Luna lay on her stomach, her bare body sprawled across the bed like a fallen goddess, sweat glistening on her flushed skin. Her breathing was slow, but not steady, every so often, it hitched when Tuf's lips brushed her spine, or when his tongue danced over a new spot on her back, or when his fangs lightly grazed her shoulder blade before giving a sharp, playful bite.
And as much as she craved this, craved him, her mind began to drift.
It always did.
No matter how good he was at grounding her, how thoroughly he wrecked her with his body, Luna's thoughts still found their way into the shadows. Worries, secrets, the weight of duty. They slithered in, unwanted.
She didn't want to show it. Not to him.
To anyone else, she'd appear composed, unreadable.
But not to Tuf.
He noticed it instantly, the faintest furrow in her brow, the tension in her fingers, the slight stiffening of her muscles beneath his mouth.
"What's wrong?" he murmured, his lips brushing her shoulder before giving it a teasing bite.
"Just thinking," Luna replied, voice quiet.
"About?" he pressed, already knowing it wasn't something simple.
Instead of waiting for her answer, he buried his face against the curve of her neck and, with no warning, sank his fangs into her skin, driving a moan from her lips as venom and pleasure flooded her senses.
She didn't have time to recover.
Tuf flipped her gently, making her face him. Then he pushed her legs apart and slid into her with such ease and familiarity it made her tremble.
Luna didn't even know how many times they'd done this since they locked themselves away.
She never counted. They never counted.
Every time they met in this room, they disappeared from the world for days, three, sometimes more. No one interrupted. No one knew.
Because the moment they stepped out that door, they had to wear their masks again.
Siblings who couldn't stand each other.
Rivals. Enemies.
A cruel, perfect lie.
Tuf was watching her now, moving within her, his rhythm deep and slow. Waiting for an answer.
And it made her crazy.
"Are you seriously expecting me to answer that question right now, Hahhhhhh!" Luna snapped, gasping as he angled his hips just right, hitting that spot inside her that made her vision go white.
He only grinned.
"Bastard."
She should be used to it by now, his ability to hold conversations while making her forget her own name. But she wasn't. And she hated it.
No. She loved it. And hated that she loved it.
Without missing a beat, he pulled out, flipped her around, and lifted her to her knees.
Now she was facing the headboard, hands gripping it tightly for balance, while he entered her from behind.
"Why not?" Tuf whispered against her ear, thrusting slowly, deliberately. "You should learn how to multitask."
"You're insane!" she gasped, grinding back against him despite herself.
"I know. Tell me something I don't," he chuckled darkly, biting her shoulder lightly, smirking at the flush that spread across her back.
She glared over her shoulder, growling between ragged breaths.
"I hate you, ahhhhh!"
Tuf groaned as her walls clenched around him.
"I said tell me something I don't know," he growled. "Fûck…"
Luna squeezed around him again, tighter this time, and Tuf lost control, his pace turning feral, brutal, perfect. She met every thrust with her own, their bodies moving in sync, a frenzy of heat and friction.
Thank the gods the bed was reinforced with magisteel.
No wood or metal could survive this.
"Cubbbbb!" Luna screamed, the climax ripping through her like lightning. She broke apart completely, voice raw, body shaking.
Tuf wasn't far behind.
With a guttural growl, he thrust deep one final time, emptying himself inside her, so deep she could feel the heat of it bloom within her womb.
And then they collapsed together, breathless and spent, tangled in heat and sweat and the kind of silence that only came after shared destruction.
They were sinners in the dark.
Lovers beneath lies.
And neither of them would ever stop.
Tuf pressed a lingering kiss against Luna's shoulder, reluctant to break their closeness but knowing the moment demanded it. He slowly pulled out of her, making her softly exhale, before slipping off the bed and walking barefoot to the adjoining bathroom, turning on the water and letting it fill the massive stone tub. Steam began to curl upward as the enchanted water adjusted to the perfect temperature.
When the bath was ready, he returned to the bedroom.
There she was.
Still naked, still sprawled across the bed like sin incarnate, bare, unashamed, unapologetic. She hadn't bothered to cover herself with the sheets, and even if she had, it wouldn't have mattered. Tuf had seen every inch of her. Tasted every inch. Marked her with his mouth and fangs. But it wasn't her body that held his attention now, it was her gaze.
Luna was staring at the canopy above them, unmoving. Her body was here, but her mind had drifted far beyond the dark velvet sheets.
