Page 68 of Treasured

She blinked at me. “I’m sorry. Are you angry with me?”

Was I angry? What a question. Did the sun rise without fail every morning? Was the sky blue? Was my love for Luna unending?

“Yes!” I shouted. “I’m furious.”

My heart pounded as my brain unhelpfully supplied me with numerous visions of how this could have all gone wrong. Luna’s dead body. Her head ripped away. Blood coating the snow. The wolf snarling over her.

She was acting dangerously.

“Why?” Luna seemed confused. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I got the blood we need.”

That she thought it was okay made this a hundred times worse.

“You didn’t know the wolf wouldn’t hurt you, Luna,” I snapped. “You can’t just go around throwing yourself into danger at every turn.”

How was I supposed to live if she died?

“The wolf didn’t hurt me,” she said, her tone making it clear she thought this entire conversation was pointless.

“It could have!” I yelled. “It could have taken you from me.”

Luna stepped towards me, her eyes searching mine. My heart caught in my throat, and for several long seconds, neither of us spoke.

“Sebastian, people have been trying to kill me since my first night in Eleyta.” I snarled, but she held up a hand. “I can’t hide. It’s not in my nature. Besides, what else were we going to do? Pin the wolf down and hope it didn’t bite us?” She smiled ruefully. “Somehow, I don’t think it would have worked.”

My nostrils flared, and anger still coursed through my body. “You shouldn’t have endangered yourself. You should have told me your plan and let me do it.”

Her eyes narrowed, and the anger coming through the Binding Mark wasn’t just mine. “Is this because I’m female? Is that it?” Her fists were tight at her side, and her voice was rising. “Am I too fragile for something like this? Would the Prince of Darkness like to lock me up in the castle, never to leave again for fear of getting hurt?”

“Yes, I would!” I shouted. “If the Tether weren’t a gods-damn rope, I would keep you safe from everything! Not because you’re fragile, though.”

She lifted her lip and snarled. “Then tell me, Sebastian.” Her eyes shimmered with a mixture of defiance and vulnerability. Even now, in the midst of an argument, she remained open to me. “Why would it have been okay for you to do this and not me?”

I moved into her space, cupping her cheek with my hand. “Because, Luna, you’re not just any female. You’re mine.” She sucked in a breath, her eyes searching mine, but I kept going. “When you’re reckless, when you act without thinking, when you talk to the queen and say the first thing that comes to your mind, you’re putting the thing I love most in this entire world in danger.”

No Room for Fear or Panic

LUNA

Of all the words that left Sebastian’s lips, only one jumped out at me. The rest, the claiming words, the ones that made my core twist in all the right ways, I’d store away in my heart and think about them late at night for years to come.

But right now, one word had all my attention.

“You think I’m reckless?” The idea was so preposterous I could barely think, let alone put together a coherent thought. Me. Reckless. The scholarly one who lived in her head and desired to spend days in the library. Of all the ways I’d describe myself, reckless would never be one of them. “Seriously?”

The wind whistled all around us, and snow fell so heavily that Sebastian’s hair was turning white where he stood, but neither of us seemed to care. My blood pounded, keeping me warm enough.

“Yes.” He pulled his hand away, and his eyes flashed as shadows flooded out of him. Even now, standing beneath the snow, he was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.

“Why?” I blinked repeatedly.

“Do you truly not know?”

I shook my head.

“You’re making rash decisions and acting without thought,” Sebastian said with a touch of exasperation in his tone. “For Isvana’s sake, Luna, you need to be more careful.”

My brows nearly hit my hairline. Why were we talking about being careful? We were literally on a quest to retrieve items so we could break his bond—something that might kill him. What did being careful have to do with it?

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