I Refuse to Be Your Luna

Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 59 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 59

Chapter 59 Ten Percent

Alpha Damian’s POV

The glass in her hand was the first thing I noticed. Her face was the second.

Flourish tipped it back and finished what was left, and then she burped, a small humiliated sound that made her flush red to the ears.

Her wolf all but hid behind her ribs. Mine wasn’t nearly as forgiving.

“Flourish. I told you to drink less.”

She blinked up at me, and for a second the alcohol had softened whatever was behind her eyes. Then recognition landed.

“It’s you, Alpha Damian.”

I didn’t like that title. I never had, not from her.

Before I could say so, Jake’s voice cut through the booth, cold enough to quiet the wolves nearest us.

Davina’s hand had found its way under some stranger’s shirt, and Jake was standing over her like a storm about to break. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

He hauled her over his shoulder and told me he was taking her home, and Davina screamed the whole way out while nobody in that bar so much as looked up to help her. Not even Flourish.

Once they were gone, the booth went quiet in a way that had weight to it.

I looked at her mouth for exactly one second too long, then made myself stop.

“What about you? Walking out on your own, or should I carry you too?”

She sat up so fast she nearly toppled. “I can walk.”

I believed her about as much as I believed anything she said when she was trying to look composed.

I walked ahead of her through the garage, and she was watching her feet instead of me, which was how she walked straight into my back.

“Ouch.”

“It hurts?”

“Yes,”

“Good.”

She glared at me and I let the corner of my mouth do what it wanted. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before surrounding yourself with strange male wolves in a bar.”

“I’m an adult. Going to a bar isn’t illegal.”

Chapter 59 Ten Percent

I let my aura press against hers, just slightly. Her wolf vanished like it had somewhere better to be, and Nourish cleared her throat and corrected herself fast enough that I almost laughed.

Trevor had the car door open before I reached it. I told him to leave us the car, and he didn’t ask why, which was one of the reasons I kept him around. The door shut, and it was just the two of us and the quiet.

“Flourish. Suddenly interested in nineteen-year-old wolves?”

“No.”

“Then why was he sitting next to you?”

“I was curious.”

I leaned toward her, not fast, just enough that she’d feel every inch of space closing between us and know exactly what I was doing. Her scent spiked, sharp and unmistakable, and her wolf went still inside her the way prey does right before it decides whether to run.

“Curious about what? You’re supposed to be getting mated in five days.”

“I already broke it off.”

I leaned back instead of pushing further. “Oh? My grandfather’s still deciding between a tailored suit and the ceremonial jacket for the Lunar Rite.”

That got her. Her whole body went rigid.

They hadn’t told Alpha Magnus. Garrett was planning to let the entire territory show up for a ceremony that wasn’t happening, and somehow that didn’t surprise me as much as it should have.

“I already told everyone I’m not attending that rite.”

I watched her say it and believed her, which was new. “You really mean it?”

“I’ve told you before. Whoever goes there is a sucker.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it, and it didn’t last long, but something in my chest shifted anyway watching her say it like she meant every word.

“Got it. I’ll take you home. I’ll handle the rest.”

I meant that. She didn’t need to know how much work “handling it” would take, not tonight.

“And stop calling me Alpha Damian. It feels strange coming from you. Just call me Damian.”

She went quiet, like the request cost her something. When she finally said it, “Okay… Damian,” it came out careful, like she was testing whether the floor beneath it would hold.

“Good girl.”

Her wolf react

she did, and I filed that away for later.

Chapter 59 Ten Percent

I dropped her home and didn’t hear from her again until the next afternoon, when Garrett called to tell me

daughter had walked out of his office looking like she wanted to set the building on fire.

I wasn’t surprised. Garres had a talent for making things worse when he thought he was negotiating.

He told me what he’d offered her: five percent more of Steele Holdings if she went through with the Lunar Rite and let Harold mark her, on top of the five percent she already had from her grandmother.

Ten percent, he said, like it was generous. Like his daughter’s mate bond was a line item he could adjust with the right number attached.

“She said no,” I said.

“She hasn’t said anything yet,” Garrett said. “She’s thinking about it.”

I do

very much. I knew Flourish well enough by now to know she wasn’t the kind to be bought, er, not by anyone.

w Garrett wasn’t the kind to stop asking until he got the answer he wanted, and that meant this Not for her, and not for me.

and sat with that for a while, tu

ercent of a company was nothing

sn’t negotiating shares. He was

foom.

icked up my phone and called

tone.