Tuf sat beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight. His hand moved slowly, caressing her thigh with a tenderness that felt almost foreign coming from him. Trying to pull her back to him, not with force, but with patience.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked quietly, the concern evident in his tone.
"Seiryu's new master," Luna answered, sitting up. Her voice was calmer than expected, but cold. Focused. "I never saw his awakening with my Foresight… Did you ever see him with yours?"
Tuf exhaled slowly. "My Foresight is barely a fraction of yours. If you didn't see it… then there's no way I would've."
He reached for her hand, kissed her knuckles. "But don't overthink it. Maybe it's just because Seiryu is a Holy Beast. That changes things."
"No." Luna's eyes were sharp now as she turned to face him. "We were able to foresee his awakening before. That's how we stopped the noble Crown Prince of Aquilonis from becoming his master a thousand years ago. We made sure that pathetic, corrupt second prince awakened him instead. Just like the rest of the Holy Beasts. We manipulated that entire event to ensure Father's plans succeeded."
Her eyes narrowed. "But that footage your favorite toy showed us today... I'm sure of it. This time, it wasn't Seiryu. Whoever this new master is, he's powerful. Very powerful. The fact that he knew how to subjugate Seiryu, even after we destroyed every single record on the Holy Beasts, terrifies me."
Tuf flinched subtly at the term.
"And what's worse—I didn't hear the Voice of the World whisper Seiryu's name to anyone, when I was supposed to hear the Voice every time something monumental was about to happen in all of Solmara."
"I told you to stop calling her that," Tuf muttered, a little too harshly. His fingers reflexively curled around her hand, massaging the tension in her wrist.
"What?" Luna's tone was deceptively light.
"She has a name. It's Naelira. Stop calling her my 'favorite toy.'" There was a snap in his voice now, the irritation barely restrained.
Luna stared at him for a long, still moment. Then she laughed, but there was no warmth in it. No humor. Only disdain.
She yanked her hand from his.
"So she's no longer your toy? Aren't all elves and faes just toys to you?" Luna's voice cut like a blade, laced with mocking venom as her black-and-gold eyes narrowed into slits. "No wonder you panicked when I tried to kill your favorite toy earlier."
"For the love of Solmara, Luna!" Tuf snapped, shooting to his feet, raking a hand through his already tousled black hair in pure frustration. His voice reverberated in the private chamber beneath Hades, raw, exposed, unfiltered.
He had suspected. That the dark aura Luna unleashed during the council was aimed not at the young leaders, not even at him… but at Naelira. And still, he'd made himself believe otherwise. That it was politics. A display of dominance. A warning.
He tried to believe it wasn't personal.
But it was.
"Are you jealous of her?" he asked, almost cautiously, like someone poking at a sleeping beast. But even as he asked, he knew better. He wanted to believe jealousy played a part, but that wasn't who Luna was.
Luna was never jealous.
She was possessive. Protective. Dominant when it mattered. But jealousy? That emotion was beneath her.
She had never cared about the women who passed through his bed. Not even Naelira. The elf had once been just another face in the crowd to her. Civil. Tolerated. Dismissed.
But over the past few decades, something had shifted. Her aura, her gaze, the tension in her words, everything had changed when it came to Naelira. Only he noticed. Because he knew her.
And at the council meeting earlier, when her darkness had nearly consumed the room, if he hadn't moved when he did, if his Foresight hadn't kicked in a fraction of a second sooner, Naelira would've been dead.
"Jealous?" Luna hissed, her eyes gleaming like golden fire. "Me? Jealous of that woman?" She stepped forward, naked and radiant in her fury. "Do you even know who I am?"
"I do know you!" Tuf roared, voice raw. "I know you're not jealous. Not of her. Not of any of them, even if, fuck, even if I wish you would be! But I don't understand why you've suddenly become so hostile to her!"
Luna stood tall, unashamed of her nakedness, of her anger.
"Because we had a plan!" she snapped. "We were supposed to send elves beyond the Mist. Not vampires. Not shifters. Elves. Because they're the only ones who can breed with humans without a matebond! That was the loophole of the deal we are trying to exploit."
Her voice trembled, not from weakness, but from the sheer intensity of her rage.
"And because of that woman," she hissed, "because of her trauma, because of what her bloodline suffered at the hands of the humans, you're changing everything! You ruined our plan!"
Tuf stared at her, wide-eyed. "I ruined the plan?" His voice broke with disbelief. "Me? Am I not the one doing the dirty work? Am I not the one playing the villain here? While you, you sit beside Father, all cold and perfect, and you, you accuse me of ruining it?"
