"Charles, go ahead-kill me! But you better know, if I die, that little brat Charlie''sing with me. Do you have the guts?"


    Luna''s voice was rough, every wordced with poison, like a snake tasting the air.


    A storm broke loose in Charles''s eyes, an explosion of fury that seemed to freeze the already icy air of the cer.


    Suddenly, he lunged forward, his hand snapping around Luna''s throat, fingers digging in like iron mps.


    She choked out a strangled gasp her smugness vanished, wiped away by raw terror as she realized she couldn''t breathe.


    Charles''s knuckles stood out, white and unyielding, his grip merciless and absolute.


    The air was gone in a heartbeat.


    Luna''s eyes bulged, bloodshot and wild, locked on Charles''s face-so close, so cold, so merciless he could have been the devil himself.


    Her face turned from red to a horrifying shade of purple. The veins at her temples and along her neck bulged, ready to burst.


    Pain wracked her body, making her convulse uncontrobly, flopping on the filthy floor like a fish out of water.


    She was suffocating.


    Death''s shadow closed in, cold and heavy.


    Yet in the depths of Luna''s oxygen-starved eyes, there still burned a twisted, desperate madness-she was willing to risk everything.


    Was she afraid to die? Absolutely.


    The terror of near-death in a hellhole up north, the memory of fighting for her life on the operating table-she treasured this stolen life more than anyone could know.


    But right now, she was betting everything.


    She was betting Charles wouldn''t dare let her die.


    He owed that little bastard Charlie too much because of Sandy. If Luna died and took Charlie with her, that guilt would haunt Charles forever.


    Even if Charlie was still alive, that splinter of guilt was wedged deep in Charles''s heart.


    With Charlie''s fate in her hands, Luna knew Charles would never risk her life.


    That certainty was thest thing keeping her together.


    No matter how the waves of suffocation washed over her, no matter how terror chewed through her nerves, she bit down hard, refusing to beg for mercy


    This pain-


    She could take it.


    A silent, savage battle yed out in the dead air of the cer.


    Just as Luna''s pupils were about to go nk, just as her mind was slipping away


    Charles let go.


    She crashed to the filthy, freezing ground, copsing like a puppet with its strings


    cut.


    Air rushed into her lungs, burning like fire, and she broke into a fit of coughing that racked her whole body.


    Curled up on the floor, tears and snot and spit smeared across her face, she shook helplessly. Every breath was a tortured rasp, survival and humiliation tangled together.


    An eternity seemed to pass before the coughing finally eased, leaving her gasping for air.


    She forced her head up, vision blurred with tears, and stared at the man standing over her.


    Charles looked down at her, eyes ice-cold and unforgiving.


    But Luna caught the truth in his clenched, bone-white fists and


    the


    tight set of his jaw-the Set


    he


    was barely holding back.


    A twisted, blood-tinged smile tugged at her bruised lips, part agony, part triumph.


    She''d won.


    Charles-


    In the end, you still couldn''t kill me.


    She would alwayse out on top.


    Charles had no choice left-except to marry her.