Luna's POV

I hadn't meant to listen. I'd come downstairs for water, nothing more sinister than that, and the sound of my own name from Dominic's study had stopped me cold in the hallway.

*Her wolf should have shifted years ago.*

*Someone made a choice. A choice to silence her wolf*

*Why would that be though?*

*Because of what she could definitely become.*

I stood frozen long after Alexander's footsteps, his beta faded down the corridor, the glass forgotten in my hand, my heart doing something painful behind my ribs. Weak. That was my father's word for me ...*your wolf is weak, Luna, don't embarrass this family trying to force what isn't there.* I'd built my whole understanding of myself around that sentence.

And now a physician was telling Dominic the opposite. That I'd been strong. That something had stopped me before I'd ever had the chance.

I didn't hear him move. That was the unfair thing about Dominic...a man his size should have announced himself, should have given some warning. Instead the study door opened without a sound, and by the time I turned, he was already close enough that retreating would have meant admitting I'd been caught.

"Luna." I jumped at the sound of my name, the glass in my hand almost slipping from my hands. "How long were you standing there?" His brow cocked upwards as he stared down at me. I shuddered a little, thinking of an excuse.

"I was getting water." It came out thinner than I wanted.

"That's not an answer." He didn't raise his voice. He never had to. He simply stepped closer, and the hallway...wide enough for three people to pass abreast...suddenly felt too narrow to hold both of us and the space between us at the same time.

I backed up half a step. My shoulder blades met the wall before I realized I'd run out of room.

Dominic didn't stop.

He came to a halt close enough that I had to tip my chin up to hold his gaze, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him through the thin fabric of my nightgown. One hand came up, not fast, not grabbing, just settling at my waist like he had every right to it, fingers spreading with a slow, deliberate pressure that made something low in my stomach pull tight.

"You heard," he said. Not a question this time.

"Some of it." My voice had gone traitor-soft.

"Are you scared of me princess?" His questions sent my heart thumping faster than normal. Princess? It did things to me I didn't want to admit. I was so certain he could hear the sound of my heart racing because his lips twerked up in knowing.

"I...I'm..." I stuttered and gasped when he closed the gap between us, then hunching down to my level. If he moved another inch, we'd be kissing.

"Its quite funny though. Underneath that innocent mask...so much fire..." He let out, as though he wanted to break me.

His other hand lifted, and I braced for...I didn't know what. Instead his fingers found the loose strand of hair that had fallen across my cheek and tucked it back, slow, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.

"Why do you care so mivy?" I whispered. "I'm not...this isn't a real marriage. You don't have to pretend you're invested in what happens to me." I said...I didn't believe he really cared, or perhaps I didn't want to...the whips and lashes that hit my flesh every night was a memory in my head, something I could never forget.

Something shifted in his expression, dark and unreadable. He leaned down, and the movement brought his mouth level with my ear, close enough that his breath stirred the loose strands of my hair, close enough that I felt the words more than heard them.

"I don't pretend, Luna." His voice had dropped to something rougher, something that scraped against my nerves like static. "Not about this. Not about you."

My pulse was a drum in my throat. He hadn't kissed me. He hadn't done anything I could name and point to and call a line crossed. And yet my whole body had gone electric, humming under his hand at my waist, under the low murmur of his voice against my ear, under the simple, unbearable fact of how close he was. I gasped when he pulled me closer, the heat of his rock hard body against my body. His grip on my body tightened a little...the waves of adrenaline that rushed through me because I found myself not wanting to let go.

I felt him inhale..slow, deliberate, his face dipping toward the crown of my head. He breathed me in like he was drawing something out of the air that only existed near me, and when he exhaled, I felt the warmth of it against my scalp, and something in his shoulders loosened, just slightly, like a man setting down a weight he hadn't realized he was carrying.

"You have no idea what you do to me," he murmured, almost to himself.