Chapter 2 Leash

I did not answer right away.

The answer should have been simple. Mother had pressed the cup to my lips. Celeste had watched me drink from the mirror. She had not even turned around. She had only checked whether my throat moved, the way she might check whether a clasp had been fastened properly.

But my lips parted, and her name still did not come out first.

Adrian watched me.

He did not rush me.

That made it harder.

The blood moon’s afterlight rested on his shoulder. The broken silver chains lay near the wall, their ends stained dark red, like dried wounds. Bitter herbs pressed down over the iron scent, while Celeste’s white rose perfume turned sickly sweet around me. Standing there in her gown, with the veil half-fallen against me, I felt like a lie half taken apart.

Not broken yet.

But impossible to put back together.

“Mira.”

I raised my eyes.

His voice was low.

“The truth.”

My fingers tightened in the skirt.

He was not asking me how to make the lie hold.

At last, I heard myself say, “Mother gave it to me.”

Adrian’s expression did not change.

“And Celeste?”

My throat tightened.

“She watched.”

The room went quiet.

Adrian did not laugh. He did not look amused. He only looked at the shine of balm on my wrist, and the gold in his eyes slowly sank.

“Did you know what it was?”

“No.”

“Did anyone ask if you wanted it?”

I looked at the balm’s thin gleam on my skin.

“No.”

Adrian finally moved.

He did not come closer. He turned slightly and took a clean white cloth from the table. A silver-handled knife lay beside it. He avoided the silver and pushed the cloth to the edge with his knuckle.

“Wipe it off.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“The balm. Wipe it off.”

I went to the table and picked up the cloth. The cold surface brushed my fingertips as my skirt dragged around my ankles. I rubbed the cloth over my wrist. The balm was stickier than I expected, like a thin invisible film holding scent, skin, and command together.

One pass did not remove it. It only spread the floral heat wider.

Adrian’s breathing changed.

I stopped.

So did he.

For a brief moment, something pulled tight between us. The blood moon’s light slanted through the window and touched his throat. I saw it move. I saw his hand slowly close at his side.

He smelled it.

Not only Celeste’s perfume.

He smelled me.

The scent Luna Bloom had forced out from beneath the disguise.

I suddenly understood. I was not wiping the drug away.

I was making the lie messier.

I set the cloth down without a sound.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked.

Adrian looked at me.

“For you?”

He paused.

“With a man who cannot control himself, yes.”

A slow chill went down my back.

It was not a threat.

It was clearer than one.

Luna Bloom was not a knife. It was not a lock. It was not a silver chain everyone could see. It put me in front of an Alpha, made my scent and fear louder, and left the rest to the man in the room.

If that man wanted to, he could call it a rite.

The blood moon.

A Luna’s duty.

He could call it my silence.

Adrian’s voice turned cold, as if he were holding something down.

“She was counting on me to be worse.”

I said nothing.

Because he was right.

Celeste had not only wanted me to take her place. She had gambled. She had gambled that Adrian would be fooled by the perfume and veil, that he would accept the “Celeste” sent to his room, and that if he truly lost control, she would have a respectable reason to free herself from this marriage.

And I would become the evidence.

A piece of evidence ruined badly enough to throw away.

And if I wanted to escape the Vale family, I could not let them turn me into the easiest thing to discard first. 

“She said it was for the rite,” I said quietly.

Adrian lifted his eyes.

“Luna Bloom does not create a bond.”

His voice was calm, but the words cut like a blade laid slowly against skin.

“It only makes a lie louder.”

I stood there, stunned.

My wrist still burned, as though the drug had traveled through my blood and pressed everything that was not mine against my skin: a duty that was not mine, a name that was not mine, a man who was not mine.

Adrian took one step toward me.

I did not move back.

Not because I was brave.

Fear had pinned my legs before courage could reach them.

When his scent came closer, the Luna Bloom seemed to ignite again. My breath stumbled. The veil hanging against my chest suddenly felt too heavy.

Adrian stopped a step away from me.

Close enough for me to see the tension at his open collar, and the faint line of strain at the side of his neck. Silver wounds, blood moon backlash, bitter herbs, my scent. They seemed to pull on him at once. Gold rose in his eyes, cold and dangerous.

But he did not touch me.

His hand lifted slightly, then stopped in the air.

It was close to my wrist.

Close enough that I almost thought he would grab me, wipe the balm away himself, or tear me out of Celeste’s gown.

He did not.

