The Luna Duet by Pepper Winters

Author:Pepper Winters [Winters, Pepper]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance
Publisher: Pepper Winters
Published: 2023-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

*

Aslan

*

(Heart in Latin: Cor)

I WINCED AS THE THUD OF SLAMMING car doors set my heart racing.

Three hours.

Three unbearable hours where I’d run in fucking circles around suburbia, hiding in shadows, and listening for sirens, only to give into my pain and return to Neri’s street. I’d waited by the beach for a long time, watching the house where I’d lived for six years, waiting for signs that the police had set up an ambush.

But only soft silence reigned, punctured occasionally by the happy squeals of children playing with new toys and the quiet babble of Christmas movies.

I’d taken the risk and hobbled back home.

The house was quiet and welcoming as I stepped in through the back door. It was eerie being here without anyone else. My skin itched with wrongness. My heart beat pathetically.

What if I never see Neri again?

What if Jack and Anna took her far away from me and this was the last time I walked through their home as a free man?

With my heart in my throat, I raided the medicine cabinet for a fistful of painkillers, then did my best to mop up the oozing blood along my hair line and wipe away the dried rust painting my jaw. The image in the bathroom mirror revealed a haunted man who’d fought every day of his existence, doing his best not to succumb to inherited violence only to wear that violence from someone else.

From Jack.

My chest panged.

Regardless that my life hadn’t been easy since losing my family, I’d fallen for Jack and Anna as if they were my own. I loved him. I thought he loved me too. Yet as I poked at my black eye and ran my cut tongue over my split lip, I had to face the facts.

He didn’t love me.

Not really.

He would’ve killed me if Neri hadn’t knocked him out.

Fuck.

My hands gripped the sink as a crest of nausea struck me.

She loves me.

She chose me.

Over her own father.

My hands curled around the cold porcelain.

I don’t deserve her.

But I can’t live without her.

I wanted to leave this place but how could I without her? How could I survive a single day without her smile, her touch, her love?

I’d returned to this house that was both my prison and sanctuary with intentions to pack a bag and leave. To slink into the dark and figure out a way to live in this country without being seen or caught.

But...what would be the fucking point?

I didn’t want to hide when I had nothing to hide for.

I didn’t want to scrape out a living when the only thing that made sense was already stolen from me.

I’d rather be caught and sent back to my father than exist another day in this country without the one girl I would die for.

So...that’s what I’ll do.

Raising my head, I stared into my bloodshot eyes. Every part of me hurt. My ribs blazed every time I breathed, my cheekbones felt as if they’d shatter at the gentlest touch, my head throbbed,

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