Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 134 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 134

Chapter 134 Not Old Just Patient

Lady Flourish’s POV

I didn’t need to explain the reasoning to him. Somehow, admitting it out loud felt heavier than actually feeling it.

“I’m sorry, Damian,” I said quietly, watching the streetlights slide across the dashboard. “We should wait to register the mate bond formally until all of this with Karl is over.”

His brows knitted together, faint but immediate. “Why are you apologizing?”

The distant note in my own voice must have caught him off guard, because something in his tone shifted, quieter now, almost wounded.

Here we were, discussing something that should have felt like the easiest decision in the world, and somehow it had come out sounding like a stranger’s negotiation.

“I just “I fumbled for the right words. “I’m afraid you’ll get impatient waiting.”

He let out a low chuckle at that, and I felt oddly exposed beneath the amusement in his gaze.

“What’s so funny?”

“Flourish.” His voice dropped, warm and teasing. “Do I really seem like a man who can’t wait for something worth having?”

Only then did I realize how it had sounded. “That’s not — I just meant Magnus might push you to settle things faster, since you’re…” I hesitated, searching for the least insulting way to finish that sentence. “Older. More established.”

I hadn’t meant it as an insult. We both knew the registration was mostly to satisfy Magnus and the council’s need for a clean succession line, nothing more.

The moment the words left my mouth, though, his easy smile faded entirely.

“Older,” he repeated flatly.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” I said quickly, my face heating. “I just meant that at thirty-three, your family’s probably eager to see things settled.”

Every word out of my mouth seemed to dig the hole deeper rather than climb out of it.

His gaze darkened, dropping briefly to my mouth before lifting again. “It’s fine, Flourish. You’ll find out for yourself exactly how ‘old’ I am.”

–

11:43 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 134 Not Old Just Patient

Finished

I had no idea how a single sentence could sound both like a threat and a promise at the same time, Heat crawled up my neck despite myself, and I busied my hands with the hem of my sleeve rather than let him see exactly how well the tactic had worked. “That’s — that’s not what I

–

“By the way.” He changed the subject with the same effortless control he applied to everything else, though the faint curve still lingering at the corner of his mouth told me he hadn’t actually let it go. “Lucinda mentioned Harold’s wedding to Phina, I assume?”

I blinked at the sudden shift. “Yes. She did.”

“I brought the match to Magnus myself,” he said, both hands steady on the wheel, his voice even. “After everything with the scandal, it’s cleaner for both families if they marry sooner rather than later. It protects Stonehedge’s standing with the council, and it keeps Harold from doing anything else reckless in the meantime.”

I studied his profile for a moment, remembering exactly what Lucinda had told me back at the salon. He hadn’t needed to explain any of this to me. He could have let me hear it secondhand, let me draw my own conclusions the way half the pack already had, whispering behind hands at the next council meeting about the Alpha who’d meddled in his own brother’s engagement.

He’d told me himself instead.

“You’re right,” I said softly. “Thank you for telling me.”

Something flickered across his face — surprise, maybe, that I hadn’t reacted with jealousy or suspicion. He recovered quickly, though the small furrow between his brows didn’t fully smooth out until we pulled up outside my building several minutes later.

I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride. This is me.”

He tapped the wheel once, thoughtful. “Did I leave my glasses at your place the other day?”

“You did, actually.”

He turned off the engine without another word, unbuckling his own seatbelt with the same unhurried certainty he brought to everything.

“I’ll come up and grab them.”

I hadn’t expected him to follow through so quickly, and I found myself nodding before I’d fully decided how I felt about it.

We walked side by side toward the entrance, and I was keenly aware of his attention settling on the back of my neck the entire way, patient and unhurried, like he had nowhere else in the world he needed to be.

11:43 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 134 Not Old Just Patient

22

Finished

I pressed my fingertips to the scanner beside my door, and the mechanical chime confirmed the lock releasing.

“Wait here,” I said, flipping on the entryway light without quite meeting his eyes. “I’ll grab them for you.”

I hadn’t invited him inside. I registered the small, deliberate omission even as I said it, some old instinct still not quite ready to hand over that particular door code, even after everything we’d already shared.

If he minded, he didn’t show it. He simply tucked his hands into his pockets, leaned back against the frame, and watched me disappear down the hallway with the same faint, unbothered smile he’d worn through most of the drive.

My ponytail bounced absurdly as I hurried toward my bedroom, and I was fairly certain, even without turning around, that he was still smiling about it. Some small, foolish part of me hoped he was.

That after everything the last two days had thrown at us, something as simple as a pair of forgotten glasses could still make him smile like that.

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