Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 249

249 What He Stole Will Be Mine 3

Arya’s POVO

I looked at Lev too long. My body was remembering other things now. His hands last night. His mouth. The way he held me after. The way he said my pain was his too. The way he touched me like he was

fully aware that broken things can still burn. I swallowed.

“Lev.”

“My men will be in the shadows regardless,” he said.

There it was. The compromise already decided. I pulled back slightly just so I could look at him.

properly.

“You had that planned the moment you heard me.”

“Yes.”

The bluntness of it almost made me laugh.

“That is not doing this alone,” I said.

“It is close enough.”

“It is not.”

His thumb brushed slowly over my side, and that tiny movement made my stomach tighten in a

completely unhelpful way.

“Arya,” he said quietly, “if I allow you to ride into danger without a shadow at your back, then I am

either careless or stupid. I am neither.”

I should have argued more. I should have kept fighting for full control. Instead I stood there, trapped between frustration and a ridiculous amount of heat because damn him, there was something deeply dark about a man calmly arranging hidden protection for the woman he intends to let unleash hell.

“Do you always do this?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Decide things as if everyone else will simply accept them.”

His mouth shifted just slightly. Not quite a smile. Worse. Something smugger. More private.

“Only when I am right.”

< 249 What He Stole Will Be Mine 3

That did make me laugh, though the sound came out rougher than I intended. I shook my head and looked away for a second.

“You are impossible.”

“And yet you keep finding your way back into my arms.”

The words landed hot. My head snapped back to him. He was watching me too closely. I hated that he was right. More than that, I hated how much I wanted to prove him right again.

The room felt smaller suddenly. The air heavier. War was still sitting between us, but now something else had slid in beside it. Something familiar from the night before. That slow dark pull. The one that started in my chest and moved lower until I could not quite trust my body around him. He saw it. Of

course he saw it. His hand moved from my waist to the small of my back. Not enough to trap me.

Enough to make me aware of exactly how easily he could.

“You’re angry with me,” he said.

“I’m not angry,” I replied.

“What are you then?”

I should have said annoyed. Frustrated. Determined. Any of the clean words. Instead what came out

was,

“You don’t fight fair.”

His eyes darkened instantly.

“Is that what this is?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

I stared at him.

“You stand there being… you.”

That made one corner of his mouth rise.

“Very clear.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Say it anyway.”

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I should not have. I really should not have. But something about Lev always dragged truth out of me. Not because he demanded it cruelly. Because he stood there and made lying feel pointless

“You make it hard to stay angry,” I admitted.

His thumb pressed once into the curve of my back. A tiny approving movement that still made heat lick through me.

“Good,” he said.

I exhaled shakily.

“You shouldn’t be pleased with that.”

“I’m pleased with many things.”

The way he said it made me think of last night so hard and so fast my thighs pressed together on instinct. Damn him. Damn this man and the effect he had on me. He saw that too. He always saw too

much. His voice roughened. Just enough.

“You remember.”

I lifted my chin because pride was all I had left at that point.

“I am trying to have a serious conversation.”

“We are.”

“You are not behaving like it.”

“You’re the one thinking about my hands.”

The words hit me low and hard. I stared at him, horrified at how accurately he had read me.

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