Pressing my head against the door, I stayed there until I was confident I was no longer about to tear through the barrier and sink my fangs into her unsuspecting throat.
Only then did I begin my search. Pulling open drawers and rifling through cabinets, I looked for anything that might tell us why someone wanted to kill Luna’s only friend.
All I found were soaps and brushes. Nothing of importance at all. I looked beneath cabinets and checked under the window, but there was nothing of note.
I was rifling through the wardrobe filled with female garments when a cry came from the other room. My body tensed, and alarm pulsed through me. I pulled on my shadows so fast that my head spun as I landed on the other side of the bathing room door. My wings flared behind me and my hands clenched at my sides as I turned in a slow circle.
Only… I didn’t see anything amiss. The room was just as I had left it. The window was still boarded up; the door was still shut, and even the furniture was in the right place.
Luna stood in the middle of the room, her eyes as wide as moons as she stared at me. She looked fine, but I had heard her cry out.
“What’s wrong?” I snarled.
My voice was barely recognizable to my ears. My lips were curled back and red tinged my vision as I sought the source of the threat.
Every single part of my body screamed at me to protect Luna as I stepped toward her. “Who hurt you? Did the murderer come back? Why did you cry out?”
Luna stared at me, her mouth opening and closing as she wrapped her arms around herself and slowly backed away. Her face paled, and she clutched something in her fist.
Pulling on my shadows, I appeared in front of Luna and grabbed her shoulders. Something must have happened. I couldn’t stop the pounding of my heart as cold dread like the arctic wind took hold of my heart.
Someone had frightened her. The fear that she was hurt was deeper than the Bond, more than the Tether tying us together. It ran to the innermost part of me, the one that I thought had died when I was Made.
“What’s wrong? Who hurt you?” My eyes swept over her, looking for an injury. I didn’t smell blood, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t injured. The bitter scent of fear was coming off her in waves. I shook her shoulders. “Luna, tell me why you’re scared!”
Her eyes widened impossibly further, and she shrank beneath my touch.
“It’s you,” she whispered, her voice little more than a breath.
Her quiet words struck me like a pile of heavy stones falling from this gods-damned castle. I gasped, “What?”
She inhaled sharply. “You’re scaring me, Sebastian.”
My empty stomach twisted in a knot, and a shuddering breath escaped me as the realization of what she said washed over me.
I scared her.
Releasing her shoulders, I stumbled back until the cold walls stopped me from going any further. My chest heaved and my wings plastered against the stones as her words echoed through my mind.
My wife was scared of me.
Luna rubbed her arms, those big, brown eyes never leaving mine.
“I… I heard you cry out,” I said, grappling the wall as my heart raced. My words were little more than incoherent thoughts as they left my lips. “I thought… maybe they had come back… I was so worried.”
“I know,” she replied softly. “I understand that, Sebastian. You were worried about me.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“It’s just… The way you appeared, with the wings and your fangs…” Her arms tightened around herself. “It just scared me, Sebastian.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. Forcing my wings into the shadows, I let the cold seep into my back as I rubbed my temples. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I know you didn’t.” Luna drew in a shaking breath, her eyes still holding mine. “Are you… okay?”
The question was innocuous enough, but undercurrents of tension ran through it. The hidden meaning was clear.
Was I going to hurt her? Bite her? Was I going to lose control?