Raine's POV
---
The moment I stepped into the room, the air shifted.
Everything felt… sharper.
Like the chandeliers hung lower. Like the table stretched longer. Like the walls were listening.
I didn't scan the room.
I didn't need to.
I felt him before I saw him.
And when I looked up—
There.
At the far end of the table.
Seated beside Damon, but nothing like him.
Dressed in black. Back straight. One arm slung over the chair like the room belonged to him. Like the world did.
Silas.
Sitting at the far end of the long dining table, dressed in black like mourning, like war, like sin made flesh.
Gods help me.
The air left my lungs in a silent gasp.
He hadn't aged—he'd sharpened. Everything about him was carved, precise, lethal. His jaw lined in shadow. His hands resting like he knew exactly what to do with them. His eyes…
Those eyes.
Still silver. Still cold.
But burning now.
And they were on me.
Only me.
I froze.
Just for a second.
A blink, barely noticeable. But my body noticed.
My knees locked.
My lungs forgot how to breathe.
The world vanished. The people. The chandeliers. The guards. Even Damon.
All I saw was Silas.
And all I remembered was his mouth on my neck, his hands locked around my hips, the sound of him growling my name into my throat as I shattered beneath him.
I shifted my shoulders back and forced myself forward.
Each step calculated. Controlled.
Smile soft. Gaze even. Hands still.
I am Luna of this pack.
Not a woman who dreamt of being taken on every surface by a man who was supposed to be a ghost.
I walked.
One step.
The night he marked me.
Another.
The way his fingers slid inside me like they were made for it.
Another.
The way he said he'd never leave—then did.
The room was too quiet.
Or maybe I was just too loud inside.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears like a war drum.
I saw his jaw tense the moment I passed Damon. His knuckles whitened where they rested on the table. Still, he didn't move.
He watched me like a man starving.
Like he hated himself for still wanting me.
And gods—
I wanted him too.
---
"Apologies for the delay," I said, not recognizing my own voice. It sounded… distant. Too even.
I curtsied slightly, my eyes not on Silas—not anymore—but on Damon, who stood from his chair with a nod.
"Come," he said, offering his hand. "Sit beside me."
Even then I didn't look at Silas. I Couldn't.
Because I could feel the mark I once hid under my ribs heat up.
I knew he still had his.
I knew it would be burning.
I knew he was thinking about the same night I couldn't forget.
Damon stood beside me. "You look beautiful," he said, taking my hand.
His lips brushed my cheek, but they felt wrong.
Too soft. Too careful.
I didn't want soft.
Not tonight.
I wanted to be grabbed. Pinned. Claimed like I once was against stone walls and velvet sheets.
But I sat.
I smiled.
I played Luna like a good girl should.
And all the while, Silas stared.
Unmoving. Unblinking.
Like he was still inside me.
And somewhere deep in the places I hated to admit still ached—
He was.
Raine's POV
---
I wasn't shaking.
Not yet.
Not even when Varya's voice curled around the dinner table like poisoned smoke.
"Oh, how lovely," she said as I took my seat. "The Luna has finally remembered her duties."
Her smile was venom dressed in velvet.
I kept mine tight. Controlled.
"I was delayed preparing for this… delightful company."
Her husband chuckled low. "You mean trying to remember how to act like Luna?"
Another round of muted laughter. Not from everyone. Just the ones who never wanted me here.
I didn't look at Silas.
But I could feel him.
Sitting in silence.
Watching everything.
Or nothing at all.
---
"I hear she nearly passed out again during the last full moon ritual," Varya said, lifting her wine with a smirk. "Such a fragile thing."
I stabbed my fork into my food a little too hard.
"I didn't pass out," I said. "I channeled more than the ritual required. There was—feedback."
"A stumble," Emeric corrected. "One the previous Luna never made."
And there it was.
The comparison I'd grown up dreading. The one I never asked for but couldn't outrun.
I drew in a slow breath and lifted my eyes.
"She may have performed her rites flawlessly," I said. "But at least I don't drink myself numb while the pack falls apart around me."
---
The silence that followed was total.
Heavy. Fragile.
And then—
> "Watch your mouth."
His voice.
Silas.
Low. Sharp. Calm.
But beneath it—something dangerous. Something cracking.
---
I turned my head—slowly—locking eyes with him for the first time all night.
He wasn't looking at me. Not really.
His gaze was somewhere above my shoulder, like I didn't even deserve the full weight of it.
> "You don't get to speak about her," he said. "Not you."
The room held its breath.
I swallowed hard. "I didn't mean—"
He didn't raise his head. Didn't even glance at me.
But I felt it.
The aim. The precision.
> "You couldn't fill her shadow if you drowned in it."
Just like that.
It was quiet after that.
No one dared speak.
Not even Varya.
My stomach turned to stone. My throat burned. My lungs felt like they were gasping for air in a world that had no oxygen.
I didn't breathe.
Because that?
That was the cruelest thing he could've said.
And the worst part?
He meant it.
She walked in like she didn't remember how I used to fuck her against stone walls, silk sheets, temple floors—wherever I needed her.
Didn't glance at me. Didn't flinch.
Just smiled at the people who hate her, pretending she was calm. Composed. Some kind of perfect Luna.
But I saw it.
The hesitation in her step. The slight tremor in her fingers when she sat.
That subtle drag of her throat when she tried to swallow the air around me.
She didn't look at me.
But her body remembered.
---
My wolf moved.
First time in weeks.
There. She's here. She's ours.
I nearly choked on my own breath.
He'd been silent since I crossed realms. Since the battle that took half my men and every drop of light from my lungs.
I thought he was gone for good.
But the second she entered?
That heat I buried?
It clawed up my spine like it never left.
If this was the game she wanted to play—pretending we never happened?
Fine.
Let her act like a Luna.
Let her wear my father's mark.
Let her fool every person in this godsforsaken room.
But I saw her throat bob when she sat.
I saw the way her breath stuttered when our eyes almost met.
She was drowning in it—
The silence.
The memory.
The ghost of everything we never buried properly.
---
I didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Because I knew if I did—if I let that leash slip even an inch—I'd drag her out of that chair, shove her against the nearest wall, and remind her exactly who used to make her moan so loud it echoed in the trees.
---
Varya kept yapping.
Emeric too.
Comparing her to my mother. Throwing words like weak, fragile, unworthy.
She didn't take it.
She snapped back, all bite and edge. The same fire she used to have when she'd ride me until she couldn't breathe.
I stayed still. Watching.
Letting her pretend.
Until she said it.
Until she opened that pretty little mouth and tried to use my mother as a shield to defend herself.
> "She may have worn the crown before me," Raine said. "But at least I'm sober enough to carry it."
And just like that—
I saw red.
That's when the coil snapped in my chest.
That's when I reminded her who I was.
> "Don't talk about her."
My voice barely cracked the air.
But I saw her freeze.
Felt the entire table go still.
Good.
> "You couldn't fill her shadow if you drowned in it."
---
It wasn't rage.
It wasn't jealousy.
It was truth, laced in ice, wrapped in everything I never said five years ago.
She wanted to be untouchable tonight.
Wanted to pretend that what we had was nothing more than a phase. Lust. Regret.
But she forgot—
I was the one who made her come undone.
I was the one who marked her first.
I was the one she begged for in the dark with her thighs trembling around my shoulders.
---
I didn't look at her after that.
Didn't need to.
I already knew she wouldn't finish her meal.