Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 158

158 Moonlight, Not Promises 4

Arya’s POVO

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The sound that left him was quiet, almost nothing, but I felt it more than heard it,

approval, restraint, hunger held on a leash.

I should have pulled away then.

I knew it.

Instead I told myself the lie that made it possible.

Just for tonight.

Just for this moment.

Just to rest.

Just to remember what it felt like to be held without being handled.

I let my head tip slightly toward him.

His arm tightened around me, just enough to make the hold feel more intentional.

“I got you,” he whispered at my ear.

The words broke something soft in me.

Not because they were grand.

Not because they promised forever.

Because they didn’t.

He didn’t say I’ll fix it.

He didn’t say I’ll make it disappear.

He didn’t say Trust me.

Just: I got you.

For this breath.

This body.

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This shaking piece of night.

My throat tightened painfully.

I turned my face toward him before I fully meant to.

He was already there.

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His mouth found mine with the kind of precision that told me he had been waiting, not

guessing.

The kiss was not rough.

That made it worse.

It was slow and deep and devastatingly careful, his lips warm against mine, his hand

leaving my middle just long enough to cup my jaw and tilt me where he wanted me. He

kissed me like he was trying to enter a locked room without breaking the door. Like he

knew exactly how bruised I was and refused to treat that bruise like fragility.

I made a sound I hated and leaned into him harder.

Ria all but purred herself hoarse inside me.

His thumb moved along my cheek once, then stilled as he deepened the kiss, not taking

more than I gave, but taking everything I gave. Heat spread through me in waves, low

and aching and frightening in how quickly my body answered him. My hands, traitorous

things, left my knees and found his forearm, then his wrist, then stayed there as if

holding on was not the same thing as reaching back.

When the kiss finally broke, I was breathing too fast.

So was he, though less obviously.

His forehead rested against mine.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

Moonlight.

Grass.

His breath.

Mine.

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The hard line of his chest behind me.

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The terrifying relief of not feeling alone inside my skin for one suspended second.

Then he said, voice rougher than before, “Let me in.”

The words slid under every defence I had left.

I went still.

Not because I wanted to refuse.

Because I did not know how to answer without telling the whole truth.

He stayed there, forehead to forehead, not pushing, not moving away, giving me the

choice and making me feel it.

“You shouldn’t make me pay for another man’s mistakes,” he said quietly.

My chest clenched.

The instinctive response rose hot and sharp, this is not about punishment, this is about

survival, but the anger lost force before it reached my mouth because he wasn’t accusing

1. He was asking. Roughly, maybe. Honestly, definitely. But asking.

I swallowed.

My voice came out low. “You think that’s what I’m doing?”

“I think,” he said, each word measured, “you look at me and prepare for damage before

I’ve touched half the things I want to touch.”

Heat flashed through me at the last part, immediate and unwelcome and very much

welcomed by my body.

I pulled back just enough to look at him.

Moonlight sharpened his features, cut shadows under his cheekbones, left his eyes dark.

and unreadable except for the one thing he never fully hid from me.

Want.

Not just hunger.

Not just lust.

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Not even only the bond.

Want.

For me.

As I was.

Angry. Scarred. Suspicious. Mourning.

My throat tightened.

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“I’m being careful,” I said, and even to my own ears it sounded too thin for everything it

was trying to carry.

Lev’s gaze held mine. “Careful is not the same as closed.”

I looked away first.

Because he was right and I hated when he was right.

“Careful is all I have left that feels smart,” I whispered.

The words hung there between us, soft and ugly and true.

His hand came back to my face, not forcing me to look at him yet, just resting there,

warm along my jaw.

When he spoke again, his voice had lost the hard edge. It was lower now. Steadier. More

dangerous in a different way.

“I’m not asking to fix you.”

I closed my eyes.

Something in me trembled.

Because that was the exact thing I needed him to say and had been too afraid to ask for.

Men always wanted to fix what hurt them to witness.

To make it quiet.

To make it easier.

To make it into a story where their care solved the problem.

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But my pain was not a puzzle. It was a ruin. A grave. A fire that still had names in it.

He waited until I looked at him again.

Then he finished, softer, “I want to be beside you while you piece yourself back

together.”

For a second I could not breathe.

The garden blurred.

Not because I was crying yet.

Because my body was trying very hard not to.

Ria went silent inside me, wholly attentive now, no teasing, no purring, just the quiet,

aching stillness of a wolf hearing the right words at the right wound.

I searched his face for arrogance.

For manipulation.

For that hidden male satisfaction men got when they said something beautiful and

expected a reward for it.

I found none.

Only patience.

Only heat held tight.

Only that impossible steadiness that made me want to either run or curl into him and

sleep for a week.

My mouth moved before I fully chose the words.

“I don’t know how.”

He did not pretend to misunderstand.

He didn’t say how what?

He didn’t make me explain whether I meant trusting him, wanting him, healing, moving

on, surviving, or all of it tangled together.

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He just looked at me and said, “You don’t have to know tonight.”

The answer hurt in the kindest way.

I let out a breath that shook on the way out.

His thumb brushed once under my eye, though no tear had fallen yet.

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We stayed like that for a long moment, close enough to kiss again, close enough for my

body to start asking for more than I was ready to give.

I felt it.

He felt it too.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

Mine dropped to his.

The bond tightened between us, low and hungry and alive, a pull that made my skin feel

too small and my pulse too loud.

He leaned in a fraction.

I did not move away.

Then the fear returned, quick and cold, not because of him, but because wanting felt like