When The Moon Hides Her Crown - Chapter 37: Chapter 37

SERAPHINA
“And you say you aren’t seducing me.”
The moment Ronan's words hit the air, the weight of what I’d just done crashed into me like a freight train. I had slipped. I’d broken character, I had not acted as Seth, but Seraphina. I touched Ronan like a…I leaned in close, invaded his space. On top of that I did it in front of the very Alphas I was supposed to fool.
I immediately let go of his hair and stepped back with a smoothness that masked my panic, controlled, casual, as if I hadn’t just nearly blown everything. I didn’t meet Ronan’s gaze. I couldn’t. Instead, I turned to face the bastards in front of me.
Behind me, Ronan let out a low, amused laugh. I heard the scrape of a chair dragging across the concrete, that was followed by the creak of wood as he sat in front of the rotting door, sin personified. One leg crossed over the other, cigarette glowing between his fingers.
“Give me a good show, Alpha Seth Darven,” he murmured, smoke curling around his jaw like a halo turned to ash.
I glanced at him over my shoulder, shooting him a blank look. He just smiled, that irritatingly handsome smirk that somehow made things worse.
I tore my eyes away and focused on the circle of Alphas. Most of them were tense, Ronan’s presence unnerving them. But not Reed.
He grinned like the devil with a secret.
“Hey Darven,” Reed called, “you should’ve cried for help from your new watchdog over there. But since your pathetic ego wouldn’t let you, let’s walk you straight into hell, yeah?”
Laughter erupted behind him.
I said nothing. I stared at them, blank-faced, calm, quiet. All while something inside me cracked. Their laughter scraped across my nerves like glass on bone.
“Why did you hurt Finn?” I asked quietly.
“What?” Reed made a mocking face.
“You should’ve come for me, you coward. You didn’t need to hurt my friend,” I said, my voice barely more than a murmur, but laced with steel.
The amusement drained from his eyes. My calm unnerved him.
He clenched his fists, nostrils flaring. “Still playing cocky, you little shit? How dare you look at me like I’m beneath you?!”
He roared and charged. Cassius and the others followed behind him like rabid dogs. The only advantage I had in this fight was that none of them could shift. Shifting without permission on the Academy grounds was a punishable act and they could all be kicked out. This was due to the fact that the Alpha instructors would immediately feel that someone had shifted and broken the rules.
Reed lunged, half-shifted claws aiming for my throat.
I dodged, barely.
His claws sliced the air where my neck had been.
I spun and launched myself at Cassius, the nearest body, climbed his broad frame, and slammed his skull into the ground with a sickening thud.
Everything stopped for half a second.
The Alphas froze, shocked.
Reed stared at Cassius' groaning form, wide-eyed.
I met Reed’s gaze, and let my wolf rise.
“I told you to stay away from me,” I growled, my voice layered with my wolf’s furious gaze. “Now you’ll die.”
Rage overtook him.
“You!” he spat, blood rising in his eyes. “You’ll regret this!”
He charged again, snarling. The others followed.
And Ronan?
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Just sat there smoking, eyes trained on me, not missing a single twitch, a single breath. Even mid-fight, I could feel the burn of his gaze on my skin.
The first impact came fast, a blur of fists and claws. My body moved on instinct, honed from years of training. My fist slammed into someone’s ribs. Another grabbed for me, I twisted and drove my elbow into his throat. I felt cartilage collapse beneath my strike.
One down.
Two.
Three.
Still they came.
A punch split the skin of my cheek—sharp, stinging. I hissed and snapped my leg upward, landing a brutal kick to Cassius’ chest as he tried to recover. He crashed into a rusted metal crate with a guttural groan.
Another strike, Reed again. I half-shifted my arm and rammed the heel of my palm into his nose. Blood gushed. I followed with a kick straight into his gut, launching him back into the charging Alphas.
They fell. Scrambled to rise.
I didn’t give them a chance.
I shattered their rhythm, broke their bones, cracked skulls, left them gasping on the floor.
“FUCK!” Reed roared, clutching his ribs after I drove an elbow deep into his side.
He staggered.
Growling like a maddened beast, he forced himself upright again.
Then—
Cassius lunged at me from behind.
I turned to counter him, only for Reed to move like a shadow behind me. Too fast.
Something glinted in his hand.
Metal.
A rod.
I pivoted, just barely.
It slammed into my forearm instead of my skull.
Agony flared white-hot. I gritted my teeth.
I didn’t stop.
I surged forward, driving my knee into his gut.
He folded.
Spat blood.
Still, he grinned through it.
“You’re nothing but a weak link,” he growled. “I’m going to kill you today, you fucking freak!”
My fist disagreed.
The room spun with motion. Broken breathing. Scuffling boots. Grunts and snarls and the dry scent of rage.
I was ready to move the choreography of this dance towards its end when something suddenly slipped from a pocket.
It hit the floor with a soft thud and rolled around.
Something round.
Black.
Something familiar, a smell.
No.
I froze.
I knew that smell.
My eyes widened as I bent down, heart lurching. I plucked it from the cracked floor, squeezed it open and the scent nearly knocked me to my knees.
My heat.
That scent mixed in cologne. The one Ronan wore. The one that made everything worse. That made my body scream for things I couldn’t have.
This berry’s smell exactly.
The one that made my body betray me. The one that made me ache, burn, crave.
That wasn’t a coincidence.
That was deliberate.
I looked up.
Reed.
The bastard stood there, feigning confusion—but his lips twitched with something else.
“You…” My voice came out hollow. Shaking. “You did this?”
He blinked, feigned innocence.
Cassius chuckled behind him. “Oh, now he gets it.”
Reed paled, just for a moment, then grinned. An ugly, victorious grin.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mixed it. You were supposed to go into rut. Lose control. Parade your pathetic little self around the arena naked, desperate, and get fucked senseless by Alpha Ronan because he was wearing it and should have been affected too and should have lost his senses enough to understand gender and just fuck you.”
My chest constricted. Once my eyes met with Ronan’s calm ones I realized he knew about the berry being mixed in his cologne.
“You were supposed to be humiliated. Ruined. Only you got lucky. It didn’t work. Too bad.”
He tilted his head. “Guess I’ll just have to kill you instead.”
My whole body froze at the revelation and all I could see was them laughing. They thought I would go into rut but I actually went into heat. Their plan had actually succeeded and my whole future would have been ruined, the fate that my father had prescribed for me would have been sealed. I would have lost myself, my existence, and my everything. All because of…them.
“You wanted to see my balls?” I murmured, voice disturbingly calm.
I crouched and picked up a jagged shard of broken glass from the shattered window.
Panic sparked in their eyes.
“Hey—hey! Fucker! What the hell are you doing?!”
I straightened.
“Now I want to have your balls…” I raised my eyes and smiled at them, “...in my hand,”
DANTE
With one leg crossed over the other, I sipped my coffee, eyes fixed on the chaos unfolding across the Academy grounds. The bitter warmth coated my tongue as the taste lingered, rich, slow, and deliberate.
A shadow loomed beside me. One of my wolves leaned in, his voice low against the shell of my ear.
“The in-fighting has begun.”
A slow smile curved my lips behind the rim of the cup. “What a naughty thing to do.”
I put it down, got up, and walked away with a smile.