Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 158 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 158

Chapter 158 Junk Call

Elijah’s POV

They’d barely stayed long enough to call it a proper night out.

เร

20

Finished

Lemon water, mostly, and a conversation that had gone quiet enough by the end that I could tell something had shifted before I even walked in.

I paused mid-step when I saw who was sitting across from Wren.

Lady Flourish Steele, in the flesh, in a lounge my girlfriend swore up and down guaranteed privacy from exactly this kind of surprise.

Alpha Damian’s mate. I hadn’t expected to run into her anywhere outside a boardroom, let alone somewhere this tucked away.

Wren offered her a ride home. Flourish declined, polite but firm, and slipped out into the night before I’d even had the chance to properly introduce myself.

Wren’s face fell the second the door closed behind her. “Great. I definitely messed something up. I think I upset Flourish.”

“What did you do?” I asked, settling into the seat Flourish had left warm behind her.

By the time she finished explaining, something about the shape of it had my attention sharpening past simple curiosity. A client.

A lawsuit against Stonehedge Studios. A woman clearly still carrying something raw where Harold and his family were concerned.

I pulled out my phone before I’d fully thought it through, mostly because the opportunity to needle Alpha Damian didn’t come around often, and I’d never once managed to actually land a hit.

‘Mr. Harold, ran into your girlfriend tonight. She looked pretty down. Interested in knowing why?

His reply came fast, colder than the night air outside. ‘Get to the point.

No pleasantries. No bait taken, not even a flicker of it. I clicked my tongue against my teeth, faintly disappointed.

In my circles, most Alphas rose to a needle eventually, if you found the right angle.

Damian never once had, not in the two years I’d known him, and for a passing second I actually

173

11:51 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 158 Junk Call

Fisted

wondered whether whatever he had going with Flourish carried real weight at all, or whether it was simply another arrangement dressed up in warmer language than the ones the rest of us settled for.

“No real drama,” I said, keeping my tone lazy, unbothered. “If anyone stepped wrong, it was Wren. She meant well, tried connecting your girlfriend’s client with a case.”

I let the pause sit a beat too long before continuing, because I couldn’t quite resist.

“What nobody expected was the client wanting to go after the woman marrying into your family. Phina. After that, Harold stepped in and quietly shut it down.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “Wasn’t Flourish nearly Harold’s bride at one point? Position’s been filled since. Only natural she wouldn’t be fond of the replacement.”

It came out sounding almost sympathetic, like I was smoothing something over on her behalf. It landed the opposite way entirely.

“You’ve got it backward.” Damian’s voice cut through, cool and exact, no room in it for correction. “Harold was the one who got left standing at the altar. Not the other way around.”

Right. I’d genuinely forgotten that part, or maybe never had it straight to begin with.

Julian had mentioned it once, in passing, months ago, some story about a bride publicly humiliating a groom in front of half the pack.

I hadn’t attended the wedding myself, and details like that tended to blur after enough time.

Still, did he need to correct me quite that sharply? I forced out a light laugh, adjusting course. “Right, right. Flourish left Harold first.”

A cold, thin scoff answered me, and then the line went dead entirely.

I stared at the phone, genuinely stunned. “Wow. He just hung up on me.”

“Good. You earned that,” Wren said, cheeks puffed with a displeasure I hadn’t quite braced for.

“Explain something to me.” I tilted my head, jaw working against the roof of my mouth. “What exactly did I earn that for?”

She shoved me back before I could lean any closer, all the earlier softness gone from her expression entirely. “Elijah, Flourish is my friend. Someone I actually care about. If you talk about her like that again, don’t expect me to let it slide.”

I blinked, caught properly off guard this time. We’d crossed paths with Flourish maybe twice, ever. I hadn’t realized the loyalty ran that deep, that fast. “Understood. Message received.”

That was when my phone buzzed again, insistent, vibrating hard enough against the table that

2/3

11:51 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 158 Junk Call

Wren’s eyes flicked toward the screen before I could stop her.

I saw the name flash up the same instant she did. A single letter. ‘K

20

Finished

I flipped the phone face down without answering, my pulse doing something I didn’t love, something my wolf noticed a half second before my human mind caught up to it.

“Junk call,” I said, too quickly. “Nothing important.”

Wren didn’t push. She didn’t need to. Her lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, and she turned toward the window instead, watching the street outside in silence, her expression giving away absolutely nothing about what she was actually thinking.

I already knew, from the careful stillness of it, that this wasn’t over. Not for her, and considerably less so for me.

68

3/3

H

11:51 Thu, Oct 1

1 Refuse To Be Your Luna

โร