All Chapters of MOONLIGHT MYSTIQUE : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The library sat silent around me, books stacked high like ancient guards. I should have been focused on my essay, the cursor blinking on the screen, but my mind replayed one image over and over again—Theo’s eyes.The way they burned when he saw me with Damien.The way they shattered.I pressed my hands against my face, trying to block it out, but it lingered, raw and cutting. Theo didn’t say a word, but the silence had been louder than shouting. It had been betrayal painted across his face—and I didn’t know if it was mine or his.My chest tightened.Damien’s words from earlier still clung to me like smoke. Choice is an illusion. You belong to me.A part of me wanted to deny it, to scream back that he was wrong. But another part… another part trembled with how easily his touch had silenced me.I hated it. I hated myself.“Studying?”The low voice slid into the quiet, smooth and sharp all at once. My body tensed before I even looked up.Damien.He leaned against the bookshelf, arms cros

Damien’s grip still lingered on my skin. Even though his hand wasn’t there anymore, it felt like a phantom, coiling around my neck, reminding me of the moment he pressed me against the wall.I hated how my body remembered.I hated how my pulse quickened even now.And more than anything—I hated myself for not pushing him away.The library had emptied hours ago, but my head was still loud, buzzing with whispers, judgments, the echo of Theo’s voice breaking through.His eyes. God, his eyes.When he saw me pinned there, his expression wasn’t just anger. It was betrayal. A sharp wound carved across his face like I had been the one to strike him.And in a way… I had.I sat curled up on my bed, knees tucked close, textbooks forgotten around me. The dorm was quiet, my roommate out for the night, but peace was nowhere to be found.Damien was everywhere. His smirk, his voice dripping like poison, the way he called me his. He was consuming me piece by piece, and the terrifying part was—I wasn’t

Sleep never came.I lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling as the hours dragged by, every shadow in my dorm room crawling across the walls like it had claws. My chest felt heavy, like something invisible was pressing me down.Damien.Even with the distance, he was there. His voice lingered in my ears, low and dangerous. His hand—God, his hand—still branded against my skin. I kept scrubbing the memory away, but it clung to me, deeper than flesh.And yet, in my pocket, my phone buzzed with something softer.Theo.His last message replayed in my mind: “I don’t believe you. But I’ll wait until you’re ready.”The patience in those words broke something inside me. I didn’t deserve it. Not after letting Damien get so close. Not after… wanting it, even just for a moment.I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow, muffling the frustrated sound that clawed out of my throat. I was cracking apart, pulled in two directions—one toward fire, one toward light—and both were tearing me raw.B

The hallway didn’t empty fast enough.Whispers tangled in the air, sharp and cutting, weaving around me like invisible blades. “Did you see?” “Theo almost—” “Damien didn’t even flinch—” My name hissed from their mouths like poison. Eliot Navarro. The boy at the center of it all.My chest heaved, each breath shallow.Theo stood in front of me, still seething, shoulders stiff, fists trembling at his sides. The fury radiating off him wasn’t directed at me—not fully—but it clung to me anyway. His anger, Damien’s taunts, the crowd’s stares… it was too much. I felt naked under all of it, as if the hallway’s fluorescent lights had turned into spotlights exposing me.And Damien.Even gone, he lingered. His voice replayed in my head, dark and cruel: Sweetheart, you think I haven’t already marked him?Heat scorched my skin where he’d touched me before, like the memory itself had teeth. My body remembered him even when I begged it not to. It was terrifying—the way desire could live inside fear,

I wasn’t supposed to break.That’s what everyone believed about me—Theo Albright. The composed one. The steady one. The one who didn’t lose control, no matter how much the world tried to shake me.But tonight, sitting alone on my bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling, I felt anything but steady.Eliot’s face haunted me. The way he’d pulled back when I tried to reach him. The way he’d said, “I don’t know.”That wasn’t an answer. That was a knife.I had wanted to hold him, shield him, protect him. And he had stepped back. Away from me. Toward what? Toward him?Damien’s smirk seared into my memory. The predator circling Eliot in broad daylight, whispering poison into his ear, daring me to fight back.God, I wanted to hit him. Wanted to break him in half until that smug arrogance bled out of him. But violence wouldn’t fix anything—not when Eliot was already tangled in his trap.The truth was worse than any punch I could throw: Eliot wasn’t just afraid of Damien. He was drawn to him.I