"You think I wanted this?!" Luna screamed, her composure shattering like glass.
Silence fell like a heavy blanket between them.
Tuf sat down hard on the edge of the bed, his strength unraveling. His voice came lower now, laced with pain. "You chose to stay by his side, Luna. No one forced you. You could've been Regent. You were the one he chose."
And it was true.
Luna, the born queen. Sharp, commanding, untouchable. She had their mother's fire and Caelum's cunning. She was always meant to rule.
When Caelum stepped down from overseeing Velrathis after five centuries, he didn't choose Alpha. He didn't choose Pixie. He didn't even choose Tuf who takes after his business acumen.
He chose her.
But Luna said no.
She followed Caelum to Ebon Spire. Stayed in the shadows of the world while he withdrew from it.
She refused the crown.
Abandoned the throne.
And left Tuf behind, to play the villain, the monster, the fool, the manipulator in the dark.
They had always fought. Outside this private room, outside their secret haven, they tore at each other with claws sheathed in words. But it was always surface-level. Always part of the masquerade.
"I chose him," Luna whispered, her voice nearly breaking. "Because if I didn't… he would've never come back."
Her golden-black eyes flickered, something raw and devastating lurking just beneath their fierce gleam. Vulnerability. Real, unmasked, and bleeding.
"And someone had to make sure he did."
Tuf stared at her, the impact of her words carving into the bones of his silence. For the first time, he saw her fully, not as the perfect daughter, not as his impossible rival or secret lover. But the girl who stayed behind when no one else would. The one who watched the Demon Lord bleed alone. He looked at her and saw not the rage. Not the sharp words. But the heartbreak buried deep in her bones. The sacrifice she never once admitted aloud.
"But I can't do this anymore," she whispered.
And then, for the first time in his long, long life, he saw it.
Tears.
Luna, his Luna, was crying.
"Kitten…" His anger vanished instantly, replaced by something heavier. Something tender. He stepped toward her, but she stepped away.
That hurt him more than any blade ever could.
"Do you know how old the youngest demi-human is?" Her question came out of nowhere, but her voice trembled beneath it. Tuf stood frozen, unsure how to respond.
"One hundred and fifty-three," she answered herself. "That's how long it's been since the Crystal Cylinder was last filled. No demi-human has been born within the Mist after that…"
She laughed bitterly, just a breath of sound, and nothing joyful about it.
"But aside from Milo, Vivi, and me… none of you noticed. None of you remembered why we're here in the first place. You've all lived your lives in peace, in comfort. You've built your little empires, while father…" Her voice broke.
Her hands clenched at her sides.
"None of you saw the way Father looks at the Cylinder. Hoping. Always hoping it will fill again. None of you had to choose which memory Vivi would plant in his dreams, because if he wakes up in the middle of it, that joy might break him instead of soothe him. None of you had to sit with Milo, calculating how long to slow time in Father's bedchamber so that when he wakes, days or even months have passed, just so he wouldn't feel how long he's been waiting."
Her eyes were glassy now, but she didn't wipe the tears away.
"None of you were there when he broke, every single year, on the day of the Empire's founding. Just because of the godsdamn fireworks, which I've told you all to stop, because he can see them from the Spire."
Her breath hitched. "None of you… had to hear him whisper Mother's name in his sleep."
Tuf's heart clenched. Hard. Her words were cutting him open from the inside.
Luna seldom begged. She seldom wept. She was steel and storm and sovereign will.
But now… she was breaking.
"That's why we need to send the elves beyond the Mist," she said, voice tightening like a noose. "Their souls have been saved and recorded in the cylinder. They've lived peaceful lives. But once they procreate with humans, it's only a matter of time before human greed sets in again. And with a new demi human soul we bring from the human kingdom to the mist, the cylinder will be filled again. That is why I told you to corrupt the elves, Tofu."
"I know it's cruel. But hasn't Father already sacrificed a thousand years of grief just to give the demi-humans peace?" Her eyes locked onto his. "If you think that's too cruel… If you think protecting that elf and her kind is more important than his suffering, then fine. So be it."
Her voice dropped, but the chill in it was colder than death.
"If you no longer want to be the villain, I will. I will do it, smiling. I will burn this empire to the ground, if that's what it takes for Father to save it. I will shatter every treaty, break every law, and if I must, I will sacrifice the very peace we bled to build."
She took a shaky breath. Her final words landed like a blade to the throat.
"All just to see that cursed Crystal Cylinder fill again."