Chapter 53

Alpha Kane’s eyes flicked from me to Darius, and as the guests looked on—hungry for drama—I felt every nerve in my body snap taut with apprehension, like I was about to step across a cliff’s edge. Beside the podium, Lucian gave me the smallest nod. There was no turning back, not with the spotlight raking across my petrified smile and the entire Aetheria wolf pack as witness. “It’ll be my pleasure,” I heard myself say, and the lie burned as much as the vintage wine still lingering on my tongue. Alpha Kane faded into the crowd, smug, leaving me alone in the arena with my former mate. Darius’s hand wrapped firmly around mine—hot, dry, almost comforting, if not for the ownership implied in every movement. He led me to the center of the floor as music spilled out, languid and intimate, a slow dance designed to torture. Darius had never danced with me before. Not once, in three years of being Silver Creek’s invisible Luna. Now he held my hand like it was something precious he’d just recalled