Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 118 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 118

Chapter 118 Fever And Confession

Lady Flourish’s POV

We had barely made it past the estate’s east gate when Damian’s steps faltered.

It was such a small thing at first. A missed stride. A hitch in his breathing. I only noticed because his arm was still wrapped around my shoulders, and I felt the tremor run through it like a

current.

“Damian?”

He didn’t answer right away. When I looked up at him, his jaw was clenched so tight the muscle stood out in a hard line, and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out along his temple despite the cool night air.

“Damian, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, too fast. “Keep walking.”

We made it another ten feet before his knee buckled.

I caught him – or tried to. He was easily twice my weight, and I only managed to slow his fall, both of us stumbling against the stone wall bordering the garden path. Up close, the heat radiating off his skin was frightening. Not the warm, steady heat I’d grown used to feeling beside him. This was something else. Something is wrong.

—

And his eyes

when he finally looked at me, they weren’t the deep amber I knew. They were glowing, too bright, the pupils blown wide like an animal caught in headlights.

“Someone get Mira,” I said, my voice cracking with panic as I called toward the guards still lingering near the gate. “Now!”

Mira reached us in seconds, her warrior instincts already assessing the threat before she even asked what happened. One look at Damian’s face and her expression went grim.

“Not here,” she said quietly. “Whatever this is, we don’t let the pack see him like this. There’s a private guest suite two buildings over. I’ll get him there.”

“The hospital-” I started.

“No hospital.” Damian’s voice came out low and guttural, barely human. His hand shot out and gripped my wrist, not painfully, but with a desperation that startled me. “No doctors. No outsiders. Flourish, listen to me. Whatever is happening to me right now, it cannot leave this

estate.”

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Chapter 118 Fever And Confession

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I didn’t understand. Not yet. But I trusted him enough to nod.

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Finished

Between Mira and two silent guards, we got him into the private suite and onto the bed. The moment the door shut and locked, Damian curled forward, both hands pressed against his own skull like he was trying to hold something inside it.

Mira crouched beside him and inhaled sharply near his collar. Her face drained of color.

“Widow’s Kiss,” she breathed.

“What is that?” I demanded.

“A poison bred specifically for Alphas,” Mira said grimly. “It doesn’t suppress a wolf like Nightshade Root does. It does the opposite. It forces the rut. Floods an Alpha’s blood with false mating instinct until his body burns itself out from the inside. Left untreated, it can kill within a night.”

My stomach dropped. “Then treat it. Tell me what to do.”

Mira hesitated, and that hesitation frightened me more than anything Damian had done so far.

“There’s only one thing that stops it,” she said carefully. “The bond of a true mate. His wolf needs to recognize that the one beside him is real – not the poison talking. Skin contact. The mate mark. Anything less, and his body will keep fighting itself until there’s nothing left to fight with.”

Behind her, Damian let out a low, pained growl, his spine curving unnaturally as his claws dug faint crescents into the sheets.

“Get out,” he ground out through his teeth. “Both of you. I’ll handle it myself.”

Mira didn’t move until I gave her a small nod. She left without another word, closing the door softly behind her.

I turned back to Damian, my heart hammering. “You’re not handling this alone.”

“Flourish.” My name came out of him like it hurt to say it. “You don’t understand what my wolf wants right now. I can’t trust myself around you like this.”

“I’m not asking you to trust yourself,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I’m asking you to

trust me.”

He looked up at me then, and beneath the feverish glow of his eyes, I saw something raw and terrified. Nnot of hurting himself, but of hurting me.

“Someone did this to me on purpose,” he rasped. “Tonight. In my own family’s house. Which means whoever poisoned your wine wasn’t working alone and they’re not finished.”

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Chapter 118 Fever And Confession

The words sent a cold chill through the heat of the room.

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Finished

“We’ll figure out who,” I said softly, kneeling in front of him and taking his burning hands in mine. “But not tonight. Tonight, let your wolf believe what it already knows.”

His breath hitched. “Flourish-”

“I’m not going anywhere, Damian.”

I felt the exact moment his restraint broke – not violently, but like a held breath finally released. His forehead dropped against mine, his hands trembling as they came up to frame my face with a gentleness that contradicted every warning he’d just given me.

“If I lose control-”

“You won’t,” I whispered. “You never have.”

The last thing I remember clearly was the warmth of the sapphire pendant flaring bright between us, and the low, broken sound of his wolf finally settling.

By the time the first grey light crept through the curtains, the fever had broken.

I woke to find Damian watching me, his eyes fully clear again, amber and steady and achingly gentle. The wild heat was gone, replaced by something quieter – exhaustion, and underneath it, guilt.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “For all of it. You shouldn’t have had to-”

“Stop.” I pressed two fingers lightly against his lips. “You didn’t do this to yourself, Damian. Someone else did.”

He caught my hand, pressing a slow kiss against my knuckles, but the guilt didn’t leave his face. “Let me make it up to you.”

Before I could answer, a sharp knock cracked against the door

—

three times, urgent.

“Alpha Damian.” Mira’s voice, tight with tension, came through the wood. “You need to see this. We found the vial the poison came in.”

Damian was on his feet instantly, all traces of softness gone, replaced by the cold focus of an Alpha. He pulled the door open.

Mira held out a small shattered glass vial wrapped in a handkerchief, her expression grave.

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“It was hidden in the flower arrangement at your seat,” she said. “And there’s a mark etched into the glass. I’ve seen it before.”

She turned the vial slightly so the faint symbol caught the light – a crest neither Stonehedge nor Dartwood had ever claimed.

“It’s not a pack mark,” Mira said quietly. “It’s a corporate one. F-Tech’s rival bidder from the southern trade contracts.”

Damian’s eyes snapped to mine.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

I knew that crest. I’d seen it on a business card once, years ago, tucked into an envelope from a man I’d sworn never to think about again.

“That’s Karl’s family emblem,” I whispered.

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