Page 31 of Heir of Darkness

“Don’t lie to me!” he bellowed, making her flinch. She looked down at the ground, avoiding his gaze.

“I have been in meetings with them for the last week trying to get him to reconsider. Do you understand what their connections would do for our family? And then you go and completely screw it up! Have you lost your mind? Is this school making you this way?” he hissed.

Luna shook her head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“For seven years the contract was undisturbed,” Eleanora spoke up. “He spends a couple weeks with you and now he’s backing out? If it’s not you, Luna, then what is it?”

“Maybe he realized who I actually am and that I’m not the person you spoke me up to be,” Luna said, looking up in defiance.

“Watch your mouth,” Eleanora snapped.

“He is absolutely done with the contract. Wants nothing to do with this family. Luckily for you, there is a list ofmen who were quick to ask for you because Valerio assured us your purity is still intact,” her father said. “I am finishing sorting out arrangements with one of them this afternoon. Your engagement party will be within the next couple of weeks; your wedding within a few months.”

“Why the rush?” Luna asked, her eyes wide in fear.

“So there’s no chance of another contract falling short as well.” The icy malice in her father’s voice should have been enough to get Luna to shut up, but the panic built up before she could stop herself.

“Please don’t do this,” Luna begged, standing. “Please. Let me fix this; let me do something.”

Reece’s hand connected with her face before she could blink. The impact sent her falling to the floor, the burn of her skin forcing tears out of her eyes.

“You have done enough,” he hissed. “Focus on finding a wedding dress.”

Luna didn’t have the guts to look up at him. She held her cheek, looking at the floor until she was sure she heard him leave. Her mother followed him out immediately, not bothering for a second to check on Luna before the door shut behind them.

Finn walked up to her, taking a knee beside her as he squeezed her shoulder. Luna looked up at her older brother, finding a similar broken look in his eyes.

“I tried to pick someone else,” he told her.

“What did he do to you?” Luna asked, already knowing that the defiance would have warranted some kind of beating.

“Ten lashes on my back.” Finn said.

She swallowed harshly. “Then he went easy on me because of all the events coming up.” He could have done worse, but he held back for the sake of her physical appearance.

“They’re keeping you on lockdown for the next couple of weeks. You won’t be allowed to leave unless they give you permission,” Finn told her.

Luna nodded her head, the tears already gathering in her eyes. “I figured.”

“I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said, standing up. He gave her one last look before walking out the front door as well. From a stranger's point of view, no one would have known that his back was probably raw and destroyed, but the Kingsley siblings were good at covering it up by now.

Luna’s shoulders fell. The apartment was silent until the first choked sob escaped her lips. Blair and Cecilia ran into the room once they heard it, knowing Luna was suffering.

They hugged her and whispered hopeless promises, but none of it mattered. Her life was set and she would never have any say in it. To her father, she was nothing more than something to sell off. She had always known that, but in that moment, it struck her more than anything else. She had blamed Valerio, cursed his name day and night for the past seven years, and yet, he wasn’t here now to be blamed.

Her father was at fault. He always had been. And she wished she could stick a knife so deeply into his heart and watch the life fade from his eyes the way he did to her. The thought struck her so vividly, she was shocked by her own rancid hatred towards her father, but it wasn’t new. It just festered and grew worse with every passing moment.

Her life was a clusterfuck of mistakes and consequences to the actions she had never decided on. The thought was enough to send her down the darkest spiral she had ever experienced in her life.

One she wasn’t sure she would be able to pull herself out from.

THIRTEEN

VALERIO

Life was truly bleak.Two weeks had passed since Valerio had seen her, spoken to her, but not since he thought about her. He thought about her every day, destroying his mind with the constant cycle of wondering what she was doing, knowing he had to let her go, fighting the urge to kidnap her and keep her all for himself, and then falling back into his spiral. It took all of his willpower not to run back to her, begging her to take him back. But he didn’t. And he wasn’t going to.

He couldn’t be the reason she found misery in her life. After his mother, he’d learned desperation could push people into the worst situations. If Luna ever hurt herself because of him, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. That night, he saw the brokenness in her eyes, the exhaustion she was facing after having fought against him for so long.

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