Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 114

114 No Safe Room for the Discarded

Arya’s POV

The dress arrived less than an hour later.

Maxwell had taste.

I should not have been surprised, but I was.

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The gown was deep and dark, somewhere between black and wine depending on the light, elegant

without being soft. The fabric skimmed rather than clung. The sleeves were long. The neckline was

modest enough to spare me the feeling of being displayed, but tailored enough to make it impossible

to mistake me for plain.

It looked expensive.

It looked chosen.

I stared at it laid across the bed and felt something painful move through my chest. Maxwell had not

sent me something that said hide. He had sent me something that said stand there and make them

see you.

One of the maids offered to help me dress. I dismissed her gently and waited until I was alone.

I bathed quickly, scrubbing sweat and training dust from my skin, but it did nothing for the awareness

under it. Every place Lev had touched seemed more alive in absence.

My wrists.

My waist.

My collar.

My throat.

When I reached for the edge of my towel after drying, my fingers paused over my neck. The cancelled mark sat there like a scar and a memory and a dare. I traced the skin around it once, then snatched my hand away as if I had been caught.

i dressed slowly.

By the time I finished pinning my hair and adjusting the fall of the gown, the woman in the mirror looked more composed than I felt.

Elegant.

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Controlled.

Cold-eyed.

A woman no one should mistake for easy prey.

Good.

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I stepped into the corridor and almost collided with a servant carrying a tray of crystal glasses. She

dipped and hurried away. Voices floated from the hall. Music, soft at first, strings warming into melody, began somewhere below.

As I reached the foot of the stairs, I saw Lev.

He was speaking to one of Maxwell’s men, posture loose, expression unreadable, dressed in dark

clothes that fit him too well and made him look even more dangerous for their simplicity. No display.

No need.

He turned before I spoke.

His eyes found me and held.

I should have been used to being looked at by men. I was not a child. I had lived in power circles long

enough to know how men assessed beauty, opportunity, weakness, status.

Lev never looked at me like any of them.

There was no greed in it.

No performance.

No flattering smile to soften what he was seeing.

Just that dark, level attention that felt too close to touch.

Memory hit me so hard I nearly stopped walking.

The training yard.

The stone wall.

His body pinning mine while he told me to release what I kept chained.

The way he had worked me to the edge and stopped.

The way he had smiled after.

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My pulse stumbled.

I forced my face blank.

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He crossed the distance between us in a handful of quiet steps and stopped close enough for me to

catch the clean male scent of him beneath soap and the faint metal tang of the weapons room.

His gaze dipped once to the dress, then rose.

“You look breathtakingly beautiful,” he said.

The words were simple.

The effect was not.

Heat climbed my neck before I could stop it.

I set my jaw. “Maxwell chose the dress.”

He studied me for a beat, and I knew he heard what I meant.

Don’t turn this into something between us.

“Then Maxwell chose well,” he said.

Infuriating man.

I looked away first and smoothed a nonexistent crease in my skirt just to have something to do with

my hands.

“We should go before he sends someone to drag us in.

Lev’s mouth shifted at one corner, not quite a smile. He offered me his arm.

I stared at it.

He waited.

I placed my hand there because making a scene in the corridor would only make me look childish, and

because part of me hated how right his body felt under my palm, solid and warm and entirely too

steady

He led me into the hall.

Dragonclaw’s main hall had been transformed.

Long tables lined the sides beneath candlelight and hanging lamps, heavy with food and drink. The

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central floor had been left open, polished wood gleaming, space enough for movement, conversation, dancing. Warriors stood posted at intervals, but even they had the look of men told tonight was about

honour, not threat.

The room was already half full, voices layered over one another in rising hums that dipped the moment

Maxwell entered.

He did not need to ask for silence.

It came.

Maxwell strode to the front with the same heavy authority he brought to everything. He turned to face his people, and the room stilled around him.

“Dragonclaw,” he said, his voice carrying without effort, “tonight we honour a guest.”

He gestured toward Lev.

“This is Lev Nikolaev. Alpha of Blackbirth.”

Murmurs rippled through the hall.

Then Maxwell added, deliberate, “Head of the Union Council.”

The reaction was instant.

Shock moved through the room in visible waves, eyes widening, shoulders squaring, whispers

breaking free before people remembered themselves. I watched faces change around us as they understood exactly who stood in their hall and what it meant.

Lev did not move.

He did not bow.

He did not smile.

He did not perform power because he did not need to.

That stillness made the title feel heavier.

Maxwell’s gaze swept his people. “He is under my roof. He is to be treated with the respect due his

name and station.”

A chorus of agreement followed, some smooth, some startled, all immediate.

Then the hall loosened again. Voices returned, though lower at first. The music resumed softly. People began moving once more, but now every glance toward Lev carried a new layer, curiosity, calculation,

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I should have been relieved that attention had shifted so completely to him.

Instead, I felt suddenly too visible.

Standing beside the head of the Union Council had a way of making every whisper in the room feel

sharpened.

Lev’s hand brushed lightly at the small of my back as people began approaching Maxwell first, then

him.

The touch was brief.

I still felt it like a brand.

I moved half a step away before anyone could read too much in my face.

The next stretch of time blurred into introductions, greetings, and Dragonclaw’s pack trying very hard not to look stunned while openly looking stunned. Lev answered with minimal words, just as I

expected. Maxwell handled the warmth; Lev handled the weight.

Then the Beta’s daughter appeared.

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