Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 225 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 225

I Refuse To Be Your Luna

Chapter 225 Determination

Lady Flourish’s POV

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The scratching beneath the estate stopped for one second, and then the entire floor shook so violently that I nearly lost my footing.

Damian’s arm shot out and caught my waist before I could fall, hauling me against him while his wolf surged forward with a warning growl rumbling low in his chest.

“Stay behind me.” There was no room to argue in his voice.

I glanced toward the corridor. The warriors had already drawn their weapons, and several had partially shifted, claws pushing through their fingertips, eyes catching the dim glow of the emergency lights.

Another impact rocked the floor beneath us. The lights flickered once, twice, then died completely.

Someone swore in the dark. I heard blades sliding free of their sheaths and at least three different growls overlapping in the black.

“Nobody moves,” Damian ordered, his hand never leaving my waist.

I could feel how steady his breathing was against my back, even now, even with everything happening around us. Mine wasn’t nearly as calm.

The darkness dragged up memories I’d been trying to bury, the chair, the ropes, the smell of blood soaking into wood, the sick helplessness of not knowing if anyone was coming for me.

My wolf clawed at the inside of my skin, frightened, restless, wanting out.

I pressed both hands flat against his chest just to feel something solid. “Damian.”

“I’m here.” His arm tightened. “Look at me.”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Then listen.” His voice dropped, gentler now. “You are not alone in this.”

I shut my eyes anyway, and let his scent do what my eyes couldn’t. It grounded me, slowed my pulse, gave my wolf something to hold onto. “Nothing is taking you from me again.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can.” No hesitation at all. “I’ll fight anyone who tries.”

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Chapter 225 Determination

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A weak light bloomed nearby, Rhys’s phone screen casting Damian’s face in pale blue for a second. Long enough for me to see how tightly his jaw was set. He looked up toward the ceiling like he could see through it.

“Rhys, get the security room on the line.”

Rhys lifted the phone. A pause. “Nothing.”

“Try again.”

“I already have, twice.”

Something metallic scraped against stone somewhere down the corridor, and every head turned toward it at once. A shape shifted in the dark. One of the guards let out a low growl.

“Who’s there?”

Silence answered him.

Damian moved to step forward, and I grabbed his hand before he could. “Don’t.”

“I need to know what’s loose in this estate.”

“I know you do.” I ran my thumb over his knuckles without meaning to. “Just stay where I can reach you.”

He nodded, and a moment later the emergency lights sputtered back on, bathing everything in a weak, bloody red.

That was when I saw blood smeared across the stone floor that hadn’t been there before the lights went out.

My stomach dropped.

Damian crouched and touched two fingers to it, brought them up to his nose, and his whole face changed.

“Wolf blood.”

“One of the missing guards?” Rhys asked, moving closer.

“No.” Damian’s eyes flicked to the wall. “This is fresh. Minutes old.”

Cold crawled up my spine. The scratching started again, this time coming from directly under our feet, and Damian yanked me behind him without a word.

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Chapter 225 Determination

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A crack split the floor, spidering out toward the far wall while warriors scrambled backward.

“Get everyone out,” Damian said.

“What about you?” Rhys asked.

“I’m staying.”

“So am I,” I said.

He spun toward me. “No.”

“You said the blood heir is tied to whatever’s down there.”

“I know that.”

“Then you need me.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“You can’t keep pulling me away from the truth every time it gets close,” I said, and something in his face faltered.

He reached for my cheek instead of arguing further, his palm warm against the chill that had settled into my skin. “I’m not trying to control you.”

“I know.”

“I’m trying to keep you breathing.”

“I know that too.” I covered his hand with mine and let my forehead rest against his. “So trust me the way I’m trusting you right now.”

His jaw worked for a second before he finally gave in. “Stay beside me. The whole way down.”

The floor split wide open before I could answer, a force tearing up through the stone hard enough to throw half the warriors off their feet.

Damian wrapped himself around me and turned his back to the blast, shielding me with his whole body while dust rained down around us.

When it cleared, there was a black opening yawning in the floor, cold air breathing up out of it like something exhaling.

Stone steps disappeared into the dark. I had never seen them before in my life.

Damian let go of me slowly. “Everyone else stays up

here.”

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“Alpha, that’s where the missing guards’ signal cut out,” Rhys said.

“How long ago?”

“Seven minutes.”

Something in Damian’s wolf snarled at that. “Then they might still be alive.”

A sound drifted up from below, faint, but unmistakable. Someone crying.

Damian drew his blade. “We’re going down there.”

“We?” I asked.

His eyes found mine in the dark. “You wanted answers.”

“Then let’s get them together.”

He turned to Rhys. “Ten warriors on this entrance. No one else comes through.”

Rhys moved to obey, and Damian took my hand as he set his foot on the first stair. The instant mine touched stone, pain split through my skull and I froze, gasping.

“Flourish?”

I pressed my fingers to my temple. “I’ve been here before.”

“You said you’d never set foot in this place.”

“I haven’t.” My breath came ragged. “But something in my wolf remembers it anyway.”

Then a voice rose out of the dark below us, a woman’s voice, soft and achingly familiar.

“Flourish.”

I went utterly still. Beside me, so did Damian.

“Come home,” the voice said again.

My heart stopped in my chest. I knew that voice. I’d heard it in my dreams for years without ever putting a face to it.

It was my mother’s voice.

Damian pulled me back behind him in one sharp motion. “Show yourself. Now.”

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Nothing answered but silence, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate, climbing toward us one stair at a time.

Damian raised his blade. Behind us the warriors finished shifting, claws scraping stone.

A figure emerged from the dark at the base of the stairs, and the face that came into the weak red light stopped my heart cold.

It belonged to someone who was supposed to be dead.

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I Refuse To Be Your Luna