Beneath the Alpha's Moon

Nova’s POV

The cold from the bench was seeping into my spine, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My knees were curled up to my chest, my fingers clenched in the fabric of my jeans, and my breath kept hitching in a way that made my chest ache. I hated crying in public, even if the only witness was a rusting park lamp and a squirrel that had clearly given up on finding food and was now judging me from a tree branch.

I sniffled and wiped at my face with the sleeve of my jacket. My cheeks were damp, my nose probably resembled a tomato, and my heart was a tangled mess of sharp things I didn’t know how to untangle.

The sound of footsteps came like a whisper through the quiet. Soft, then louder. Purposeful.

I froze.

Something in me already knew it was him.

The air changed. Not in the way you notice temperature or wind, but in a way you feel—like the molecules around you have been rearranged to make space for someone bigger than life.

I looked up slowly.

Eldur Daegon stood there like a shadow carved from moonlight—tall, broad-shouldered, silver-haired, and entirely too beautiful for someone who didn’t even try. His pretty eyes searched the park before they landed on me. And when they did, I saw something I hadn’t expected.

Worry.

Real, actual, heart-in-throat, furrowed-brow worry.