His Broken Luna From The Shadows

Julian's rage, denied a target, boiled over.

He lunged for the carriage door and threw it open with a crash. Cold wind whipped into the luxurious cabin.

"If you want to be a servant so badly," he roared, his face a mask of fury, "then you can go back to the manor like one!"

He grabbed her arm, his grip brutal. He was stronger. He had always been stronger.

Eleanor's body, frail from years of malnutrition, offered no resistance. He dragged her across the velvet seat and hauled her out of the carriage.

She landed hard on the dirt road. Sharp gravel bit into her knees, a searing, immediate pain.

Julian loomed in the carriage doorway, looking down at her. His eyes were cold, merciless. "Walk. And reflect on your place."

The driver, Frank, a man who had known her since she was a child, turned pale. "Young Master, perhaps..."

Julian shot him a look that could curdle milk. Frank's mouth snapped shut.

The carriage door slammed. With a lurch, it sped away, kicking up a spray of mud that splattered across Eleanor's worn dress.

She lay there for a moment, the pain in her knee a hot, pulsing thing. She didn't cry. Tears were a luxury she had unlearned.

This was just the beginning. The Montgomery family's welcome home.

Slowly, she pushed herself up. The movement sent a fresh wave of agony through her right knee, aggravating an old injury. Each shift of weight was a trial.

She looked toward the distant, magnificent silhouette of Montgomery Manor. Her expression was terrifyingly serene.

Then, she began to walk.

Her limp was pronounced, but her steps were steady. One foot in front of the other. She ignored the curious, pitying stares of farmers passing in their carts.

The pain was a grounding force. It reminded her of worse things. A beating in the dark. A burn from a careless cook. Compared to that, this was nothing.

The sound of hoofbeats approached from behind, heavier and more powerful than Julian's carriage.

Eleanor's body tensed instinctively. A flicker of a desperate, childish impulse to turn, to ask for help, rose in her throat.

She swallowed it down.

She had no expectations of anyone anymore. She kept her eyes forward.

A carriage, stark black and trimmed in silver, pulled alongside her, slowing to match her painful pace. The emblem on its door was a wolf's head, rendered in stark, intimidating lines. It was less ostentatious than Julian's, but it radiated a far greater sense of power.

A hand in a black leather glove pushed open the window.

A face appeared, handsome and forged from ice. Platinum blond hair, eyes the color of a frozen sea.

Duke Alistair Sinclair.

Eleanor's breathing stopped for a single, sharp second. The man she had once looked up to. The man who was now her sister Iris's fiancé.

His gaze swept over her pathetic state, lingering for a fraction of a second on her bleeding knee. His expression was a blank slate, as if he were looking at a stray dog on the side of the road.

Three years ago, it was his silence, his quiet agreement, that had sealed her fate.

She quickly crushed the bitter taste in her mouth, lowered her eyes, and dipped her head in a gesture of deference.

His voice was as cold as his eyes. "Get in."

It was not a request. It was a command.

Eleanor didn't move. "Thank you, Your Grace," she said softly, her voice steady. "But my station is low. I would not wish to soil your carriage."

She used her identity as a shield. A refusal he couldn't argue with without appearing unreasonable.

Alistair's brow twitched, a barely perceptible tightening. The temperature inside the carriage seemed to drop several degrees.