Chapter 21 A Luna Bruised
The words struck him. Hard.
His eyes flashed gold, rage, pain, pride, and beneath all of it…
Fear. Fear that he was losing control. Fear that he was losing me.
Fear that the truth had already cracked him open, and he didn’t know how to put the pieces back.
He masked it quickly.
“I will speak to Evie alone,” he said.
Vivian’s head snapped up. “You will not.”
“This is pack law,” he retorted. “This is our bond. Our...”
The word stuck in his throat. “Our” tasted wrong now.
He turned to me.
“Evie.”
His voice wasn’t cold this time. Not warm either. Just… raw.
Like he didn’t know what tone he was allowed to have with me anymore.
My heart tightened painfully.
“Evie,” he repeated, quieter, “I need to...talk.”
Vivian bristled. “She owes you nothing.”
His jaw flexed. “She is my mate.”
“And you nearly broke her,” Vivian snapped. "Do you even feel an ounce of shame calling her your mate? A mate is supposed to protect, an alpha mate? They would pluck their heart out before letting someone lift a finger to their mate. Not leave them bruised and battered to be humiliated by the whole world."
The silence that followed trembled with all the things said and unsaid.
Finally, I lifted my chin.
The movement was tiny, but enough.
“I’ll speak to him,” I whispered.
Vivian stiffened. “Evie...”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I… I can handle it.”
My mother looked like she wanted to argue, but she stepped aside, barely.
Grayson exhaled in relief.
He took one slow step toward me. I took one back. He halted.
His voice lowered until only I could hear it.
“You should have told me sooner,” he said.
A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it.
“I did,” I whispered. “You just never wanted to listen.”
His face twisted.
For the first time in months, I saw him crack.
Guilt.
Anger.
Confusion.
Longing.
Pain.
All tangled together in his eyes.
“Evie…” My name left him like something broken.
Vivian’s voice cut in sharply from behind us.
“If you hurt her again…”
“I won’t,” he said quickly.
Then he swallowed. His throat bobbed.
He looked at me like I was something fragile in his hands and he didn’t know how to lift it without damaging it further.
“I won’t,” he repeated, softer.
I shouldn’t have believed him.
I knew that. I knew.
But some traitorous, aching part of me, the same part that loved him as a child, the same part that lost him slowly, the same part that married him, the same part he broke on our wedding night, wanted to believe.
Just a little.
Just enough to breathe. But not enough to live.
Grayson stepped closer, slowly, like he was approaching something wounded and unpredictable.
His hand lifted, hesitating in the air between us.
I felt the heat of it, the tremble he tried desperately to hide.
“Evie…” His voice was lower now. “I never wanted this. I didn’t want to doubt you.”
Vivian scoffed behind me. “You didn’t doubt. You condemned.”
Grayson flinched. For once, he didn’t snap back.
He didn’t defend himself or bare his teeth.
He looked… lost.
“I...” He exhaled shakily. “Everything I saw that night… everything I believed… You have to understand why I…”
“I don’t,” I whispered.
His breath caught.
“I don’t understand how you, of all people, could think I’d hurt Chloe. Or you. Or anyone.”
The guilt hit him like a blade sinking straight through the ribs.
He took another step. “Evie, I…”
I stepped back. Again.
The look on his face… Gods. It nearly tore me in half.
Vivian stepped between us instinctively, protective as a drawn sword.
“Enough,” she warned. “You’ve done more damage than ten tribunals combined.”
“Mother…” I croaked.
“Don’t defend him,” she snapped, eyes burning. “Not tonight.”
Grayson’s jaw flexed. “I’m not the villain you paint me as.”
Vivian’s laugh was quiet. And lethal. “No? Then look at her. Really look.”
His eyes moved to my arms, what little he could see beneath the fabric. The bruises he’d left. The ones he pretended he didn’t notice.
His breath hitched.
For one impossible heartbeat… I saw the boy I had loved.
The boy who carried my backpack after school.
The boy who snuck moon tarts into my room.
The boy who stood between me and the bullies.
The boy who once swore he’d protect me from anyone.
Even himself.
He reached again, slower, gentler.
“Evie… I shouldn’t have…”
He didn’t finish it. He couldn’t.
His pride wouldn’t let him say I hurt you.
His guilt wouldn’t let him say I’m sorry.
His anger wouldn’t let him say I was wrong.
His grief wouldn’t let him say I failed you.
“I want to fix this,” he said instead, voice fraying.
Vivian’s inhale was sharp. “You can’t fix what you shattered, Grayson.”
He ignored her.
“It wasn’t all lies,” he insisted. “Not the last six months. Not everything…”
My heart twisted painfully.
“The flowers,” I whispered. “The rooftop dinners. The promise that you believed me. All of that, wasn’t that a lie too?”
His eyes snapped to mine, storm-grey and raw.
“No.” He said it too fast. Too earnest. “It wasn’t a lie.”
Vivian’s eyes narrowed, studying him.
Grayson stepped closer until we shared breath.
“I did care,” he said quietly. “I still…”
He swallowed hard. “I still…”
His voice broke. A single, fractured sound.
My breath hitched.
And then…
He shut it down. All of it.
Panic flickered through his expression, like he’d revealed too much. The mask slammed back into place with brutal force.
“Enough for tonight,” he said abruptly, turning away so neither of us could read him.
“Grayson…” I whispered.
He froze.
Back stiffening. Fingers flexing at his sides.
Vivian crossed her arms. “If you have any shred of decency left, leave.”
He didn’t move for a long moment.
Then, slowly, he turned his head to look at me over his shoulder.
For the first time since our wedding, there was no hatred in his eyes.
No rage. Just a hollow, confused ache. A man at war with himself.
“Evie…” he said, my name a soft rupture. “I… didn’t see the truth. Not until today.”
I blinked back tears. “And now?”
He hesitated. "I don’t know."
My heart cracked.
He took two steps back toward the door… then paused.
“Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “we talk. Properly.”
Vivian stiffened. “No. She needs rest.”
He nodded once, respectfully, surprisingly.
Then he met my eyes.
“I won’t hurt you again.”
And for a split second, his voice sounded almost like a vow.
Almost…
He opened the door.
But before he left, Vivian stepped forward, voice low and cutting:
“If you ever again raise your voice, your hand, or your power against my daughter…”
Grayson stopped breathing.
Vivian stepped closer, her wolf brushing the air like a cold wind.
“…I will make you regret every breath you take in this city.”
His throat bobbed.
He didn’t argue. Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t deny anything.
He simply nodded.
Once.
Then he left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
And I collapsed into my mother’s arms.
Because the truth was simple.
Grayson Knight wasn’t healed. He wasn’t redeemed. He wasn’t forgiven.
He was just fractured.
And broken men didn’t stop hurting the people they loved.
Not until someone else taught them how…