Luna's eyes fluttered open to soft light and warmth. For a moment, she thought she was still dreaming.
She was no longer on the cold marble floor of Damiano's chamber but resting on a velvet couch. Her body bruised, battered, broken…was… changing.
Matteo sat across from her, his dark eyes locked on her with an intensity that made her breath hitch.
He leaned forward slowly, his voice low, almost reverent.
"…Your wounds…"
Luna looked down. The bruises on her wrists had faded. The cuts on her neck smoothed into flawless skin. Even her face, once swollen with Damiano's strikes, now glowed with a soft radiance.
Matteo's jaw clenched, his hand curling into a fist as he tried to process it.
"This isn't possible. No mortal heals like this. You…" His voice trailed, his golden-brown hair catching the sliver of moonlight from the window. "You cannot be human."
Luna blinked, confusion clouding her grey eyes. "I-I don't know what you're talking about."
But he only studied her, memorizing every fragile line of her face, the way her skin seemed to bloom under the touch of light. And for the first time, Matteo felt it not desire, not rivalry, but awe.
⸻
Meanwhile, back at Damiano's mansion…
The night air was suffocating. The halls echoed with silence until the heavy footsteps of the Demon King filled them.
The maid who had sent the wisp knelt in the center of the chamber, trembling violently. She knew why she had been summoned.
Damiano's emerald eyes gleamed like a serpent's as he circled her slowly.
"You dared," he said softly, his voice dripping venom, "to betray me. To meddle in what is mine."
The maid pressed her forehead to the ground. "M-my lord, I only—"
"Silence." His voice cracked like a whip. He raised his hand, and black fire sparked to life in his palm, swirling, twisting, alive with malice.
Her scream pierced the mansion as the fire consumed her, not burning flesh, but ripping her very soul apart. In moments, nothing remained but ashes and the faint echo of her cry.
Damiano inhaled deeply, as if her pain fed him. Then he turned, his lips curving into a smile as sharp as a blade.
"Matteo dares to interfere. And she dares to glow brighter every day…"
His eyes burned with obsession.
"No matter. I'll break her. Slowly. Until she begs me for death."
The air shifted.
Damiano froze. His head snapped up, nostrils flaring. Power ancient, suffocating, alive seeped from one of the forbidden chambers.
The one he had warned Luna never to enter.
With a flicker of shadow, he vanished from the chamber and reappeared before the glowing door. Its seal pulsed, veins of silver light spiderwebbing across the wood as though trying to keep whatever lay inside contained.
His lips curled into a smirk. "So, you stir at last."
He stepped through.
Inside, the room was bathed in pale radiance. Dust danced in the air like spirits. And at the center, collapsed on the floor, was the old woman, his grandmother.
"Nonna…" his voice cracked, raw, childlike for the briefest second. He had not heard her speak in years. Not since she had wasted away into silence, trapped to her chair, half-dead.
But now—
Her thin fingers clawed at the ground, trembling as she moved toward him. Her lips, cracked and bleeding, formed words. "Lu…"
Damiano dropped to his knees, grabbing her shoulders. His emerald eyes gleamed with something close to joy. "You can talk! You moved… How? How did you leave your chair?"
Her eyes rolled back, her body shaking violently. Then, with a sudden burst of strength, she seized his wrist. Her nails cut into his flesh as her mouth tore open in a rasping cry:
"L…Lu…na…"
Damiano froze. The name struck him like lightning.
His grip tightened. "What did you say?"
Her sunken eyes snapped wide, glowing faintly with silver light. "She… she has returned…"
Damiano's breath hitched. Confusion twisted his face into something unreadable.
"Who? How do you know her?"
His grandmother's voice grew clearer, though it carried the weight of centuries. "The Moon's chosen… the last… She has finally come back. You must… you must bring her safely… to me."
Damiano shook his head violently. "No… you can't mean her. She's nothing. She's mine to break!"
But the old woman's grip only tightened, stronger than he thought possible. Her voice rose, ringing with power that made the walls tremble.
"She is the key, Damiano. The blood of gods runs in her veins. If you fail to return her… all will be lost."
The torches flared. The air split with a violent crack.
Damiano's smirk faltered into something darker. His eyes narrowed, a storm raging within.
"Then perhaps I don't want to return her," he whispered. "Perhaps I'll keep her… until the gods themselves come down to beg me."
The grandmother's eyes blazed silver then she screamed, her body convulsing, as though something within her tried to break free.
And in that scream… a single name echoed through the mansion's halls, chilling and commanding at once:
"LUNA!"
The sound reverberated like a prophecy, shaking Damiano's very bones.