Page 136 of King Luna

My heart drops when I realize something important. “T-the bar? Which bar?”

“The one in Westview.”

I grip Noah, barely able to catch my breath. “He’s in Westview? Like, our Westview? Next to Greenfield?”

“I mean, I guess? People travel from all over for these meetups, so who knows where the dude actually lives.”

Noah hisses beneath his breath, but it’s forceful enough to shift my focus.

Dammit. It's over now. Steven won't tell us anything else.

Steven waits for me to answer—to cover for Noah—but I can't think. The only sound is my own rabbiting heartbeat, throbbing in my ears.

When Steven speaks again, he’s lost his “charming” lilt. All that’s left is a dark, treacherous depth to his tone.

“Are you not alone?”

I grip Noah’s arm, swallowing a spike of panic. “N-no, of course I’m not alone! I’m freaking out! I’m with my—”

My breath shakes.

I’m so petrified that my wolf had no choice but to step forward for me—so much so that I almost said “my Alpha.”

Closing my eyes, I erase the panic from my voice. “I’m with my husband.”

Steven breaks into laughter. I wince, the sarcasm in his tone threatening to tear me apart; that tone means consequences are incoming. “You’re fuckingmarried?Since when? Did you get knocked up, or something?”

My heartbeat pounds harder and harder, rage bubbling to the surface.

I break away from Noah, standing at the edge of the bed to clench and unclench my fists—unsure what to do with the fury in my veins.

“Seriously, Aliya, I never imagined you to be the type. The last I heard, you were still in that cottage—”

“Fuck you, Steven!” My voice echoes throughout our suite. “You don’t deserve to know anything about me! You’re a sick fucking stalker!”

Steven is silent, but I’ve unlocked something within myself I’ve kept trapped for a long time. And she’s not going back into her cage.

When I look into my mate’s eyes, the horrified ache overpowering his rage makes it all spill out of me.

“I wasn’t the type to get married after I broke up withyou, only because you— You—” Despite my best efforts, my voice catches with emotion. “You hurt me!”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then Steven’s voice comes out soft. “You hurt me too.”

Sobs break through my anger, and I huff in frustration; he’ll never take me seriously, now that I'm crying.

He has no idea what he really did to me since he thinks I owed him my body. He thinks I took his property away from him by dumping him, when really, he took everything frommethat day he broke in.

So many times, I’ve wished I could shake the reality into him, screaming the truth of what he did to me to his face. But just like every time he’s knocked me down, I sputter through my fear of what he’ll do next, unable to spit a single word out.

Steven sighs. “After everything I’ve done for you, you still fucking hate me, huh?”

My lip quivers as Steven laughs.

Noah’s hand grips his chest, grimacing as I cry my ugliest cry.

My shoulders droop. “You never used to be this cruel. Why do you have to keep treating me like this?”

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