His fingers remained still for a long moment. Then, as if the motion itself had cut him, he drew his hand back and braced it against the edge of the table.

The wood gave a low sound.

It did not crack.

Not yet.

Adrian did not come any closer.

He looked at the balm smeared over my wrist, then at the veil hanging against my chest.

“That is not a rite.”

I raised my eyes.

His gaze was terrifyingly still.

“It is a leash.”

The words pressed into me like cold iron.

Celeste had called it a Luna’s duty. Mother had called it family.

I had already known there was something rotten beneath those pretty words.

But Adrian was the first person to give it a name.

Not a rite.

A leash.

What I wore was not honor.

It was a leash plated in silver.

And the other end was not in my hand. 

Adrian turned away suddenly.

It was as if he could no longer keep looking at me, or keep breathing in the scent the drug had forced out of my skin. He went to the window and braced one hand against the frame, his shoulders tight beneath his black shirt. Moonlight fell across his back, and only then did I see the small dark patch where sweat had soaked through the fabric.

I think he was close to his limit too.

The blood moon was still hurting him.

The silver wounds were still open.

And Celeste had sent me in with drug, perfume, and a lie bright enough to strike sparks in a room already full of powder.

I understood then that every step he had taken back was not only restraint.

It was saving me.

And saving himself.

The silence in the room pressed against my chest.

My voice came out soft.

“What are you going to do with me?”

Adrian did not answer at once.

He stood by the window with his back to me, one hand still on the frame. His shoulders lifted with a slow breath and stayed there. His fingers pressed harder into the wood.

“Nothing.”

The word came out rough, almost bitten off.

I stared at him. 

He turned his face slightly, but he did not meet my eyes. His attention dropped to my wrist and moved away again, as if it had burned him.

“Not while you are shaking because someone else sent you.”

For the first time, I breathed.

Only a little.

Like someone who had hit the bottom of deep water and suddenly found a stone beneath her feet.

He would not touch me.

Not now.

But the relief had barely risen before I remembered Celeste and Mother pressing the veil down over my face.

“Tonight, you are Celeste.”

Did they want a clean, untouched false Celeste to return?

No.

They wanted far more than that.

They had given me Luna Bloom, covered me in perfume, and sent me into an Alpha’s room after the blood moon. They had not expected me to come out unharmed.

Clean would not mean safe.

I lifted my head and looked at him.

Adrian still had his back to me, as if he had already reached the same answer and was waiting for me to find it myself.

He had placed the choice back in my hands again.

This choice felt heavier than any order.

“If I leave clean,” I said, my voice rough, “she’ll know it failed.”

Adrian did not turn.

“What failed?”

My gaze dropped to the Luna gown on my body.

For one strange second, I almost wanted to laugh.

There was no laughter in my throat.

“Me.”

Adrian finally faced me.

I did not give myself time to retreat.

“They gave me that drug for a reason.”

My fingers gripped the skirt.

“They were not expecting me to come back untouched.”

Adrian watched me for a long moment.

I kept speaking, because I was afraid if I stopped, I would not be able to start again.

“If she knows you spared me, she’ll send me back worse prepared.”

I lifted a hand and touched the edge of the veil.

“More Bloom. More perfume. Someone outside the door next time.”

I paused.

Then I finally said it.

“I need her to believe it worked.”

His gaze settled, cold and intent.

“Say what you are asking me for, Mira.”

This time, my name did not tear the lie open.

It pushed me in front of myself.

I looked at him, my chest rising too fast. The Luna Bloom still burned in my blood. So did fear. But between those two flames, one small part of me went cold and clear.

If the lie had to sit on my skin, then at least this time I would know how it was being used.

I said quietly, “Enough for her to stop asking questions tonight.”

Adrian did not answer right away.

“You know what this will look like.”

Of course I did.

I knew what Celeste would think. I knew how Mother would use her silence.

But I did not need Celeste fooled forever.

I only needed her to stop asking questions tonight.

I only needed room to breathe.

At least part of this lie would be mine to choose.

I gripped the skirt and kept my eyes on him.

“Yes.”

Adrian’s attention moved from my face to the half-fallen veil, then to my wrist where the balm still shone.

In that moment, I understood his silence was not refusal.

He knew that if he agreed, he would have to turn me into another lie with his own hands.

And this time, I would be the one asking him to do it.

Moonlight lay between us.

Adrian finally took one step toward me.

He did not touch me.

He only said, very low, “I am not safe enough tonight.”

His voice was rougher than before.

“Are you certain you want me to touch you?”