carried across 96

96 Pride of a Luna 

Sera 

I looked at the heavy white silk in her hands. I remembered the heavy blue dress Kane made me wear in Blackwater. The tight corset that bruised my ribs. The heavy skirts that made it impossible to run. Kane dressed me like a display piece. He dressed me like a trophy he won, wrapping me in layers to hide me 

away. 

I looked at Irina’s horrified, judgmental face. 

I laughed. It echoed loudly in the Great Hall. 

“Class?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I took a slow step toward her. “Civility? You want to stand in this room and lecture me about looking like a whore, Mother?” 

Irina froze. The blood drained completely from her face. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. I saw the moment she remembered the guest room. Torin thrusting into her from behind while her skirt was shoved up over her ass. 

She quickly lowered the white dress, clutching it to her chest like a shield. 

“I didn’t think so,” I said, dropping my voice so it carried a lethal edge. 

I turned away from her and looked at Torin. The Valdris Lord was watching the exchange with deep confusion, completely unaware of why the Queen had suddenly backed down. 

“Take the white dress back to Valdris,” I told Torin. I pointed to the chests of gold and the cages of thin animals. “Take the wine. Take the birds. We don’t want them.” 

Torin’s eyes widened in genuine shock. “Princess, you cannot reject the King’s dowry. It is a massive insult to the crown. The gold alone-” 

“I don’t care,” I cut him off. I didn’t yell. I spoke with absolute, crushing authority. “This pack hunts its own meat. We forge our own steel. Tell my father that Ironmaw does not need his scraps, and I am not a southern inconvenience he needs to compensate people for.” 

I looked over at Bram, who was standing by the far wall wearing Kael’s face. 

“Elder Kael,” I called out. 

Bram pushed off the wall and stepped forward. “Yes, Luna.” 

“Have the guards take the Valdris chests to the lower levels,” I ordered. “Give the gold to the blacksmiths to melt down for arrowheads. Throw the wine in the river. And feed those birds to the hunting hounds.” 

Torin gasped out loud. “You are mad. King Aldric will view this as an act of war!” 

“Then let him march his soft army up this mountain and tell me himself,” I replied coldly. 

I turned my back on the Valdris delegation entirely. I walked back to the wooden table, reached into the 

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Fenris was sitting behind his heavy wooden desk. 

He wasn’t wearing his thick leather armor or his heavy wool tunic. He wore a simple, worn grey shirt that stretched completely tight across the massive width of his chest and shoulders. The laces at the collar were undone, exposing the thick column of his throat and the jagged white scars resting on his 

collarbone. 

He held a dark, rectangular whetstone in his right hand. He held his thick iron hunting knife in his left. The rhythmic, metallic scrape of the stone sliding against the steel filled the quiet room. 

He didn’t look up when I opened the door. He didn’t jump. He already knew it was me. He could hear my heartbeat. He could smell me the second I stepped onto his floor. 

“You should be asleep,” Fenris said. His voice was a low, rough gravel that vibrated in the warm air. 

I shut the door behind me. The iron latch clicked loudly. 

“Mina kicks,” I answered. 

Fenris stopped moving the whetstone. He set the dark stone down on the wooden desk. He drove the point of the heavy iron knife directly into the wood, leaving it sticking straight up. He leaned back in his large chair and finally looked at me. 

His pale grey eyes tracked the heavy wool blanket wrapped around my shoulders. He looked down at my bare legs and my completely bare feet standing on the stone floor. 

He let out a heavy sigh. The thick muscle in his jaw flexed. 

“Come here,” Fenris told me. 

I walked across the room. I stopped right beside his chair. I could feel the immense, localized heat radiating off his massive body. It was like standing next to an open furnace. 

Fenris didn’t ask if I was okay. He didn’t ask why I was wandering the keep in the middle of the night. He simply reached out, clamped his massive hands around my waist, and pulled me directly onto his lap. 

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