It was the truth. Just not the whole truth.
She didn’t say that she’d come because she missed him so much it hurt. She didn’t say that she’d walked into his castle this morning thinking she could fix everything with one smile, one confession. She didn’t say how the scent of another woman still clung to his furniture, how Seliora’s words were gnawing through her skull.
Damien looked at her for a long beat, like he knew there was more behind her silence. But he didn’t ask. He just nodded faintly and leaned back against the desk, every movement still laced with pain.
"Luna, you cannot keep swinging me this way and that," Damien said. "Taking me back and forth. I am not a child." He exhaled heavily, rubbing his temples with trembling fingers. "So if there is nothing immediate you need from me, I need you to leave."
Luna’s mouth opened slightly in shock. That wasn’t what she expected. Her hands dropped from where they had been hovering near him. "I need to make sure you are okay, Damien," she said. "What is with this constant pain you are in?"
"Since when do you give a shit?" he snapped, the words slicing out of him. He instantly regretted it. Regret didn’t come with a rewind button, just a guilt hangover. He staggered to his feet, one hand clutching the edge of the desk and the other pressed against his pounding skull. "Leave, Luna."
"You cannot do this," she said, hurt brimming in her voice. The sound of it almost made him sit back down, beg for her to stay. Almost. "You cannot begin to push me away now." .com
Damien let out a bitter laugh. "I’m pushing you away?" he echoed with disbelief. He gestured wildly. "I... Are you crazy? What in the hell have you been doing since the moment we met?" f\ree webn ovel(.)com
"Since the very moment our hands touched and the bond ignited," he said, "I have never been good enough for you. You treated me like a side quest in your destiny."
Luna’s pain finally cracked into fury. "Is that why you jump into Seliora’s arms the moment I turn my back?" she snapped, the words like daggers dipped in betrayal. Her fists clenched at her sides. "You didn’t even wait a day."
"That’s not what that was," he muttered, but he didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. "I told you I am done chasing you." He stared at her, red eyes gleaming with more heartbreak than anger now. "Our bond may not be natural, but it is a bond nonetheless. I didn’t ask for it either, Luna. But I chose it."
He walked to the desk, his steps stiff and slow, his whole body aching from the inside out. "You have treated it like an inconvenience," he continued, more resigned than combative. "Like something you’re stuck with instead of someone you’re meant for."
Luna’s lips parted, but nothing came out. What could she say? It wasn’t like he was wrong.
"I am a prince," Damien said as he lowered himself slowly into the chair, each movement a grimace. "My people have expectations of me and I intend to live up to them. The rest..." He finally met her gaze again, and this time, there was no anger in his expression. Just quiet devastation. "The rest is pretty much up to you." f\ree webn ovel(.)com
Luna stood there, torn between everything she wanted to say and everything she’d already ruined.
Damien picked up a pen, as if the matter were closed. "You know the way out," he added gently.
"Damien, we still need to talk about your pain." Her eyes searched his pale face, looking for any sign that the man she loved was still in there. Somewhere beneath the bitterness. Beneath the exhaustion.
Damien didn’t even lift his eyes. "For the final time, Luna..." He leaned back in his chair, every bone in his body protesting. "Please leave."
Luna, ever the proud princess, and perhaps too proud at the wrong moments, drew herself up. Her spine went stiff, her chin lifted.
"As you wish," she replied with regal frost, the way a woman says goodbye when she isn’t quite sure if it’s forever. And with a turn of her heels that should have echoed dramatically in the room but didn’t, she walked out of his office. She didn’t look back because if she did, she might crumble.
The moment the door clicked shut, Damien’s breath escaped in a jagged wheeze. For a heartbeat, he was still. And then, rage clawed its way up his chest. He stood so fast the chair toppled behind him and with a strangled growl, he swept everything off his desk in one furious motion.
Glass shattered. Files flew.
The pain came next, crashing down on him. Sharp, searing agony. Damien gritted his teeth so hard he tasted blood. His lips quivered, but he didn’t scream.
He just bit down harder.
"Fuck!!!" he finally hissed, low and ragged.
Seliora was floating in a fog of sex.
Even though it had all been duty, Seliora had been properly, exquisitely, unapologetically fucked.
It had been a whirlwind of a week. She hadn’t left the prince’s castle—not once.
He made love to her like a man on a mission. Seliora had always known she was second place even before the arrival of Luna but in those nights, in those gasping moments when his lips moved against her skin, she could pretend she was the only one.
She didn’t have all the details of what had transpired between Damien and Luna, but she didn’t need them. She could feel that something had broken.
Every time he touched her, she felt more sure. It was purpose. It was legacy. It was the one thing she could give him that Luna cannot: a trueblood child.
Deep inside her, Seliora knew. That a miracle had been planted in her.
And if the miracle took root, if she bore the heir of Blood City, then she would become more than a necessity.
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