Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 61 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 61

hapter 61 In The Dark

Lady Flourish’s POV

Finishes

The lights died and the elevator swallowed us whole. My body locked against the cold wall before my mind caught up.

One second we’d been standing there in awkward silence. The next, the cabin had stopped and I couldn’t see anything, not the buttons, not the floor, not my own hands.

My wolf slammed against my chest in a panic, pacing so hard the space felt like it was shrinking around us.

“Harold.” Phina’s voice shook in the dark. “What’s happening? Why did the lights go out?” A pause, then, smaller, “I’m scared. You know I’m afraid of the dark.”

My jaw tightened. It’s just an elevator, I told myself. A malfunction. Nothing more.

My wolf didn’t believe it either.

I heard Harold move toward her, clothing rustling, his scent shifting through the dark.

“It’s fine. Don’t panic.”

The softness in his voice twisted something in my chest. Then I heard it, him pulling her in, and I stood there with my phone in a death grip, telling myself it shouldn’t matter.

Harold and I were done. I’d ended it. I didn’t want to be his Luna and I didn’t want him marking me because our families found it convenient.

So why did it still sting, hearing him comfort someone else?

My wolf whined, low and miserable. I pressed my back harder into the wall.

“Flourish.” Harold, from my left. “Do you have signal?”

I checked anyway, knowing I wouldn’t see much. The screen lit. Nothing.

“Can you mind-link someone outside?”

Normally that would’ve been simple. Wolves don’t need bars for that. But we were stuck between floors, buried under concrete and steel, and every attempt felt like it dissolved before it went anywhere.

I tried. ‘Rhys?’ Nothing. ‘Walter?’ Silence. My wolf pushed harder and pain flared behind my eyes.

“No,” I said, voice thinner than I wanted. “No signal. I can’t reach anyone.”

“Flourish? Are you okay?”

Before I could answer, the elevator lurched. The whole cabin shook. Phina screamed. My wolf slammed against my ribs so hard I gasped, and the cabin dropped just enough to send my stomach up before it groaned to a stop.

“Harold!”

Chapter 61 In The Dark

“I’ve got you.”

F

Phina was crying now. I heard him pull her closer, felt the faint pressure of his wolf roll through the cabin, not a command, just instinct, a wolf calming someone he felt responsible for.

“I’m so scared. Please tell me we’re not going to be trapped here.”

“We won’t. I’ve got you.”

Something in me went quiet. My wolf stopped pacing, not because she’d calmed, but because she’d started curling inward.

I hated that I noticed the difference. I hated that some stupid part of me still remembered what it felt like when he used to talk to me that way.

His voice changed then, sharper, more focused. He’d finally gotten his mind-link through.

“This is Harold, Virel Entertainment. Three people trapped in an elevator near the twelfth floor. Send emergency response now.’

A pause.

‘How long?’

Another pause.

‘Fine.’

“They’re coming,” he said. “Firefighters, maybe ten minutes.”

Phina let out a shaky breath. “It’s okay. I’m here,” he told her, steady, patient.

My lungs stopped working properly. I breathed in and it caught halfway. I tried again. Nothing. My wolf whined, thin and scared, in my head.

Not here. Not now.

The elevator was too small, the dark too complete. My body forgot there was space around me at all, every wall pressing in like it meant to trap me before I could shift or run or break loose.

A wolf isn’t built to be caged. My knees gave out and I slid down the wall.

“Flourish?”

I didn’t answer. I pulled my knees to my chest, forehead down, my wolf trembling under my skin. Breathe. I tried. Breathe. It never felt like enough, like the air had already been used up even though I knew it hadn’t.

Their voices kept going somewhere behind me, but they sounded far away, too far. My fingers shook and I pressed them into my arms so no one would see. Especially not Harold. I didn’t want either of them looking at me like that.

I don’t know how long I sat there. Then metal struck the doors. Voices. Tools scraping. My wolf lifted her head as a line of light cut through the gap.

Chapter 61 In The Dark

I stared at it like I’d never seen light before. My chest finally opened, air rushing in, carrying smoke and

eat and metal, and underneath all of it, outside. I almost cried at the smell of outside.

The doors pried open. A firefighter crouched at the entrance. “Everyone alright?”

“Yeah,” Harold said, relief thick in his voice. Then, turning, “She’s shaken. She should be checked.” Phina nodded weakly.

Only then did he look at me. His face changed. “Flourish? What’s wrong with you?”

I hated that question because I didn’t have an answer I wanted to give him.

“I’m fine.” The lie sounded exactly as bad as it was. “Really. Don’t worry about me.”

He looked like he might come closer. Then Phina swayed and his attention snapped to her instead. “Phina.”

le caught her arm. “I’m taking you out.”

Of course he was.

The firefighters helpe crowd outside. I stay hands to the floor a

“Lady Flourish?”

Marcus, the ad

“I’m fine,” I

“Could y

“Of c

B

first, and Harold stayed glued to her side until they disappeared into the was. The doors were open. I was free. My legs didn’t agree. I pressed my

and, and my knees folded right back under me.

manager, a few steps away, worry all over his face. “Are you alright?”

e didn’t buy it. Neither did I.

omewhere?”

for my arm.

eva wave of Alpha pressure rolled down the hallway and every wolf near us went still.

d for the first time since those doors opened, my wolf stopped shaking.

ho had just walked in.

68