Moonless woke up sore in places he didn’t have names for. Every muscle ached. Even the parts of him he never had to think about before now made themselves known with a dull, insistent throb.He lay still for a moment, blinking up at the canopy of leaves, letting the previous night settle back into memory in pieces.Beside him, Brayden slept on his left side, facing away as his chest rose and fell evenly.Moonless eased himself up, wincing, and crawled toward the stream a few feet away. The water was cold enough to make him gasp, but he needed it to feel clean, or at least less like something had been taken from him without his say.Then his gaze caught some marks along his collarbone and throat.Hickeys.Relief and shame tangled together in his chest. He had given away something he could never get back, to a stranger he would never see again after this morning. But at least, it was better than where he had escaped from.‘He is the Alpha King. Ask him for money,’ he told himself. ‘Get
Last Updated : 2026-08-10 Read more