"I'm not implying it, Ellie. I'm telling you. You are living in a den of vipers, and if it goes by my theory, they must already be moving on with their plan which must include convincing you that the smoke you smell is just a dream."
Jarek let go of my wrists as he continued, "Work with me. Let me help you find out who held the vial."
I pushed him back, my breath coming in short, jagged gasps. "No. You're a liar. You're trying to turn me against the only people I have left. My husband and I can handle our own affairs. We don't need help from a man who profits from misery."
I straightened my cashmere collar, trying to regain my dignity. "Maybe if you were more moral, Jarek—if you had followers who actually respected the law—the world wouldn't be in such a mess. You're the 'bad market.' You're the problem."
Jarek's expression changed. The calculated investigator vanished, replaced by something wilder. He didn't look offended; he looked starved.
"More moral?" he repeated, a wolfish grin spreading across his face. "You want me to be a good boy, Luna?"
Before I could blink, he slammed his palms against the door on either side of me. The impact made the old wood shudder. "Maybe I need to be worse. So bad that I stop caring about the fact that you belong to another man. So bad that I take what I want right here in the dust and the dark."
My heart did a somersault. "Stop," I whispered, but it came out as a plea, not a command.
He didn't stop. He leaned down, and I felt the graze of his teeth against the top button of my cashmere dress. My breath hitched as he deftly undid the button with his teeth, his eyes never leaving mine. It was a hot, deliberate violation of my space, and Nyla was howling with approval.
"Jarek, please…"
He ignored me, his tongue trailing a line of fire from the hollow of my throat down to the curve of my collarbone. I felt my knees go weak. My hands, which should have been pushing him away, found their way into his thick, dark hair.
"You're a Goldbane," he murmured against my skin, his breath hot. "You should be burning. Not fading away in a sterile house with a man who doesn't even know how to look at you."
He moved lower, his lips brushing the swell of my cleavage, and I let out a desperate whimper that even I didn't recognize. When his hand dropped, grabbing my hip and pulling me flush against the hard, uncompromising line of his body, I lost the battle.
I reached up, grabbing his face, and pulled him down into a kiss.
It wasn't a soft kiss. It was a collision. It tasted of salt, desperation, and the spice of his skin. He groaned into my mouth, his tongue sweeping past my teeth with a possessive hunger that made my head spin.
For a moment, there was no Gideon, no Marisol, no pack. There was only the friction of his leather jacket against my silk dress and the way he held me like I was the only thing keeping him grounded.
We were lost in the heat, the raw, forbidden friction—until a sharp thud sounded from outside.
"Luna? Ellie, are you in there?" Marisol's voice called out, sounding much too close.
I froze. Reality crashed back down on me like a bucket of ice water. I shoved Jarek back, my chest heaving, my lips swollen and throbbing. I looked down at my undone buttons, my face flaming with a shame so deep it felt like it was branded into my skin.
"I... I..." I couldn't even form a sentence.
Jarek stood there, his hair mussed, his eyes dark with a triumph he didn't even try to hide. He looked like the devil who had just won a soul.
"Go on, Ellie," he whispered with a smirk on his lips. "Go back to your husband. But remember the way you just tasted me when he tries to tell you you're crazy."
I didn't wait. I fumbled with my buttons, my fingers shaking so hard I could barely close them. I burst out of the storage room, nearly colliding with Marisol, and ran toward the main house without looking back.
"We're in trouble," Nyla whispered, sounding entirely too pleased with herself. "We're in so much beautiful, burning trouble."
.
My feet didn't feel like they belonged to me. They were pistons, driving me away from the scent of bergamot and the terrifying, electric heat of a man who had just dismantled my entire reality with a single kiss.
I burst out of the shadows of the carriage house like a bird flushed from cover, my breath hitching in a throat that still tasted of salt and woodsmoke.
"Luna! Ellie!" Marisol's voice trailed behind me, high-pitched and agitated.
I didn't stop. I couldn't. If I stopped, the shame would catch up. If I stopped, I would have to look at Marisol—the woman who had just seen me bolt from a dark room with my buttons undone—and I would have to lie. And I was so, so tired of lying.
I rounded the corner of the main hedge, expecting the privacy of the gardens, but instead, I collided head-first with the one thing I was trying to avoid: the world.
The tour had clearly expanded. The moment I emerged from the greenery, disheveled and wild-eyed, a hundred lenses pivoted toward me like the barrels of a firing squad.
"Luna Elowen!" a reporter shouted, thrusting a microphone forward. "Is it true the Goldbane lineage is in crisis?"
"Look at her," a woman whispered nearby. "She looks... unwell. Did you see her eyes?"
I stumbled, my heels sinking into the soft turf. My fingers fumbled with the top button of my cashmere dress. The memory of Jarek undoing the buttons with his teeth sent a jolt of lightning through my core, but here, in the harsh glare of the morning sun, it felt like a brand of hot iron.
"Get back!" I gasped, waving a hand blindly. "Just... stay away!"
"She's shaking. The rumors about the grief taking her mind... maybe they weren't just rumors." Someone else noted.
"I'm not crazy!" I screamed.
The sound tore out of me rawly, echoing off the stone walls of my family's estate. The crowd went deathly silent for a heartbeat before the frantic clicking of shutters intensified.
"Ellie, stop," Nyla pleaded, her voice uncharacteristically small. "You're giving them exactly what they want. You're feeding the fire."
"She's lost it," a teenager muttered, holding up a phone to livestream my breakdown. "The Goldbane Luna has finally snapped."
I felt the walls closing in, though I was standing in the open air. The faces blurred into a monstrous, many-eyed beast. I wanted to run, but my legs felt like lead. I was a puppet with severed strings, collapsing under the weight of a legacy I was never supposed to carry alone.
Suddenly, a pair of strong, familiar arms wrapped around me. "Easy, sweetheart. I've got you. You're safe."