was too much, too many emotions all at once. Gunner must think she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. She didn’t want him to see her like this.
“Luna, fuck…” Gunner's voice sounded panicked.
She lifted her head to say something, anything, to the knight watching her break down in front of him.
He stood there, statue still, jaw tight, eyes filled with alarm. It was as if she was looking at him through water. She’d lifted her shield, had blocked him out without even realizing she’d done it.
That had never happened before, not once. And never that easy. The panic subsided a little.
“Luna, please. Please don’t…please don’t…hide from me.”
Luna stared at Gunner through her shields, her block so thick, she was completely invisible.
She hadn’t used her powers since she came here. It felt wrong to use them when she’d caused so much pain with them. When she’d hurt so many people.
“You’re still here? Aren’t you, love? You haven’t left…you haven’t left me, have you?”
Left him?
What did he mean by that?
She moved so she stood directly in front of him, and he unknowingly looked right back. Her hand lifted the way it had the night he came to her house, her prison, the night Sir had locked her away. The urge to touch his handsome face, to take comfort in the warmth and texture of his skin, was so incredibly strong.
Luna dropped her hand and walked around him, taking in his expression, the way he held his strong body so rigid. He was upset. Even to her, still learning about emotions, there was no missing it.
Why?
Why did he care?
“Please, Luna. Please, come back.” He trembled. “I’ll leave you alone. I’ll give you space. I’m sorry, love. I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t like seeing him like this. It…it hurt to see him like this.
“Luna, you don’t need to hide.” He gripped the back of his neck, a haunted look taking over his amber eyes. “Please don’t hide from me.”
She backed up until she was on the other side of the room, then let her block fall away.
His head snapped up, eyes locking on her as soon as she was visible. He staggered back a step, then came forward two before he stopped himself.
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I…I hadn’t meant to do that.”
“That’s okay,” he said in a raspy voice, chest pumping as if he’d been on a run. “It was my fault. I pushed.”
Luna shook her head, but Gunner was already backing away, heading for the door. He turned back to her before he walked out. “I won’t do that again, love. You don’t ever need to protect yourself from me.”
Protect herself from him?
He was the only person she felt safe with right now.
She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Then it was too late.
He walked out and closed the door behind him.
Gunner stood against Luna’s closed door and tried to gather his own fraying emotions.
Terror had fired through him when she’d vanished like that.
He told her he’d leave her alone, but he didn’t know if he could. He wanted to be back in that room with her, wanted to be near her.
But if she walked back out and found him still standing here, she might freak out and pull a disappearing act on him again. So he forced himself to back away from her door, to return the way they’d come. Each step away felt more wrong than the last.
As he strode through the control room and toward the balcony, he locked eyes with Grace. “She needs some time. Can you check on her later?”
“Of course, Gunner. Should I tell her when you’ll be home?”
He swallowed, his throat tight as hell. “I think it’s best if I give her some space.” Yanking his shirt over his head, he tucked it in the waistband of his jeans and dove off the side of the building as his wings sprung from his back.
He didn’t know where he was going, only that he needed to kill something. He needed to hurt the evil fucker who had convinced Luna she wasn’t worth anything, who had gotten in her head and warped the way she saw herself until she’d lost sight of who she was.
“I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know how to be…when I’m not with him.”
A roar tore from him as he flew over the city, heading back to the place where he’d found her.
Only now the burned remains of a house littered the area. A house that had been hidden