All Chapters of His Dying Luna Became His Greatest Enemy : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

DAMON POVThe silence in the small house was the loudest thing I had ever heard.I sat on the edge of the narrow bed, elbows on my knees, staring at the scuffed wooden floor. Outside, the forest beyond the outer fence line looked the same as it always had. Nothing had changed out there.Marcus’s men had left the two bags by the door the night before. I hadn’t unpacked them. There was no point. Most of what I owned had never really been mine—it had belonged to the Alpha. And the Alpha was gone.I dragged a hand down my face. My palm came away damp. I hadn’t realized I was sweating.The bond was quiet.That was the worst part. For years it had been a constant presence at the edge of my awareness, even when I ignored it, even when I tried to smother it. Now there was just… nothing. A clean, empty space where Aria used to be.I stood up too quickly. The room tilted for a second. I braced a hand against the wall until it passed.In the tiny kitchen I found a glass and filled it with water f

Chapter 34Damon POV I'd been pacing the same four walls of that tiny house for three nights straight, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. Aria on the operating table, Aria walking past me on her parents' lawn like I was nothing but air. I told myself I had no right to think about her anymore. I told myself that every hour of every day, but I thought about her anyway. I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to know she was okay. Not to talk to her, not to beg again — I'd humiliated myself enough for one lifetime but just to see her and know the surgery had actually worked, that she was breathing, that my children were safe.I called Marcus before I could talk myself out of it."I need to know where she's staying," I said, the second he picked up.There was a long pause on the other end. "Damon—""Please." My voice cracked on the word, and I hated myself for it. "I'm not going to do anything. I just need to see her."Another pause, longer this time. Then, quietly: "The Sterling

ARIA POV"Okay, I think that's the last of the balloons," Alexander said, stepping back from the arch he'd been wrestling with for the better part of twenty minutes. "Though I want it on record that balloon arches are significantly harder than they look on the internet.""You did great," I said, laughing. "The twins won't even remember this, you know. They're turning one, not eighteen.""Doesn't matter, first birthdays are important. My mother still talks about mine like it was a state event." He straightened the last balloon and gave it a satisfied nod. Ella came out from the kitchen carrying a tray of little sandwiches, already dressed for the party, her hair pinned up with a few loose curls she'd clearly spent far too long perfecting. "The cake's done. I may have gone slightly overboard on the decorating.""Define slightly.""There might be a small moon on top and stars, and possibly a tiny wolf.""Ella.""They're twins! It needed balance!"I couldn't stop smiling. A month ago I c

ARIA POV"You're bleeding, Damon!"The words were out of my mouth before I'd even decided to say them, my eyes catching on the dark stain spreading across his sleeve, the way he'd been holding his arm just slightly wrong this whole time without a single word of complaint.He glanced down like he was surprised to find the injury still there. "It's nothing. Barely a scratch.""That is not nothing, that's an actual wound." I was already moving before I'd fully decided to, some old instinct kicking in that I hadn't used in months. "Sit down. I'm getting the first aid kit.""Aria, really, don't bother....""Sit. Down."He sat.I don't know if it was the tone or the look on my face, but for once in his life Damon Reed didn't argue with me, I stormed into the house, dug the kit out from under the kitchen sink where Ella kept it, and came back out to find him exactly where I'd left him, arm resting stiffly against his knee, watching me with an expression I didn't have the energy to decode."Th

ARIA POVBy morning, the backyard looked like a war zone dressed up as a birthday party gone wrong.Workers moved through the wreckage in quiet, efficient lines, sweeping up shattered glass, hauling away the collapsed balloon arch, folding up chairs that had been knocked sideways in the chaos. Someone had already thrown out what was left of the cake, Ella's careful little moon and stars, crushed beyond saving somewhere in the grass.I stood in the middle of it all with Leo on my hip, watching strangers clean up the remains of what should have been the happiest day of the twins' short lives, and felt nothing but a low, gnawing confusion that hadn't let up since the fighting stopped.Why me? Why them?Damon's men had taken the wounded Northern warriors with them when they left — captured, not killed, which told me even the version of him living in exile hadn't lost the instinct to gather answers instead of just delivering punishment. Wherever they were now, someone was already asking th