behind my teeth, completely braced for the blow I knew was coming.I waited for the demand. I waited for Darian to cross the line, to lean on his status as an Alpha, to invoke our shared history, or to press every button he possessed to force me into taking personal charge of his mother’s terminal case. It was the only playbook I had ever known his family to use.Instead, Darian did something that completely disarmed my defenses.He didn't ask.He lowered his gaze to the medical chart in his hands, his thumb tracing the edge of the paper for a long, quiet moment. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were heavy with a quiet, hard-earned resignation."Don't take her case, Lili," he said softly, his voice remarkably steady despite the grief cracking his composure.I blinked, caught entirely off guard. "What?""I know what you're capable of," Darian continued, his tone devoid
The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 160
~ 160 ~~ Mia ~The emergency sliding doors of the Red Moon pack hospital parted with a sharp, pneumatic hiss as Darian carried his mother through the entrance, shouting for the trauma unit.Within minutes, the high-dependency ward was a blur of frantic motion. Nurses rushed with monitors, oxygen lines were hooked up, and emergency neurologists were paged to the floor while Darian was gently barred from the immediate treatment bay. He stood outside the glass partitions, his hands clenched into fists, his face carved from pale, raw stone as he watched the frantic stabilization efforts through the blinds.I was pulled into the rotation immediately. As the senior chief of the department, stepping in to consult on an acute neurological crash was my standard duty — regardless of whose name was on the intake chart.I scrubbed in, walked through the double doors, and spent the next hour leading the scans, interpreting the urgent magnetic resonance imaging, and reviewing the electrical brain
The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 159
~ 159 ~~ Darian ~The birthday celebration was behind us, the lights of the grand mountain lodge finally extinguished, and the heavy morning mist was rolling back down over the northern peaks. I prepared to do the one thing Mia had demanded of me: leave.The preparations were their own quiet, agonizing form of grief. Packing up the East Lake delegation in the gray dawn light felt less like breaking camp and more like being exiled all over again. Every reminded me of the insurmountable walls I had built around myself.The hardest part, by far, was saying goodbye to Nick.He had found me by the fleet vehicles just as the final crates were being loaded into the rear compartments. He stood there with his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets, his young face tight with a bitter, disappointed set that mirrored his mother's."You're really leaving already?" Nick asked, his voice low and sharp with frustration. "You just got here.""I have to, bud," I replied softly, kneeling down on the
The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 158
~ 158 ~~ Mia ~The private administrative room off the main pavilion was small, quiet, and suffocatingly still. The door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the lingering chatter of the departing guests and sealing away the flashing lights of the ballroom.I didn't waste a single second. The cold, brittle anger I had kept tightly locked behind my teeth all evening finally snapped past my control."What were you thinking?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a low, venomous register as I whirled around to face him. "The painting, the secret bid, the anonymous delivery through a midnight courier—all of it. It was a massive boundary crossed all over again."Darian stood near the edge of the desk, his broad shoulders tense under his dark formal jacket. He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn't give him the room."I don't want you doing these things," I pressed on, stepping closer, my eyes flashing with suppressed fury. "If you're doing them in some buried, pathetic hope that I'll one day
The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 157
~ 157 ~~ Mia ~The casual mention of Silent Moon from Darian’s mouth sent ripples expanding outward, transforming a private shock between the two of us into a sprawling, public revelation across the entire hall.Before I could fully process the dizzying realization that he was the anonymous buyer, Darian took half a step forward, without realizing how deeply he was exposing us both."You're the original artist," Darian said, his voice carrying clearly over the hushed stillness of the pavilion as he stared at the canvas. "You painted it while you were carrying Nick. I always expected you would give it to him for his birthday. Wasn’t that why you wanted it in the first place?"The words dropped like a stone into a still pond, and the murmur moving through the hall immediately shifted from polite birthday chatter into a sharp, collective gasp of astonishment.The high-society collectors, northern nobles, and eastern art connoisseurs who had packed the room froze in place. A second, enti
The Ex-Luna's Return: No Longer His Doormat ~ 156
~ 156 ~~ Mia ~The final sweeping chords of the orchestra echoed off the high timber ceilings, signaling the end of the waltz. As the music died away into a polite, murmuring ripple across the pavilion, I unwoven my fingers from Darian's.Even after the song had ended, I caught the heavy, burning look locked in his eyes—a raw, haunted expression of a man desperate to hold on when everything had already slipped through his fingers. The moment I saw it, an instinctive jolt of alarm shot through my chest; wanting nothing more than to sever the connection, I immediately looked away, pulled my hand free from his grip, and stepped back as if burned.Before the tension could curdle into a public spectacle, the hall smoothly transitioned into the next item on the evening's schedule: the traditional gift presentation ceremony.Because the mountain lodge was packed to absolute capacity with northern nobles, wealthy business magnates, and ambitious dignitaries all angling for a chance to court R
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