Page 164 of King Luna

But I don't sit. I cling to the back of the chair, using it to cover my belly.

“Does this work?” Reid whispers.

“Yes, thank you, I—”

Noah growls. “No. He’s not safe to be around yet. Not only is the fucker still trying to shift back, he’s manipulative as fuck, and a waste of our Queen Luna’s time.”

“Noah.” I gaze up at him, stroking the back of his tense hand. “It’s okay. I want to experience everything with you—good and bad.”

Noah’s heart aches with both love and despair.

Then I hear a curdled cry.

“Stop! This is inhumane!” A figure scrambles to the back of Mason’s cell, keeping his head obscured from view.

I almost don’t recognize Tane’s voice, losing its shining intonation as he growls through each word. “Hate to break it to you, bro, but it’s not a civil right to abuse others. We’re not letting you shift tonight—not until there’s no one nearby you can hurt.”

My eyes widen when our wolven allies step out of my view, revealing a cage full of Alphas and Betas pinning down one cowering Alpha.

Mason struggles, his claws extending and retreating in a failed attempt to shift. With Tane grabbing a better hold of Mason, Johannes injects him with more Alpha rut suppressants, his rusty brown fur sinking back into his human skin. Mason’s back remains turned, the Alpha hunched into himself until he looks like a small mound on the stained stone. I can hardly see a human form, let alone his face.

A part of me wants to feel pity. But that only makes me angrier.

“Mason, that's enough,” I say.

He sucks in a heavy breath, then freezes.

Everyone’s expression contorts in confusion.

“He stopped struggling. It's the first time today,” Viktor mutters.

“I don’t like this.” Noah’s breath speeds up beside me. “He fits your profile, Aliya. And I know you have to be the one to confirm it, but I can’t fucking stand it—”

All thoughts escape me when Tane attempts to turn Mason’s head towards me with a handful of Mason’s hair. “Let’s get this over with then, eh? Is this who you think it is, Luna?”

I catch a glimpse of short, dirty blonde strands in Tane’s fist. If that wasn’t enough, I spot a little mole above Mason’s eyebrow—the one I always used to kiss.

My heart threatens to stop.

The more his body struggles against furious hands, the more I recognize his gait. The way he carries his shoulders. How he shifts them out of the way, tilting one up to bend his body to his advantage rather than wasting energy by jerking around.

My very first thought is odd: I always thought Steven was too agile to want a desk job out of college.

Then all his other lies come crashing down, one by one.

It’s true. Noah’s suspicions about Steven being a wolf, the lies Noah and I picked apart on our last phone call, my suppressed memories that came flooding out of me last night, all of it.

I’m looking at Steven Barrett.

Steven is Mason.

Even after all this time in therapy, and no matter how tough I want to appear, my shaking body admits the truth: he still scares me.

At first, disappointment creeps in—a bitter piece of me spitting at the thought of him still soiling my mind. Logically, I know I have new reasons to be scared after his Alpha-domination stunt, if my initial traumas weren’t reason enough. But that’s not what I’m truly afraid of.

This secret is too huge. Is this the extent of the damage he’s done to me? Toeveryone?

What else do I not know?

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