Chapter 73

Alex

The first blow didn’t land on my skin. It was a battle of wills—Sebastiano’s darkness crashing against my aura like waves smashing into a cliff, trying to bury me under centuries of his hate, his hunger, his obsession.

I was no longer that girl hiding under the stairs, no longer the orphan begging to be seen, no longer the Luna who let others decide her worth. I was Alexandra Delacroix—last daughter of Lunar Crest, the Third Moon, a Primordial who’d survived everything they’d thrown at me.

Calista’s voice rang in my mind: “Don’t fight him with anger. Fight him with truth.”

I pressed a hand to my belly. The instant my palm touched my son, warmth spread through me. A tiny pulse—his heartbeat—thrummed beneath my fingers. I felt Sebastiano hesitate. For the first time, the hunger drained from his face, because he