Chapter 100
It’s been four days in NorthHill and Lumina feels her sanity slowly slipping, like the steady pull of the tide tugging at her. It’s suffocating, this place. Every corner seems to echo with his presence. Theon. His scent is everywhere—familiar, possessive, inescapable. The walls, the bed, the air she breathes—all of it drenched in him.
She’s spent all four days in his room, locked away. Not that she’d tried to leave. Every time she even thought of stepping outside, the air shifted, the shadows lengthened. His presence was always there, like an invisible chain wrapped around her. The pack is too surrounded, the walls too thick, and he’s everywhere, watching.
She’s curled up on the edge of his bed, knees pulled to her chest, staring at the cold, barren wall. She won’t look at him. She can’t. Not after everything. Not after—
Her thoughts screech to a halt, but it’s too late. The memories flood her.
The blood.
The pain.
The rejection.
She suddenly begins to wonder just how cruel the moon goddess is to her for such an unfortunate fate…
She hears footsteps approach the room. She turns to the other side of the bed, back to the door, her body stiffening in response to his nearness. She’s gotten accustomed to the sound of his movements. Her heart pounds against her ribs as the steps grow louder. Then the door opens.
Theon steps in. She can’t see him, but she feels the shift in the air, the cold dominance that always trails him.
“This is surprising and a little disappointing. I thought you would have at least attempted to escape…” His deep baritone fills the room.
Lumina shudders. His voice scrapes against her nerves, unsettling and magnetic all at once.
“As if you left room for that,” she murmurs, not looking at him. “I’m not so stupid not to see how many eyes you have fixed on me even in your absence.”
“I can’t let you go back to the same pack you almost died in your own blood, not when I’m still trying to figure out who the bastard was…” Theon’s voice is darker now, twisted with something feral. The idea of another man touching her, marking her body, claiming what is his—it eats at him.
“I am not your business,” Lumina bites out, her voice shaking but steady enough to strike. “That’s my concern to worry about.”
“You and everything that concerns you is my business,” he growls. “So, I wish to know who the fuck it is that impregnated my mate. Only I have the right to touch you.”
His last words are low, venomous. A growl rides beneath them.
Lumina’s breath catches. The room suddenly feels too tight.
“If you think I’ll let you touch me, you’re dreaming,” she snaps. “Because no matter what, I am going to leave this place. I never asked to be saved. I…”
Before she can finish, Theon moves. His hand closes around her wrist and he flips her with a force that’s firm but careful. She gasps, eyes wide as she lands on her back.
Their eyes lock. And something in her trembles.
He doesn’t speak immediately. He just stares, breathing heavier than usual. His other hand comes up to her face, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing along her jaw.
“You don’t get to tell me what I can touch,” he says, quiet but intense. “Not when your body calls for me in your sleep. Not when you’re shaking just from my voice.”
“Stop it,” Lumina hisses, trying to turn her face, but his hand keeps her in place.
“Why? Because you’re afraid of what you feel?” His thumb traces her bottom lip, slow, deliberate. “You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t smell it on you? You want to hate me so bad, but your body—”
She slaps his hand away, chest heaving. “You don’t know anything! I hate you. I hate how you talk, how you look at me. You’re just another monster like your father, and after what my family went through, now you think you can just… what? Claim me because of a stupid bond?”
“You are right, I am a monster but that’s the only correct thing you said, because I am not my father,” he says, voice dangerously calm. “You’re mine, Lumina. That’s not a title that can be revoked.”
She laughs bitterly. “You think touching me will make it true? That I’ll just fall apart and forget the hell I went through?”
“No,” he says, and the word comes with a flicker of something more than anger. He should rip the man apart who caused her this much pain. “But I can remind you that no matter how much you run, you still respond to me. Your soul knows mine.”
His hand slides down, finding her waist. She stiffens immediately.
“Don’t,” she warns, but her voice falters.
He leans closer, the warmth of his breath brushing her cheek. “Tell me to stop like you mean it. Say it with your eyes on mine.”
She can’t. She looks away, but he doesn’t. His hand explores lower, brushing the skin just beneath her shirt, slow and deliberate, not to seduce but to stake a claim.
“You’re still bleeding,” he says, voice thick now. “I know that. I won’t do more than what your body allows. But I need you to feel it.”
“Feel what?”
“That you’re mine. That no matter who tried to put a pup in you, this body—this soul—is tethered to me.”
His hand drags lightly down her stomach, stopping just above her navel, and Lumina’s breath hitches. Her body betrays her. She arches slightly, and immediately scolds herself.
“Stop,” she whispers again, but her fingers curl in the sheets instead of pushing him away.
His lips brush her temple. “I will stop. When your body stops begging.”
She gasps when his hand shifts again, this time tracing the edge of her waistband but not breaching it. It’s maddening. Controlled. Intentional. His thumb strokes a spot just above the bone of her hip.
Her breathing grows uneven, shame burning up her spine.
“You’re shaking,” he whispers.
“Because I hate you,” she snaps, trying to turn again. But he holds her there, his grip not painful, just inescapable.
“No,” he murmurs. “Because you’re searing this feeling into your memory.”
His mouth grazes her jawline now, and despite everything, her legs shift beneath him.
“I can’t do this,” she says, eyes brimming with tears. “My body is still… it’s still healing. I can feel the pain. The blood. I can’t …”
Theon stops. His forehead leans against hers, breath ragged.
“The earlier you forget about whoever that bastard is, the better for you,” he says softly.
She blinks hard, a tear slipping down her temple. He kisses it away.
Her fists clench the sheets again.
His hand doesn’t move further. It stays warm and steady against her stomach, grounding her. Comforting her. The tension shifts from burning to something deeper.
“I will never forgive you,” she whispers.
“Then don’t,” he says. “Just feel.”
And gods help her—she does.
Even as her body aches and her soul screams and everything inside her tells her to fight it—she feels.
She moans, soft and broken, a sound she hates herself for, and Theon’s breath catches. He says nothing. He just presses his mouth to her cheek, jaw, neck. Gentle, Just to remind her who owns her now.
She should scream. She should claw at him. But she only breathes, trying to stay still, trying not to give him more of what he already knows.
That she is burning for him.