Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 169

169 The Toast and the Trap

Arya’s POV

I was not drowning.

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That was the dangerous lie my body nearly believed as Lev moved me across the

ballroom floor with one hand at my waist and the other holding mine, his touch

controlled, his gaze steady, his voice still echoing in my chest.

You’re safe with me.

The music wrapped around us, slow and expensive, the kind meant for polished people

with old names and older alliances. Crystal light spilled over silk, jewels, tailored jackets,

and smiles sharpened by politics. Yet the only thing I could feel clearly was the weight of Lev’s palm through the fabric at my waist and the way he watched me as if the room existed only as background noise.

His attention was dangerous because it was never careless.

He noticed everything.

Every time my shoulders tensed.

Every time my breathing changed.

Every time some whisper from the edge of the room reached my ears and made my

spine stiffen.

And he answered each shift without words.

A firmer hand.

A slight pull closer.

A quiet correction in our steps that kept me moving instead of freezing.

It should have infuriated me.

It did.

It also steadied me in ways I did not want to admit, not even to myself.

The song stretched on, and Lev danced only with me.

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That fact did not go unnoticed.

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I felt the irritation before I saw it. A cluster of young women near one of the side tables had been watching since we stepped onto the floor. They wore the kind of beauty that came polished by status and expectation, silks, diamonds, careful smiles, practiced posture. A few had tried to catch Lev’s eye earlier in the hall. I had pretended not to see.

Now none of them were pretending.

One of them whispered behind a lifted glass and glanced at me with a look too sweet to be kind. Another smiled at Lev from across the room and looked displeased when he never looked back. Diana, Radimir’s daughter, stood nearer the front, composed and regal, speaking to an older couple while her eyes drifted our way more than once.

No one said anything openly.

They didn’t need to.

In places like this, silence was often louder than insult.

Lev kept dancing with me anyway.

No polite rotation.

No public gesture to soothe egos.

No performance of neutrality.

Just me.

My pulse tripped over itself when I realised what that meant in a room like this.

He was either reckless.

Or he did not care who was displeased.

Knowing Lev, it was both.

“Stop listening to them,” he murmured, so low I almost thought I imagined it.

I looked up sharply. “I wasn’t.”

His mouth moved at one corner. “You were.”

I wanted to deny it, but his hand shifted at my back, thumb pressing once, and my breath

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betrayed me before my pride could.

The song ended.

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Applause scattered across the room as couples slowed and drifted apart, but Lev did not

release me immediately. His fingers lingered at my waist a heartbeat too long, his eyes

holding mine in that infuriating, intimate way of his that made the ballroom feel too

small.

Then he let go.

The loss of his touch felt abrupt and humiliating.

I stepped back at once, smoothing my face into something cooler.

Before either of us could speak, movement near the raised seating drew the room’s

attention. Radimir had stood.

Not fully straight, not with the effortless physical command of younger men, but with

something heavier, authority old enough that the room reorganised itself around him

without being told.

Conversations lowered.

Glasses were set down.

Bodies turned.

Lev’s expression changed at once.

Not visibly to anyone who did not know to look, his face remained composed, shoulders

easy, posture controlled, but the softness that had entered his gaze on the dance floor

vanished. He became all edges again. All command.

Radimir lifted a glass and beckoned.

“Lev.”

It was not loud.

It still carried like an order.

Lev inclined his head once to me, brief, unreadable, and moved toward him through the

crowd. Wolves shifted aside without thought. Men who outranked others in their own

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territories made room for him here because this was Blackbirth, and power had a

hierarchy even among alphas.

I moved back toward Maxwell’s table, my pulse still unsteady from the dance and my

mind too full.

Maxwell watched Lev go, then looked at me.

“You held yourself well.”

I exhaled softly. “I was trying not to trip.”

His mouth twitched. “I wasn’t talking about the dancing.”

Before I could answer, Radimir raised his glass higher, and the room settled into

expectant silence.

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