All Chapters of His Contract Luna Says Goodbye : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

ELLARIA.I stood at the window for a long time.Just watching him.The car was parked at an angle that kept most of it in shadow but I could see the outline of him behind the wheel clearly enough.He wasn’t on his phone. He wasn’t looking around the driveway.He was just sitting there.I stood there trying to make sense of it and failing completely.Eventually I managed to pull myself away from the window and back into the room.I wasn’t going to think about it.I had a night routine to finish and I was going to finish it and sink into my relaxation. It was harder than it sounded. I went through my skincare routine standing in front of the bathroom mirror and kept catching myself staring at nothing. I made tea in the kitchen and stood at the counter drinking it while the first drops of rain started hitting the windows.By the time I settled onto the couch with my book it was drizzling steadily outside.I read the same paragraph four times before I gave up pretending.I went to the w

ELLARIA.I closed the door behind him and stood in the hallway.The house was quiet.Not the kind of quiet that felt empty. The kind that felt full of something that had just been here and wasn’t anymore. His scent was still in the air. All him. All pine and cedar, and maleness. Faint but present enough that I was aware of it.I stood there for a long moment. Then I went back to the kitchen.His cup was still on the table where he’d left it. Mine was beside it. Both of them half full and gone cold while we were talking about things that mattered and carefully avoiding the things that mattered more.I stood at the table and looked at them for longer than necessary. Then I picked them both up and took them to the sink.The water ran warm over my hands and I stood there washing two cups at two in the morning and tried to be sensible about what had just happened in this kitchen.He’d said ‘I don’t know.’Three that cost something to give because it admitted more than a clean lie would h

ARREN.The pack house was empty when I got there.The quiet was the first thing I noticed. It wasn’t the usual late night stillness but something with weight to it, like the building was holding its breath.I'd called Kade twice on the drive over trying to get something out of him. Twice he'd given me nothing. Just come back, he'd said both times, and hung up before I could push further.I walked through the front entrance and followed the light coming from the dining area. The rest of the building was dark but that space had a glow coming out of it that told me Kade was in there.He was pacing when I walked in, moving around the long wooden table in tight circles with his arms crossed and his jaw working. The laptop was open on the table, it’s screen dark. He hadn't heard me come in yet."Kade." I stopped in the doorway. "You called me back from across the sector and now you're doing laps. Either tell me what you found or I'm going home."He stopped pacing the moment he heard my voic

ARREN.She sat down without a word."That happens often." I gestured toward Dalor's room. "And you never told me.""I don't understand it." Her voice was quieter now, coming out worn. "When he was little it wasn't so bad. He'd wander around the house for a few minutes or hours, and then come back to bed. But now he hurts himself." She swallowed. "And me sometimes." A pause. "And now others."She meant Webb. But I didn’t believe her. I just couldn’t. Dalor killing Webb was the most illogical conclusion I could draw from any of this."Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.She looked up. "What are you going to do now that you know?"I stepped toward her. "What were you doing outside the faction that early? Because your story doesn't add up. The guards don't open those gates at that hour. I gave clear instructions."She stood and put her hands on her hips and started pacing. "We weren't in the faction that morning. Or the night before."I narrowed my eyes. "Where were you?"She said nothin

ARREN.Katerina started from the beginning like I'd asked.She sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the floor."The trances started when he was two," she said. "Small things at first. I'd find him standing in the middle of his room in the dark. Eyes open. Not responding to anything." She paused. "I'd speak to him and get nothing back. I'd touch his shoulder and he'd just stay exactly where he was. Then after a few minutes he'd blink and look around and ask me why we were standing in the dark.""He never remembered any of it?""Never." She shook her head. "Not once."I said nothing."I told myself it was normal," she continued. "That children sleepwalk. That he'd grow out of it." She looked at her hands. "He didn't grow out of it.""How bad did it get?""By three it was happening every week. Different rooms each time. The kitchen. The hallway. Once I found him outside on the front steps in bare feet in the middle of the night." Her voice stayed even but something underneath it