Chapter 5 CHAPTER 5

LUNA

The silver streaks in my hair were getting harder to hide.

Every morning, I’d wake up and check the mirror, watching as more of my natural brown transformed into that eerie, luminescent silver. It wasn’t gray like an old woman’s hair it was metallic, catching light like liquid moonlight. Beautiful and terrifying.

I started wearing my hoodie with the hood up constantly, even in the humid New Orleans heat. People already thought I was weird. The last thing I needed was to give them more ammunition.

But the hair wasn’t even the worst part.

My body was changing in ways I couldn’t explain. My senses had sharpened I could hear conversations three classrooms away, smell the individual ingredients in the cafeteria’s mystery meat, and see in the dark like it was broad daylight. My skin had this subtle glow beneath the surface, like I’d swallowed moonlight.

And the dreams. God, the dreams.

Every night, I dreamed of golden eyes and rough hands. Of a voice that made my wolf purr with recognition. Of a body pressing mine into soft earth while the moon watched overhead.

I knew whose voice it was now. Knew whose scent clung to my memories like smoke.

Damian Blackwell.

The realization had come slowly, then all at once. The way my body reacted when he was near the electric current that ran through me when we’d collided in the lab. The possessive growl in his voice when he’d told me to watch where I was going. The way his golden eyes had locked onto mine with an intensity that felt like recognition.

He was the dark wolf from Eden Forest.

He was my mate.

And I hated him for it.

“Luna Rivers?”

I jerked my head up from my chemistry textbook. Mr. Graham was standing at the front of the classroom, looking annoyed.

“Yes, sir?”

“I asked you a question three times. Are you with us today?”

Heat flooded my cheeks as the entire class turned to stare. I could feel their judgment, their amusement at seeing the poor scholarship kid get called out.

“Sorry, sir. Could you repeat the question?”

Before Mr. Graham could respond, the classroom door opened and Damian Blackwell walked in.

Late. Unapologetic. Looking like he’d just rolled out of bed and somehow made it look deliberate.

“Mr. Blackwell,” Mr. Graham said with barely concealed irritation. “How kind of you to join us.”

“Traffic,” Damian said simply, his voice a low rumble that I felt in my bones.

He moved through the classroom with that predatory grace all the dominant wolves had, but there was something else something wild and barely contained beneath his polished exterior. His golden eyes swept the room, and I quickly looked down, praying he wouldn’t notice me.

But of course, the universe hated me.

“Take the empty seat next to Miss Rivers,” Mr. Graham instructed.

No. No, no, no.

I kept my eyes glued to my textbook as Damian slid into the seat beside me. The moment he sat down, his scent hit me cedar and gold and something darker, something that made my wolf want to bare her throat in submission.

I gripped my pen so hard it nearly snapped.

“You’re tense,” he murmured, his voice pitched low enough that only I could hear.

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Liar.”

I risked a glance at him. His profile was sharp and aristocratic, all strong lines and confident angles. He wasn’t even looking at me, his attention supposedly on the whiteboard, but I could feel his awareness of me like a physical touch.

“Why are you sitting here?” I whispered harshly.

“Mr. Graham told me to.”

“There are other empty seats.”

“Are there?” Finally, he turned to look at me, and the full force of those golden eyes made my breath catch. “I didn’t notice.”

The lie was obvious. Deliberate.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, desperate and angry.

His jaw tightened. For a moment, something raw and vulnerable flashed across his face something that looked like pain and confusion and desperate need all tangled together.

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “But I can’t seem to stay away.”

DAMIAN

I was losing my mind.

Three days since the forest. Three days since I’d mated with the silver wolf. Three days of my wolf clawing at my insides, demanding I find her again, claim her properly, mark her for the whole world to see.

And when I’d finally figured out who she was Luna Rivers, the quiet scholarship kid, the rogue’s daughter it hadn’t made anything better. It had made everything worse.

Because now I could see her every day. Smell her in the hallways. Watch her try to disappear into the background while my wolf screamed that she was mine.

I’d tried to stay away. Tried to convince myself it was a mistake, a moment of weakness, something I could forget if I just ignored it hard enough.

But then she’d walked into chemistry class with that ridiculous oversized hoodie and those nerdy glasses, and my entire body had locked up with need. I’d known, with absolute certainty, that she was the silver wolf. Known it from the way my wolf responded to her presence, from the faint silver shimmer I could see beneath her skin, from the scent of moonlight and wild places that clung to her.

So I’d walked into class late, let Mr. Graham assign me the seat next to her, and now I was sitting so close I could hear her heartbeat racing.

She was terrified of me. Angry at me. And underneath it all, drawn to me with the same inevitable pull I felt toward her.

The bond was taking root. Growing stronger with every breath.

“I don’t know,” I heard myself say. “But I can’t seem to stay away.”

It was too honest. Too vulnerable. The kind of admission I never made.

Luna’s eyes widened slightly, and I saw my own confusion reflected back at me.

“This is insane,” she whispered. “You’re… you’re a Blackwell. I’m nobody.”

“You’re not nobody.”

“I’m the daughter of a rogue who was executed by your family.”

The words hit like a punch. I’d known about Ronan River my father had mentioned him once, dismissed him as a traitor and a threat. But I’d never connected that execution to the quiet girl sitting beside me.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Would it have mattered?”

Yes. No. I didn’t know anymore.

“Luna—”

“Don’t.” She cut me off, her voice shaking. “Whatever this is, it can’t happen. You know that, right? Your father would—”

“My father doesn’t control everything.”

She laughed bitterly. “Yes, he does. That’s the whole point. He controls everything and everyone, and people like me people like my family we’re just collateral damage.”

LUNA

I shouldn’t have said it. Shouldn’t have revealed how much I knew, how much I’d figured out.

But sitting this close to him, feeling the pull of the bond like a physical ache, I was angry. Angry at fate for choosing him as my mate. Angry at myself for wanting him despite everything. Angry at the universe for making my life one cruel joke after another.

“I’m sorry,” Damian said quietly. “For what happened to your father. For what my family has done to yours.”

“Sorry doesn’t bring him back.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

We sat in tense silence while Mr. Graham droned on about chemical reactions. But all I could think about was the reaction happening between Damian and me volatile, dangerous, impossible to ignore.

When class finally ended, I grabbed my books and bolted for the door before he could say anything else.

But I felt his eyes on me the entire way down the hall. Felt the bond stretching between us like a golden thread, pulling tighter with every step I took away from him.

This was going to destroy me.

I knew it with the same certainty I knew the moon would rise tonight.

Damian Blackwell was my mate, my enemy, and my doom all wrapped into one impossible package.

And there was nothing I could do to stop what was coming.